The Most Beautiful Idea in the History of Civilization

Himself is a Knight, and receives the KofC magazine, "Columbia" by snail mail.
I don't think he ever reads it, but when he gives it to me I scan through, usually find one or two things I want to read, and usually also a number of images to tear out for use in collages, etc. with CCD.

This,  an address given at the Vatican last year at a conference on “The Complementarity of Man and Woman,” by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, is well worth your time.

I want to begin our conversation by telling the story of the most beautiful idea in the history of civilization: the idea of the love that brings new life into the world....
When we consider, even in the animal kingdom, how much effort and energy the coming together of male and female takes, in terms of displays, courtship rituals, rivalries and violence, it is astonishing that sexual reproduction ever happened at all. Biologists are still not quite sure why it did....
Since [homo sapiens] stood upright, which constricted the female pelvis, and we had bigger brains, which meant larger heads, human babies had to be born more prematurely, and so needed parental protection for much longer. This made parenting more demanding, the work of two people rather than one. Among most primates, fathers don’t even recognize their children, let alone care for them. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom motherhood is almost universal but fatherhood is rare.
So what emerged along with the human person was the union of the biological mother and father to care for their child...
The most obvious expression of power among alpha males, whether human or primate, is to dominate access to fertile women and thus maximize the passing on of your genes to the next generation. Hence polygamy, which exists in 95 percent of mammal species and 75 percent of cultures known to anthropology.[???!?!??? did not know that]
That is what makes the first chapter of Genesis so revolutionary with its statement that every human being, regardless of race, culture, creed or class is created in the image and likeness of God. We know that in the ancient world it was kings, emperors and pharaohs who were held to be in the image of God. So Genesis is saying that we are all royalty. We each have equal dignity in the kingdom of faith under the sovereignty of God....
there is a deep connection between monotheism and monogamy, just as there is, in the opposite direction, between idolatry and adultery. ...
it is normally the case that the values of a society are those imposed on it by the ruling class. And the ruling class in any hierarchical society stands to gain from promiscuity and polygamy, both of which multiply the chances of one’s genes being handed on to the next generation. So monogamy goes against the normal grain of social change and was a real triumph for the equal dignity of all....
What was new and remarkable in the Hebrew Bible was the idea that love, not just fairness, is the driving principle of the moral life. Three loves. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your might.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And, repeated no less than 36 times in the Mosaic books, “Love the stranger because you know what it feels like to be a stranger.” [emphasis supplied] Or to put it another way: just as God created the natural world in love and forgiveness, so we are charged with creating the social world in love and forgiveness. And that love is a flame lit in marriage and the family. Morality is the love between husband and wife, parent and child, extended outward to the world.

Powerful, powerful stuff.