Stop moralising on the family, Church urged

TRADITIONAL “Victorian” expectations of family life should give way to a much greater understanding of those with “patchwork” families or who live on their own, a leading Catholic theologian has said, writes James Macintyre.

Professor Werner G. Jeanrond, master of St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, has attacked “moralising” church statements on family values and said the synod on the family in October promises to take a fresh look at “all areas of human relationships”.

In a statement, Professor Jeanrond said: “Current references to the ‘nuclear family’ as the basic cell of church and society would not have been understandable to people in the Early Church or in early modern Europe.”

He added: “The forthcoming synod in Rome promises to reflect much more critically and self-critically on all areas of human relationships, and especially on the family.”

Professor Jeanrond went on to suggest that Jesus did not have what some would regard as a conventional family. “The particular family set-up of Jesus of Nazareth does not correspond to traditionalist Victorian, Vatican or Bismarckian expectations of family life. Rather, it was a sort of holy patchwork family,” he said.

Professor Jeanrond became the first lay master of the Benedictine hall in 2012.