At the New Media Celebration I found out about a new movie coming out by the people who made Facing the Giants. Fireproof stars Kirk Cameron as a fireman who struggles to rescue his marriage as it slowly seems to go up on flames:

With the ever increasing divorce rate in our nation, this is an important message. In his visit to the United States this year Pope Benedict said that the breakdown of marriage and family life denies society the “stable building blocks” necessary to maintain its moral focus. He has even gone so far as to suggest that marriage is essential to world peace.

Consequently, whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace. This point merits special reflection: everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.(World Day of Peace 2008, n.5)

There are some who believe that it is legitimate to destroy human life in its earliest or final stages. Equally troubling is the growing crisis of the family, which is the fundamental nucleus of society based on the indissoluble bond of marriage between a man and a woman. Experience has shown that when the truth about man is subverted or the foundation of the family undermined, peace itself is threatened and the rule of law is compromised, leading inevitably to forms of injustice and violence. (Sept. 21, 2007)

It only makes sense as the family is the “primary living cell of society” (Apostolicam Actuositatem, 11). Families build neighborhoods, which build cities, which build states, which build nations, which build the world. This must be why the Pope has spent so much time addressing the subject of marriage in the early years of his pontificate. In a recent analysis Maggie Gallagher & Joshua Baker found that between Apr. 2005 and March 2008 Pope Benedict spoke about marriage 111 times.

Fireproof will be released in theaters September 26. Let’s pray that this movie will have a positive impact on those who are struggling in their marriages and encourage them to seek peace within the marriage bond so as to promote peace throughout the world.

Indeed, in a healthy family life we experience some of the fundamental elements of peace: justice and love between brothers and sisters, the role of authority expressed by parents, loving concern for the members who are weaker because of youth, sickness or old age, mutual help in the necessities of life, readiness to accept others and, if necessary, to forgive them. For this reason, the family is the first and indispensable teacher of peace. (World Day of Peace 2008, n.3)

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Vocation to Marriage
Marriage is a Vocation