From The Catholic Chronicle (Diocese of Toledo):
For some time now I’ve been meaning to write on the subject of marriage, which should be of vital concern to all of us. There is both bad news and good news to tell, and it is impossible to condense everything into one article.
Let me begin today with the bad news, but also with a promise that my next article will dwell on the good news of our Catholic faith about marriage as life’s most sacred and fundamental God-given institution.
For the last 40 years, especially in the so-called “developed” world, there has been a devastating abandonment of Christian teaching on marriage as a creation of God elevated by Christ to a redeeming sacrament. Like the early Christians in a pagan world, the church today is increasingly “out of step” with the times in her unchanging belief that marriage is an exclusive and permanent bond between one man and one woman, inseparably ordered to both the good of the spouses and the pro-creation of children as a gift of God.
Consider the following facts about marriage in our country:
• The annual marriage rate in the United States fell 50 percent from 1970 to 2004. In 2007 married couples with children represent less than one of every four households.
• Cohabitation in a sexual relationship is 10 times more common than it was in 1960, a situation that is delaying and replacing marriage. Fewer than half of cohabitating unions end in marriage, and those that do are on average 46 percent more likely to end in divorce.
• It is currently estimated that 40 percent to 50 percent of first mar-riages, and a higher percentage of remarriages, will end in divorce. Although the divorce rate is falling, this is due, in part, to the fact that more people are cohabitating without marriage.
• As of 2004, 32 percent of U.S. children lived without two married parents, largely because of unwed pregnancy, cohabitation and divorce. Children in single-parent families account for 62 percent of all poor children. A child living with a single mother is 14 times more likely to suffer serious physical abuse.
A child whose mother cohabits with a man other than the child’s father is 33 times more likely to suffer serious physical abuse.
• One social survey suggests that 28 percent of the decline in U.S. church attendance since 1972 can be attributed to family change, especially the fact that fewer adults are married with children, and that American churches would have 6.3 million more regularly attending young adults than they currently do if today’s young Americans started families at the same rate they did 30 years ago.
These are alarming statistics, given our Catholic faith that “the well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1603)
A key factor in the decline of marriage is the growing separation in popular thinking, now verging on a complete break, of the necessary connection between the sexual act and marriage, between the sexual act and openness to the procreation of human life.
If the natural conception of children is a totally optional aspect of sexual acts, what is to prevent sex outside or before marriage, or between homosexuals, or alone? I say “natural conception” because it is now possible to manufacture children, even “designer babies,” in laboratories. Marriage is no longer needed, and the day is coming when mothers and fathers, as we now know them, will no longer be needed either.
As Pope John Paul II taught so compellingly and profoundly, there is a “language” to the human body and its sexuality, ordered to the very highest levels of human love, self-giving and fruitfulness. Today this “language” is being perverted to tell lies, and lies always have a way of catching up with those who tell them.
Another factor in the decline of marriage is the exaltation of personal freedom expressed in easy divorce, even to the grave detriment of children and of the social order, not to mention the spouses themselves. There have always been tragic situations where, sometimes for their own protection, married people have separated. However, the phenomenon of easy divorce, practically on demand, is not only ripping marriage and families apart, but also creating a fear of marriage in young people who realize that it can easily happen to them. Some of the most grief-stricken people I have ever met in my ministry as a priest were not victims of illness or accident or the widowed, but the divorced.
If ever there were a mountain to climb, it is the challenge we face today in our society to preserve, defend and strengthen the marriage bond in our country. I forewarned you that this article would be about bad news, but as Christians we always live within the perspective of hope. We remember Christ’s words: “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33)
Next time I will share with you some of the good news about marriage that we can use to help meet the challenges of the day.
+The Most Reverend Leonard P. Blair
BISHOP OF TOLEDO(emphasis added)
My Comments:
I can’t recall whether I’ve ever mentioned how much I love my Bishop.
Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Bishop Blair: “The Gospel of Life Revisited”
Bishop Blair: “Building Your House on a Rock”
Meeting the Bishop - After Action Report
Bishop Blair Teaches: “And With Your Spirit”
Bishop Blair: “What God Joins Together”