Globalization’s impact on the Family:

The phenomenon of Globalization and the emerging cosmology that this blog has addressed recently will impact all aspect of society. It is the social concern of Catholic communities like our own to reflect and evaluate how this phenomenon will impact the most basic social unit, the family. Our reflection asks the following question: do parents/guardians best focus on family as an independent unit, convinced that by developing qualities contributing to its own well-being, they thereby best prepare their family for a significant role in society later on, or do they better contribute to society by leading their family early on to a sense of connectedness to others and their well-being?

Every parent wrestles with this in some form or fashion, realizing that a family unit not adequately caring for itself can be burdensome to society at large, while, at the same time, aware that a family too closed in on itself and its own welfare not only isolates itself from advantages accruing from closer attentiveness to the needs of society at large, but also deprives society of contributions it can provide.

This dilemma affects the choice of relationships allowed children, whether with neighbors or with classmates, and also the selection of a neighborhood in which to raise one’s family, with its school system and parish church.

The impact of connectedness, or lack thereof, also affects the extended family, frequently impacted, in this day and age, by the sometimes frequent geographical moves that a family makes, often to distant places, and this can either turn a family’s focus in on itself, or it can induce an openness to its new surroundings and relationships. The saying of Jesus to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Mk 12.31) heightens the complexity of this issue by placing love of others and love of self on the same level, by equating love of self and others.

When the U.N. pronounced May 15^th of each year to be International Family Day, it recognized the vital connection between the well-being of family life, and of a thriving society. A society that has not been enriched by vibrant families will be needy. The phenomenon of massive migrations of families, across the globe, illustrates people unable to meet their needs, seeking better conditions elsewhere. The root cause of this problem can be either their inability to provide adequately for themselves, or the failure of society to help them, possibly because support is lacking from those capable of providing it. 

Whom does one take care of? Is the family to nurture itself, or society at large, or both? This same issue resonates with a long-standing debate in American society on states’ rights vs. prerogatives of the federal government. This disagreement reflects the same dynamics operative in the discussion about how best to raise a family: by focusing on its own well-being to the extent possible, thereby relieving society at large from the responsibility of caring for it, or by alerting it to caring for the surrounding society on the score that a strong set of social institutions works to the family’s own advantage. When some argue that all politics is local (states’ rights), they mean that only those on the scene can best know and provide for the needs and benefits of those at home. On the other hand, there are those who argue that balkanizing the body politic into discrete units, with each looking to its own needs and benefits, is harmful even to these smaller segments precisely because oblivious of the whole, and they suggest that the individual family best serves its own interests when it engages in linkages and connections to others (federal government).

Our analysis so far tells us that we are looking for a unifying principle between being responsible for your own local unit and community while forming the family consciousness and behavior with regards to a global and deeply interrelated society. The Church consistently teaches us that the family is the basic unit of society and this teaching is not subject to change. The way the church understands this concept however is evolving, consider Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 World Day of Peace message. In the first six paragraphs he extols this teaching that indeed the family is still the basic unit of society and must be protected as such. But from paragraph 6 on Pope Benedict XVI redefines the family unit within a more interrelated global reality.

The social community, if it is to live in peace, is also called to draw inspiration from the values on which the family community is based. This is as true for local communities as it is for national communities; it is also true for the international community itself, for the human family which dwells in that common house which is the earth. Here, however, we cannot forget that the family comes into being from the responsible and definitive “yes” of a man and a women, and it continues to live from the conscious “yes” of the children who gradually join it. The family community, in order to prosper, needs the generous consent of all its members. This realization also needs to become a shared conviction on the part of all those called to form the common human family. We need to say our own “yes” to this vocation which God has inscribed in our very nature. We do not live alongside one another purely by chance; all of us are progressing along a common path as men and women, and thus as brothers and sisters. Consequently, it is essential that we should all be committed to living our lives in an attitude of responsibility before God, acknowledging him as the deepest source of our own existence and that of others. By going back to this supreme principle we are able to perceive the unconditional worth of each human being, and thus to lay the premises for building a humanity at peace. Without this transcendent foundation society is a mere aggregation of neighbours, not a community of brothers and sisters called to form one great family.

A Passionist concern:

Within the various aspects of Passionist ministries and service we often find ourselves engaging with families. Whether it is in the parishes, retreat houses, schools, missions or any one of our social missions, we almost always find ourselves at the service of the family unit. The family, like our own community, is feeling the pressures of a changing world. Whether they are conscience of it or not they are addressing issues that relate to an emerging cosmology and at minimum they can identify aspects of globalization that is making an impact on the family unit. Consider for example some of the frustration and disconnect that an older generation has with their adult children whose lifestyles and values seem markedly different then their own. Consider also the young married couple that is entering a lifestyle of commitment and self-sacrifice in the midst of a globalized society of massive interrelationships. It becomes our responsibility to offer the family unit a perspective of hope, understanding and possibly some tools or resources that will help their community integrate within this all encompassing phenomenon.  

The family is both self-sufficient and interdependent. It cannot meet all its needs. But if it is too dependent on others, it will find that the available common goods do not always meet its particular needs. By doing for itself what it can, it avoids becoming a drain on public resources. By reaching out to society in solidarity, with others, to provide common goods, it helps form a social bonding with others that meet both its own needs, and the needs of all others. The Passionist JPIC Office and the Passionist Earth and Spirit Center are developing tools and resources to help families integrate this both/and reality. Through methodologies of Christian simple living and sustainable practices like the Lent 4.5 Program of the Passionist Earth and Spirit Center and the “Live Simply so Others May Simply Live” retreat of the Passionist JPIC Office Families can learn how to value their own time together as a safe and protected social unit while growing into a deeper conscience of global solidarity. The mantra that we offer the family is the same that is being said all over the world: Think Globally, Act Locally.  

Finally let us also address the primary issue that we will face if we have not done so already with regards to the family: The issue of identity. The emerging social order is at present giving us a crisis of identity. This is a natural crisis that always accompanies major sociological and cosmological shifts. Our own community is in the midst of this crisis as we try to comprehend the place of our charism, spirituality and community within this globalized reality. We will notice that Catholic families are also being stretched in their identity. The older generation will not know how to cope or relate with a younger generation that is far more technological and interconnected then they ever were. The younger married couples are going to struggle with how they are to identify their own roles while respecting the other members of their intimate family community. Some young men for example will attempt to impose a familiar family male role only to find that their spouse has other hopes and expectations. In many ways our task again will be to listen and to walk with the members of the family that try to comprehend their role and identity within this new reality. But we must also be able to offer guidance, encouragement and a perspective of patience and understanding as they journey on this difficult transition.      

Our Passionist spirituality offers a powerful perspective for the crisis of identity. To begin with we offer an ethic of compassion. The family unit, as with the rest of society, is going through a massive transition and this will require the members of the family to be patient and understanding of the journey that they and their family members are taking. Compassion is the principle by which we endure and share in the suffering of others based on the fact that they do not walk it alone. We are all together on this journey and by sharing our own difficult transition into this emerging reality we become a suffering companion to them. By placing their own crisis within a larger social framework we offer them the ability to see God’s work in all this. Our other great gift of course becomes the spirituality of mystical transition that is at the heart of our own Passionist charism. We are dying to new life. That is the Passionist principle that Fr. Thomas Berry used to offer a spiritual perspective to the massive cosmological transition that we are facing. Within the context of globalization we can also use this principle to help see that God’s hand in this. Individually, socially, we are at the foot of the Cross wondering where all this is headed. This is an opportunity for families, as it is for us, to reflect on the core values and message of our faith and to creatively reintegrate them into the emerging family dynamic.

4 Responses to “Globalization’s impact on the Family:”

1. alexs says:

   August 26, 2010 at 5:18 pm

   this is very well laid out.
2. John Gonzalez says:

   August 27, 2010 at 8:32 am

   Thank you Fr. Alex, I am hoping that this will have some practical use for Passionist ministry.
3. don mitchel says:

   October 6, 2010 at 10:56 am

   Is it ethical or moral for a christian country that calls itself a free market democracy to be economically dependent on a communist country to decide how to manipulate their currency to again jump start globalization?
4. johngonzalez says:

   October 7, 2010 at 3:27 pm

   Globalization is going to present some tricky problems and challenges that require ethicists and moral theologians to venture into the development of a position on the issues that arise when we experience an interconnected society. So for example, was it moral or ethical for American companies to utlize the labor exploitation of Chinese migrants because it was a way to cut production cost. And yet this an dthe complete lack of environmental laws is why the 1990′s saw the great migration of American companies to China. This in turn develop into a symbiotic relationship where both our nations debt became interwined with one another. Unfortunately while the US was concerned about their economic short term gain China was more concerned about the becoming a future global power. Now of course we have reasons to have some trepidation but economically we are still beholding to them. Isolation is not an answer, so what is the ethical imperitive for us in this ongoing relationship of power dynamics. at what point do we become more interested in long term future stability and overall development versus short term and unsustainable economic gains.