The final report of the Ordinary Synod on the Family, which is now available in English, isn’t causing much of a media splash because it contains none of the radical reforms so many were hoping to see.

According to a report appearing in the National Catholic Register, the final document from the Synod reaffirms Church teaching on all of the so-called contested issues ranging from same-sex marriage to Communion for the divorced and remarried.

Writing for the Register, Glenn Stanton calls the report “deeply pastoral and theologically rigorous” without a single note of equivocation in regard to Church teaching.

“It establishes our understanding of the sacredness of marriage and family as both a private and public necessity on Christ’s words in Mark 10 and Matthew 19, which of course point us back to the first two chapters of Genesis as the starting authority on this matter,” Stanton writes. “Neither Christ nor the Church will permit a view of the creation narrative as a quaint bible story that smart people no longer believe.” Rather, it is the beginning of wisdom.

The document strikes at the heart of liberal ideologies from the very start:

“Today, a very important cultural challenge is posed by ‘gender’ ideology which denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without gender differences, thereby removing the anthropological foundation of the family,” the document states.

“This ideology leads to educational programmes and legislative guidelines which promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological differences between male and female. Consequently, human identity becomes the choice of the individual, which can also change over time.”

According to the Fathers, to erase the unique and mysterious distinction between male and female is to challenge the unique complementarity of our Triune God, Stanton reports. “To even consider doing so is anathema.”

One of the most discussed hot-button issue is that of homosexuality, which the document deals with boldly and forcefully. Even though the Fathers’ repeated affirmations of the irreplaceability of the natural family should dispel any hope for “even a wink” at the possibility of accepting same-sex marriage, the document does make very important distinctions between those who are same-sex attracted and those who are in same-sex relationships.

As Stanton writes, this is “something few in the public discussion (inside and outside of the Church) are unfortunately able to make. For many, the person is the act and the act is the person. This of course is intolerable because it reduces the wonder and fullness of the person to a sexual identity.”

The document goes on to repeat its belief that “every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his/her dignity and received with respect.”

Recognition of marriage as that of a man and a woman is something states must promote, the document demands.

“…States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character.”

Francis also reiterates his belief that “marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will” which results in producing many types of counterfeit unions under the ruse of progress.

It also clearly annunciates the Church’s belief that every child has “the right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother.”

The document also praises large families, calling them a personal and social good that protects against “the cancer of loneliness and isolation of the human soul.”

Families also have a unique ability to care for the elderly, the widowed, the orphaned, those with special needs or who suffer from terminal illnesses. No other social institution comes close to rivaling how efficiently and effectively the family meets these very real needs in a society.

“The report masterfully addresses the unique threats that have arisen in roughly the past two decades that degrade the integrity of too many families: internet pornography, post-traumatic stress disorder of parents and spouses serving in foreign wars, the increasing coarseness of popular culture, and the intrusion of technology upon the haven of the home, even though they do correctly recognize the value of email and some social media to facilitate increased connection between family members who live far apart,” Stanton reports.

“They strongly denounce the State’s policies and financial coercion to become complicit in the regime of contraception, sterilization, abortion, reproductive technologies that reduce male and female to mere sperm and egg as well as the acceptance of same-sex marriage and parenting. Any state far exceeds its bounds when it applies any sort of pressure upon its citizen’s to participate in such things, even indirectly.”

As for allowing the civilly remarried divorced to receive Communion, the final report makes no such allowance outside those who have received a decree of nullity.

Stanton calls the document “a wonderful catechesis on what the Church holds regarding these things in the midst of the current age” and encourages everyone to read this important document.

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