Free Republic

Last week, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis (N.C.) bragged to The Washington Post that he doesn’t “vote for anything” that he thinks “will have a serious political consequence.” They were glib words for a man who’d just put his name behind a bill rewriting marriage for every American. Like the 11 other Republican senators whose moral courage collapsed before the nation’s eyes, Senator Tillis would have you believe there’s no fallout from his vote for same-sex marriage. But a young Georgia policeman who’s out of a job over his beliefs would beg to disagree.“Christians should not be fearful of this...

A just-released report from the Pew Research Center sends a dagger straight through the heart of a popular mythology—the one that insists that what single people want, more than anything else, is to become coupled. So untrue. The findings, based on a national, random sampling of nearly 5,000 adults in the U.S., showed that 50 percent of single people are not interested in a committed romantic relationship and they are not even interested in a date. Another 10 percent want nothing more than casual dates. About a quarter of single people, 26 percent, would be interested in casual dates or...

Over at the Institute for Family Studies, Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, has found that Americans who have only ever slept with their spouses are most likely to report being in a “very happy” marriage. Meanwhile, the lowest odds of marital happiness—about 13 percentage points lower than the one-partner women—belong to women who have had six to 10 sexual partners in their lives. For men, there’s still a dip in marital satisfaction after one partner, but it’s never as low as it gets for women,... (Skip) In an earlier analysis, Wolfinger found that women with zero...

Florida police rescued an Indian woman Saturday who was beaten by her husband and his parents who traveled from India to help assist him with the assault. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said Silky Gaind, 33, called her parents in India to tell them of the abuse. They then called the authorities. Police said Gaind was being held in the Riverview home by her husband Devbir Kalsi, 33, and his parents Jasbir, 67, and Bhupinder Kalsi, 61, who traveled from India to help their son “counsel and discipline his wife for being disobedient” after he asked for their assistance, according...

The man who leads the largest Roman Catholic Church in America is advocating that the church allow married men to become priests, and plans to spend his retirement ministering among the poorest of the poor.Monsignor John McSweeney, 75, who is originally from New York, is concluding 43 years of ministry in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he has most recently served as priest at St. Matthew in Ballantyne, an affluent suburb of the state's most populous city.St. Matthew Catholic Church is the largest Roman Catholic parish in the United States which boasts of over 10,000 families, according to The Charlotte Observer Sunday.Much...

COMMENTARY The most conspicuous is the change of the name from the “Rite of Marriage” to the “Order of Celebrating Matrimony.” This new name is more in accord with the Latin original, but it also adds something to the title that is not found in the simple word “marriage.” Not only does “matrimony” convey greater solemnity than “marriage,” but the Latin matrimonium also means “the state of being a mother.” This new title, therefore, provides us with a significant opportunity for a much-needed catechesis on the very nature of holy matrimony. In the face of a secular culture that values...

Matrimony or Bust – Another Glimpse at the Why and How of Traditional Marriage’s Demise By: Msgr. Charles PopeAll the way back in 1973, George Guilder published a book called Men and Marriage. He expanded and republished it in 1986. In his book, Guilder argued that our culture was marginalizing men, to its great peril. He articulated the critical role that marriage has in helping men focus their sexual energies in a creative and beneficial way. Women have their nurturing role rather clearly defined in the very design of their bodies. But men’s role in the raising of children and in society...

The Alliance Defending Freedom is making its case to defend traditional marriage in Oklahoma, arguing same-sex marriage is bad for children. The Christian legal advocacy group said legalizing gay marriage would harm children, undermine society, and make traditional marriages unstable. Lawyers representing an Oklahoma clerk who refused to grant a marriage license to a same-sex couple cited courts and anthropologists in saying children are better off in a home with a mother and a father. They also added traditional couples would be less likely to marry, or stay together if marriage became a genderless institution not focused on procreation. Last...

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill Thursday to ensure states don’t have to adhere to the federal definition of “marriage” and “spouse.” S. 2024, the State Marriage Defense Act, would require that the federal government give the same deference to the 33 states that define marriage as the union between one man and one woman as it does to the 17 states that recognize same-sex unions. “Under President Obama, the federal government has tried to re-define marriage, and to undermine the constitutional authority of each state to define marriage consistent with the values of its...

A Leftist is someone who advocates marriage for homosexuals but opposes it for heterosexuals. Recently, Ari Fleischer, a press spokesman for George W. Bush, responded to the current administration’s newfound desire to fight the plague of “income inequality”—which has spread more under Barack Obama than under any other recent president—by stating the obvious: that marriage is good economic medicine. “`Marriage inequality’ should be at the center of any discussion of why some Americans prosper and others don’t,” Fleischer said. “According to Census Bureau information analyzed by the Beverly LaHaye Institute, among families headed by two married parents in 2012, just...

In the wake of the supreme decisions of this week, I would like to return to a question I have Asked before: Are we coming to a point where we should consider dropping our use of the word “marriage?”It is a simple fact that word “marriage” as we have traditionally known it is being redefined in our times. To many in the secular world the word no longer means what it once did and when the Church uses the word marriage we clearly do not mean what the increasing number of states mean.The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines “Marriage”...

Some of you know that I write the Question and Answer Column for Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly. I like doing that as it imposes a kind of disciplined writing on me, where I must answer questions very briefly, in about 400 words or less.A question recently came in about a topic that I have not written much about here on the Blog. I’d like to reproduce the question and answer here in order to include the concept in my blog compendium and also to encourage you, if you do not read my column in the Sunday Visitor to know about...

We’ve talked a good deal about the decline of marriage on this blog over the years. And our discussion must continue as the Synod on the family is planned in Rome.In my short 25 years as a priest I have experienced a major drop off in marriages. In my early years, I had about thirty weddings a year; now, about five or six. In this urban parish in which I have ministered for the larger part of 20 years, a beautiful and picturesque setting for a matrimonial sacrament, we used to have to turn couples away who were not members....

I would be interested in your thoughts about how well this works, and how difficult it is to use.

Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson. Washington D.C., Jul 4, 2012 / 02:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Holy See has announced the first liturgical texts approved for use around the world by the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans who have become Catholic. “We welcome with gratitude these texts, which bring into Catholic liturgical life some of the most beloved and memorable texts in the Book of Common Prayer,” said Msgr. Jeffrey N. Steenson, head of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. “These texts have blessed and comforted generations of English-speaking Christians and will be deeply appreciated in the Ordinariate communities,”...

A bride and groom sign the marriage register (PA photo) For a real eye-opener of an article, from the Guardian’s Comment is Free section, do have a look at this.What Muslims get up to in their mosques and in their Sharia councils is, of course, completely up to them, but this story does have some important resonances for us Catholics.When you get married in a Catholic church, the priest or some other person acts as an “authorised person” and registers the marriage in a marriage register provided by the local registrar of marriages. These registers have to be kept in...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- California will not appeal a U.S. judge's decision to lift a stay on his injunction blocking the state's voter-enacted ban on same-sex marriage, officials said. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker said Thursday he would lift the stay and allow same-sex marriages to proceed, but not until Aug. 18. Such marriages would be permitted after that unless an appeals court, possibility the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, issues a stay beyond the date. Walker warned the amendment's sponsors may not have standing, or status, to make the appeal because...

The Homosexual-perversion has as much to do with marriage as the human bowel movment has to do with making Wurst. [kreuz.net] Since March the city of Mexico has treated the unnatural homosexual paring as a normal, healthy marriage. Against this unjust state privileging of a beloved perverse act has caused the civil government of President Felipe Calderon to complain. Indeed the highest court in the land of Mexico denied the complaint.

Part Two:  Channels of Grace Marriage Table of Contents     Marriage is not of human origin. It was instituted by God, as described in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis.But when Christ came into the world He elevated the natural institution to the level of a sacrament. He wished to provide not only individuals with the means they need, as persons, to reach eternal life: He also wanted to give grace to His followers as social beings. Marriage is the foundation of the family, which is the bedrock of human society.In the Church’s own language, the sacrament of Marriage...

Matrimony 887. You include marriage among the Sacraments? Yes. Every valid marriage between baptized Christians constitutes the Sacrament of Matrimony. 888. Christ did not institute marriage. It existed long before His advent to this world. Prior to Christ it existed as a matrimonial contract, but Christ elevated it to the dignity of a Sacrament of the New Law. Christ therefore instituted matrimony as a Sacrament. He blessed marriage by His presence at Cana, and declared its indissolubility when He said, "What God has joined, let not man put asunder." Henceforth, what was formerly a union by human contract was to...