Posted on 12/03/2013 2:35:53 AM PST by markomalley
Many of you are aware that there is an Extraordinary Synod planned in Rome on the family. There is surely no hiding the fact that the family is in real crisis, at least in the modern Western World, if not throughout many other parts as well. We do well to ponder the reasons and roots of this crisis, and develop strategies to begin to address the many problems.
At the recent Bishops Conference Meeting here in America, Cardinal Sean O’Malley made some remarks that I would like to draw upon, even as I make some remarks of my own. Basing my reflections on the Cardinal’s remarks, it would seem that there are at least four fundamental factors that contribute to our current difficulties regarding marriage and family. Lets look at each of them in turn, even if briefly and also interweave the Cardinals remarks.
I. Family history - Two critical factors came together very difficult years of the late 1960s which together have had a very destructive effect on Holy Matrimony and the family.
The sexual revolution which began in the late 1950s picked up steam into the 60s and went boldly public in the year 1968, with the so-called “Summer of Love” in places like Haight Ashbury Park in San Francisco, and on many other college campuses and similar places. At that time there were many who boldly shed any pretense of shame or guilt regarding open sexual sin and unchastity. What people used to whisper about as something shocking, was now boldly celebrated by increasing numbers in the culture.
The following year, in 1969 the first no-fault divorce laws began to be passed. Divorce, which until that time had been a difficult and lengthy process in America, now become something that could be accomplished in a matter of weeks.
These two very crucial events began a process which rather dramatically and quickly eroded Matrimony and and the family, such that we are now into the second, and in some cases, third generation of younger people, who have never known a world is stable marriages, and two-parent families. Large numbers of young people have never experienced living with both their father and mother for the duration of their formative years. More and more of them have no real models of faithful, stable, traditional marriages to look to. Is very clear, that without these sorts of models, even young people who want to embrace traditional marriage, struggle to do so, lacking any experience how exactly is done.
For all the Church’s attempts at marriage preparation, and pre-Cana classes, without strong family models it is hard to apply whatever might be learned in such classes and formation.
Cardinal O’Malley says, Half of the children born to that demographic [working class families] are born out of wedlock,” a statistic that Cardinal O’Malley said would have been “inconceivable” a few decades ago. [1]
Indeed, in the African American community which I have largely served, in 1961 (the year of my birth) 80% of Black children were raised in two-parent families, Today that number is 20%. The statistics in the wider culture, as noted, are not much better and continue to drop. The change is nothing short of astonishing.
All of this leads to a dynamic of family history and personal experience that are not promising for traditional Marriage or the family.
II. Fornication - In the current cultural setting, following the sexual revolution that came out in the open in 1968, premarital sex, and cohabitation, have become epidemic. This has had a number of deleterious effects on Holy Matrimony and the family.
In the first place it takes away one of the stronger incentives to marriage that existed in the past, namely the desire of sexual intimacy and pleasure. Marriage in the culture of that time provided a context in which sexual intimacy was not only considered legitimate, but also honored and esteemed. Now, with the explosion of promiscuity and with such behavior no longer shunned, Marriage looses one of its draws. Most young people can obtain the sex they desire without the once demanded admission requirements.
Secondly a whole host of social ills accompanies fornication, and cohabitation (once called “shacking up” or living in sin). And these social evils and ills negatively impact Holy Matrimony.
Abortion has exploded on the scene. And whereas in the past a child conceived before marriage would move the couple to the sacred altar, now recourse to abortion, and even more viciously the expectation by men that women should “rid” them of the problem by abortion is the prevailing attitude.
AIDS, and sexually transmitted diseases like herpes, also make people less desirable as marriage partners.
And of course teenage pregnancy, single motherhood, etc, make many women less desirable for or prone to marriage and further the expectation that men should be able to move about sexually without commitment or responsibility.
Cohabitation also “permits” couples to play house, and the unwritten rule is that they can come as go as they please with little social repercussion to them.
Cardinal O’Malley says, The whole notion of family is so undercut by the cohabitation mentality, and these social trends are having a tremendous impact on the working-class communities who were once the backbone of the Church…This shift away from the bearing of children within wedlock is the “biggest threat to marriage. [2]
God lists fornication as among the sins that exclude one from the Kingdom of Heaven (e.g. Eph 5:3-9; 1 Cor. 6:9-11, inter al). Given the dreadful impact fornication has on Holy Matrimony and the Family, one can see why God takes sins of these sorts seriously. Of course the ones who pay the price for all this adult sexual misconduct, are children.
God links chastity to respect for Marriage, and promiscuity He regards as a dishonoring of Marriage: Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers (Heb 13:4).
III. Finances - In this matter Cardinal O’Malley says succinctly: Part of the problems are economic…Our educational system is so expensive, people graduate from college or graduate school facing huge debts. If you have a $150,000 debt when you graduate law school, are you going to marry a girl that has a $130,000 debt and start off your marriage with over a quarter-million dollars’ debt? So people are postponing marriage – are postponing a decision to go into the seminary or religious life – because they’re saddled under this tremendous debts which former generations didn’t have. [3]
We have discussed and debated on this blog before the notion that college is overrated and obscenely expensive. And for all the talk from the social liberals who dominate faculties and administration in these colleges, they seldom lift a finger to cut the costs of their overrated product. Instead they scold us for not caring enough about the poor and their burdens, while they live quite well off the future income of their students who are increasingly too poor to marry or raise children.
Almost no one among those who lecture us about justice will talk about this.
Student debt is becoming a huge factor in postponing marriage and also vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
IV. Formation struggles - Cardinal O’Malley says the Church needs “better marriage preparation” and outreach to help young people recover an understanding of marriage. He says the Church needs to “catechize our young people and instill in them a sense of vocation, and also to help them understand what courtship is about.”
He adds that this becomes even more important for: In combination with the misunderstanding of marriage, lack of attendance at Mass, and the shortcomings in the catechesis of young people, the Church also faces many challenges posed by the secularization of the culture. [4]
Indeed, the teachings of the Church on the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony have been poorly conveyed to God’s people. And for many people, what they do hear unintelligible. For example they may well hear: Marriage is forever, but if it doesn’t work out for you we will get you annulment, and remember, an annulment is NOT a divorce! Or again they may hear that even though Protestants can get married while skydiving with a Justice of the Peace, and it valid, if a Catholic gets married outside the Church, it is invalid. Etc…
People struggle to figure all this out. And while there ARE answers to these puzzlements, they remain difficult obstacles in speaking coherently to people who are poorly catechized and more influenced by the secular world than the Church in this regard.
A chief place for us to begin rebuilding the case for traditional Marriage is resetting the premise of the discussion. Marriage is not first and foremost about what is best and most pleasing to the adults in the equation. Marriage is about children and what is best for them. Marriage is not about the rights of adults per se, it is about what is justly due to children.
Marriage takes its structure and mission as an institution based on the fact that every child deserves and has a birthright to be raised by by a father and mother, who have committed themselves to a stable and loving union, so as to give their child a stable an loving upbringing under the formative influence of both a male and female, that is their own parents.
This, it seems is where we must begin. More on this here: Getting the Marriage Conversation Right. Other things are surely required, but here is a good place to start, right where the modern secular premise goes 180° wrong.
And thus, in these four fundamental factors a perfect storm begins to brew that has severely damaged the understanding of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and the Institution of Traditional Marriage. Other factors also influence, but as we prepare to the Extraordinary Synod, Cardinal O’Malley’s remarks help frame a discussion of the problem and a way forward.
Later we can also discuss some of the questions put forward in the working document of the Synod.
Talk about ugly—yours is an all-too-common misogynist Freeper post.
And yours is also classic female hatred from FR.
I don't think so. I've just seen the slogging in the wars from a vantage point of a 30-year happy marriage to my best friend, who, by the way, is of the female persuasion and who thinks the laws are badly tilted against men, and who has seen the same crimes committed that I've seen.
Women generally who think we're being mean when we point out the truth need to look a little more honestly and ask why so many men say the same things. Even the happily-married ones.
My wife and I have two sons nearly-grown, and view with trepidation how badly they could get screwed by a "woman" who makes use of the law as the law has been written and is currently interpreted.
sitetest
Many women marry the government.
That’s 90% of the problem right there.
Ultimately state involvement. Many are conditioned to think it comes from the state, it’s just a contract that can be broken and resumed between any parties the state decides to include in its parameters. As far as the state is concerned the nature and rules of marriage can be changed instantly by the whim of judges, pols, or those that bother to vote in referendums. That’s all it is to many folks, and in that aspect I don’t find it surprising that many now lack respect for the institution. In fact, it’s pretty reasonable.
Pope Leo XIII saw all this coming down 130 years ago.
“Can anyone, therefore, doubt that laws in favor of divorce would have a result equally baneful and calamitous were they to be passed in these our days? There exists not, indeed, in the projects and enactments of men any power to change the character and tendency with things have received from nature. Those men, therefore, show but little wisdom in the idea they have formed of the well-being of the commonwealth who think that the inherent character of marriage can be perverted with impunity; and who, disregarding the sanctity of religion and of the sacrament, seem to wish to degrade and dishonor marriage more basely than was done even by heathen laws. Indeed, if they do not change their views, not only private families, but all public society, will have unceasing cause to fear lest they should be miserably driven into that general confusion and overthrow of order which is even now the wicked aim of socialists and communists. Thus we see most clearly how foolish and senseless it is to expect any public good from divorce, when, on the contrary, it tends to the certain destruction of society.”
FReegards
I haven’t seen it. Out of dozens and dozens of extended family members, I’ve seen only a couple of divorces. In those cases it was initiated by the women, and they voluntarily left virtually everything owned between the couple to man, since they were leaving.
It may well matter what circles you run in. How possibly would your sons get screwed in modern marriage and divorce unless they had children, in which case the sons would be expected to provide child support.
I’ve seen dozens and dozens of divorce situations outside of my family in recent years, and overwhelmingly the parents share custody equally.
Again, it may be a matter of what circles, socioeconomically and according to individual state laws, that we travel in.
You mean too many clerics in the Church. The Church's teaching, on the other hand, is pretty clear.
On the other hand, many women do want to be married but they are competing with women with no morals, porn causing men to be sexually selfish and demanding, tolerating men who act like dogs fornicating with anything, men who can get jobs that would support a family because the economy is depressed and men who think it’s there way or the highway.
I’m unique in expressing an “insulting point of view,” I know. Such a thing is so rare on FR.
But seriously, I’m sincerely sad for people who have had bad experiences. It’s a crummy world out there in a lot of ways.
I was at the doctor’s office yesterday and saw a couple sitting side by side, but not talking to each other, instead each one looking at their own handheld device. It was amazing that I was able to keep my mouth shut.
A good rule of thumb in my marriage is less focus on the “me” and more focus on the “we” with God first and foremost.
Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of divorces. Five just among my siblings and my wife's siblings. Every one of them initiated by the wife. In a wider circle, almost every divorce I've ever seen has been initiated by the wife.
Of all those divorces, some were moderately equitable. A majority were oppressive. But since nearly every divorce was initiated by the wife, every divorce where one spouse is seriously oppressed, the oppressor has been the wife.
Every time.
Without exception.
You talk about “shared custody.” Yeah. Right. In every divorce I've ever seen with kids, “shared custody” meant that the mother got the kids, the father got the child support bill, some weekends (maybe) and a few weeks in summer with the kids. Oh, and the mother was supposed to consult with the father about things. But usually didn't.
My own brother, screwed hard by the whore that divorced him, had “shared custody.” Yet, she moved to another state, many hundreds of miles away, yanked their kids from their (very good) Catholic school mid-year, impoverished my brother (the child support payments were so egregious and unrelenting, even during periods of unemployment, that for years, he lived off the kindness of family in friends, rent-free with this one, reduced rent with another), and very little participation in their lives.
The fact is, if you look at the statistics, not just at random anecdotes, you see that 1) most divorces are initiated by women, 2) women almost always get physical custody, 3) thus, women get child support, 4) men may NOT withhold child support when women don't provide for legally-obligated visitation, 5) men will regularly be incarcerated or otherwise punished for withholding child support or other economic support, but 6) women seldom get more than a tongue-lashing for withholding visitation rights.
But in terms of more anecdotes, my nephew is going through the same thing right now. An “amicable” divorce which comprises him being forced from the family home, “shared custody” with his slut soon-to-be ex-wife retaining physical custody, punitive child support payments, all on a whim. This is a highly-educated fellow, working on his doctoral dissertation, sweet-natured, school teacher, very involved with his family, no drugs, no alcohol, no running around.
She filed no-fault, nothing he can do. He has a penis. He loses.
How about this simple legal change? You file no-fault, you walk away with nothing. At all. No kids, no custody, no alimony, no child support, no portion of your spouse's property (especially retirement accounts and the like), and a reduced portion of the communal property, say, 10%.
If you can't give a serious justification in court for ending a serious legal contract (remember that marriage is a legal contract as much as a covenant), then you can have it, but you don't get rewarded for destroying the lives of innocents.
Like I said, it's not that women are generally more evil intrinsically than men, but law doesn't allow men to do the things that the law gives to women as their birthright.
sitetest
How many were "initiated" by the wife because the husband had been unfaithful?
Four Factors That Fuel the Crisis in Marriage and Family!
Mother in Law
Father in Law
Sister in Law
Brother in Law
You refer to your nephew’s wife as a ‘slut’, but surely all statistics show that husbands are the more likely to cheat on wives.
Again, I take it you’ve got different state laws and socioeconomic circumstances, because most husbands and wives I see around here truly have joint custody. E.g., one or two weeks with each parent, then the reverse. Often both parents stay in the same town so the kids don’t have any disruption from their school and friends.
What is it that makes so many women want to marry the men in your family—and then leave them?
**The whole issue is also concern for not making wealth an “idol”.**
The Deadly Sin of Greed.
Ping!
Two out of many.
Unless you count the slut who was my brother's third wife. She filed no-fault and cleaned him out while screwing anything that would touch her in the tri-state region, including my sister's husband, the creature we all refer to unfondly as “the beast.”
She told me she divorced my brother because he was, and I quote, “fat and worked too much.” Yes. After a long period of time of intermittent employment here and there, he found a good job paying $20 per hour with benefits, but was obligated to work 10 hours per day, five days per week.
And he was kinda overweight.
Perfectly justifiable grounds to divorce your husband! Take your kids out of Catholic school and move nearly a thousand miles away! And then shack up with your first cousin (not making this up)! And steal your ex-husband's retirement account, interest in the family home, all assets, and over 30% of his PRE-TAX pay, even when he experienced unemployment!
While you're propositioning everything with a male member within a 50-mile radius, and smoking dope with boys on the back terrace.
The family court master just didn't give a damn. My brother had a penis, so he lost.
His kids were ruined by the slut.
She is one of the reasons why I believe in Hell.
sitetest
From where do you get your statistics?
Contraception, Roe vs. Wade, and the sexual revolution (as the article points out) ruined marriage.
I have 3 daughters in their 20’s and I can tell you that the men in their peer group won’t even consider commitment until around 30 because they are enjoying the hook up culture that manifests in full force during the college years and continues well into the 20’s.
Lest I sound like a male basher, the women did it to themselves when they lowered the standard for men and the ones who wanted to hold the line were overwhelmed by the majority of women who went along. Very few men will continue a relationship with a woman who is waiting for marriage to have sex, and the pressure is enormous.
Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? The women who want to settle down and raise children in their 20’s when they have the energy and fertility to raise a decent size family are the ones who are paying the price because to conform is to now do the opposite.
The church needed to take a stronger stand in the 70’s and it’s too late now, the horse is out of the barn.
Sorry for the farm cliche’s, but they are accurate unfortunately.
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