Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

PART TWO: THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL ORDER
Christian social teaching does not content itself with the elaboration of socio-philosophical
and socio-theological principles. It also investigates the exceedingly manifold structure of
social order as it stands before us in families, professions, communities, workplaces, associations,
states and so on. In the almost bewildering multiplicity of social relationships and formations,
transtemporally valid essential structures are recognizable which are, however, realized
only in the current conditions that are subject to continual change, so that the tension
between essential form and historicity emerges in all its strength.
Social orders such as e.g. the economy and the state possess certain inherent laws; they even
'function' in some way w hell the divine legislator is denied, such as in the Bolshevist states.
Nevertheless, man is continually threatened in this case by the danger of being degraded into
a mere object of economic or state processes.
SECTION ONE: MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
CHAPTER ONE: MARRIAGE
Philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, physicians, lawyers and theologians are all striving
to interpret marriage, so that we are threatened with the danger of stopping at a confused inventory.
Like every essential form, marriage too is a whole, although the most varied levels of
man as a body-soul being are harmonized in it. Since, however, we are not able to look intuitively
at essences in a single glance, but have laboriously to discover and unfold their structures,
ten realms that are important for the interpretation of marriage are to be distinguished,
although it should not be overlooked that, at bottom, it is only a question of different levels of
the one whole that we call marriage.
§ 1 Sexuality
I. Sexuality which appears as the polarity of male and female, and which is a fundamental
presupposition of marriage, is not to be equated with the sexual drive. It is more comprehensive,
determines the biological dynamics of both sexes, and moulds the whole body-soul essence
of men and women, which in turn has its effect in thought and action, feeling and disposition,
and even in one's relation to God. Whereas it is more characteristic of the man to be
interested in work, the essence of the woman is determined by a devoted motherliness related
to the interpersonal other. The man is therefore not the measure of the woman, even if, on the
basis of their great adaptability, many women and girls consciously or unconsciously take the
man as their measure, especially in professional work outside the home. Incidentally, one
should not exaggerate the spiritual difference between the sexes. The fundamental human
essence is the same in man and woman.
And both sexes are the 'image of God' in their being as a man or a woman. God has bestowed
dignity and the same inalienable rights on both. For both man and woman God is equally „the
calling, loving, working Creator.“ Both should listen to him, answer him and serve him. Both
are „equal in their dignity as God's creatures, but also equal in their misery if they deny
him.“ 36 God has had mercy on man and woman equally. Indeed, even more: he took a woman,
the Virgin Mary, into his work of salvation in a special way. We believe and confess that the
36 The German Bishops' Conference, Zu Fragen der Stellung der Frau in Kirche und Gesellschaft, 21, September
1981, (Bonn: Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, 1981),9.
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