(Prof. José Vidamor B. Yu, Manila) 

 Signs of the Times 

"De facto" unions have been a characterized worldwide phenomenon threatening the sacredness of the intimate union of persons manifested through marriage and family. Series of meetings had been done by the Pontifical Council for the Family in 1999 and 2000 to study de facto unions pervasive in these current times. "The Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel." (GS 4).

The Pontifical Council for the Family issued a document as the fruit of that study with regard to de facto unions. The Church has to address this problem because it touches the heart of all human relations and the most sensitive areas of the human heart contained in the mysteries of the family. De facto unions as heterogeneous human relations appear to "ignore, postpone, and even reject the conjugal commitment." The family is the future of the society and the good elicited by marriage is basic for the Church. 

The de facto unions existing in society appear to have endangered the true and real meaning of marriage. Society today attempts to justify these unions turning them into a legal institution and elevating them similar to marriage. Man no longer treats sex outside marriage as sin, an injustice or a reprehensible conduct but rather thinks sex as a commodity available to everyone regardless of whatever state of life. Vatican II reminds us that, "married love is uniquely expressed and perfected by the exercise of the acts proper to marriage." (GS 49)

The document (Family, Life and de facto Unions) of the Pontifical Council for the Family acknowledges the constitutive elements found in de facto unions which appear positive to human society. It acknowledges that there is relative stability in these unions. "Trial" unions are common today, from less "explicit commitment" to "mutual fidelity." Some de facto unions are done due to economic reasons or to avoid legal difficulties while some were done as an alternative marriage breaking through from an unfulfilled previous marriage. As a result of economic problems like poverty and marginalization force a man and woman live together outside sacramental or religious marriage.

In spite of the varied reasons of the equivalence and recognition of de facto unions in many societies, they run counter to Christian marriage. The stability of the union of spouses has to be done through a conjugal communion in marriage. The document tells us that, "marriage is therefore a stable, joint project that comes from the free and total self-giving of fruitful conjugal love as something due in justice."

The Church upholds the conjugal love expressed by both partners as the essence of marriage. At the heart of the principles of anthropology, society, and other human sciences vis-à-vis marriage, the conjugal love between a man and a woman is shared in equal dignity. The Church defends the sacrament of marriage because it is the necessary and indispensable good of the society, mankind, and the Church.