Matrimonio y sínodo sobre la familia: influencia de factores culturales

This study analyses the main elements that constitute the cultural framework in which the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family must be understood. Such cultural context is causing some alterations in which we may describe as “sociological chromosomes”, and is stirring the very roots of marriage. In the author’s view, in such modification of the essential structure of marriage the process of “criminalization” of the past, as well as the tensions that have been created in the dialectic between freedom and objective truth, are particularly important elements. One of their main consequences is the “dejuridification” of marriage. The author mentions also other collateral cultural factors, such as migrations, the increase of single-parent families and — from an ideological perspective — the spread of radical feminism. After considering some positive consequences of those factors, the author highlights other negative consequences for what is the core concept of the next Ordinary Synod and indeed of the Church’s pastoral doctrine in this area: the centrality of the family founded on the marriage between man and woman.