494. What is the responsibility of civil authority in regard to chastity?
(Comp 494) Insofar as it is bound to promote respect for the dignity of the person,
civil authority should seek to create an environment conducive to the practice
of chastity. It should also enact suitable legislation to prevent the spread of
the grave offenses against chastity mentioned above, especially in order to
protect minors and those who are the weakest members of society.
“In brief”
(CCC 2254) Public authority is
obliged to respect the fundamental rights of the human person and the
conditions for the exercise of his freedom.
To deepen and
explain
(CCC 2354) Pornography
consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the
partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends
against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of
spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants
(actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base
pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the
illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should
prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials. (CCC 2335) Each of
the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal
dignity though in a different way. The union
of man and woman in marriage is a way
of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity:
"Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife,
and they become one flesh" (Gen 2:24). All human generations proceed from
this union (Cf. Gen 4:1-2, 25-26; 5:1).
Reflection
(CCC 1740) Threats to freedom. The exercise of freedom does not imply a right
to say or do everything. It is false to maintain that man, "the subject of
this freedom," is "an individual who is fully self-sufficient and
whose finality is the satisfaction of his own interests in the enjoyment of
earthly goods" (CDF, instruction, Libertatis
conscientia 13). Moreover, the economic, social, political, and cultural
conditions that are needed for a just exercise of freedom are too often
disregarded or violated. Such situations of blindness and injustice injure the
moral life and involve the strong as well as the weak in the temptation to sin
against charity. By deviating from the moral law man violates his own freedom,
becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts neighborly fellowship, and rebels
against divine truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment