Sheridan was referring to a speech by Joe de Bruyn, who used three examples to reflect on how to live a Catholic life. Joe de Bruyn is a retired trade unionist, Labour figure and Campion College board member.

Sheridan says that "at the first mention of the word 'abortion' a walkout began, which included a majority of graduands and a majority of university staff present".

"A serious vice-chancellor would have attended the speech himself" wrote Sheridan.

He is calling on the vice-chancellor to apologise to de Bruyn for the rudeness shown him and reiterate ACU's commitment as a Catholic institution to Catholic teaching.

University offers counselling

However, the university later offered counselling to those affected by the speech.

It said it was "deeply disappointed the speech was not more befitting of a graduation ceremony" and that it would refund ticket fees for graduates.

de Bruyn was being presented with an honorary degree by the Australian Catholic University.

In the speech, de Bruyn claimed abortion was the "single biggest killer of human beings in the world" and referred to is as a "tragedy that must be ended".

Living a Catholic faith in the public square

However Monica Doumit, writing in the Catholic Weekly, says that media reports were wrong to characterise de Bruyn's address as an inappropriate, self-indulgent rant about issues of life and human sexuality that had little relevance to a graduation ceremony.

Contrary to how it was portrayed, Doumit says de Bruyn's speech was not just a rehashing of the Catholic position on contentious issues, but a reflection on how to live one's Catholic faith in the public sphere.

De Bruyn told the graduands that for more than 40 years he had worked in a union that covered warehousing, retail and fast-food companies, fighting for the rights and wages of some of the lowest-paid workers in the country.

He explained that bringing these aspects of his Catholic faith to his work and advocacy was not controversial, but that bringing other aspects of his Catholic faith was contentious.

To illustrate his point, de Bruyn offered three examples: abortion, IVF and marriage. His point was summed up in his concluding remarks:

"As happened to me, you will be faced with issues in your professional and personal lives where the general opinion of the majority of the population is at odds with the teaching of the Church.

"My experience is that many Catholics cave in to peer pressure. They think their professional lives will be harmed if they promote the teaching of the Church. My experience is that this is not so.

"Despite my view on some issues being at odds with the views of my contemporaries over the past 50 years, it never affected my career at all."

Listening Church

Australia's new cardinal-designate, Mykola Bychok, has backed de Bruyn's anti-abortion speech.

"Freedom of speech is an important pillar of our society, so is freedom of religion'' he said.

"We must be free to say that which we believe to be the truth as passed to us by Our Lord. Jesus says to us ‘Be not afraid'.

"I grew up at a time when my church was banned and persecuted in Ukraine. A church of martyrs and confessors.

"We survived this persecution because people loved God and their church. They were courageous and passed on the faith to their children and grandchildren.''

Cardinal-designate Bychok said he did not believe there was any division within the Church on the sanctity of life.

While Pope Francis told the Church to be a "listening Church'', that did not mean others did not have to listen to Christ.

Sources

• The Australian
• ABC
• The Catholic Weekly
• The Australian

If you marry, one of you must volunteer to leave the Vatican's employ altogether (going to another department isn't acceptable). If you don't leave of your own accord, you'll both get sacked.

That's just what happened to two Vatican bank employees last week. They were both sacked because their recent wedding violates the newly-introduced ban and neither wanted to volunteer to lose their job.

The Vatican bank said in a statement on Wednesday that it had reached the "difficult decision" to end the couple's employment contracts.

The "formation of a married couple among employees is, in fact, blatantly contradictory to the current regulations within the institute" the Vatican says.

Times are a-changing

The couple - nicknamed "Romeo and Juliet" by the Italian media - met some years ago at the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the IOR or Vatican Bank, while working in different departments.

Three children later, they decided to marry. Their attorney Laura Sgro says they informed the bank of their plans in February.

Although the Vatican was aware the couple have three children and were planning to marry, it pressed ahead with its new personnel regulation barring workplace marriages.

The couple appealed to Pope Francis, seeking a dispensation in the enforcement of the new regulation, as it had gone into effect once wedding plans were already underway and the official Catholic announcement made.

They received no reply.

The ban went into effect in May. The couple married in August.

The IOR defends the dismissal

The bank said it in no way meant to question the right of employees to get married - a sacrament Francis frequently urges young couples to undertake in the face of dwindling numbers of Catholic weddings.

The couple's dismissal was dictated by the need to preserve transparency and impartiality in the institute's activities, and in no way intended to question the right of two people to be united in marriage" the IOR says.

The IOR says the marriage ban's primary objective is to avoid the reputational risk of accusations of nepotism and "avoid the possible emergence of situations of conflicts of interest in the institute's operations, in order to protect its integrity and service to its clients".

Civil court case pending

In a letter to the IOR bank chiefs, Sgro has challenged the couple's dismissal.. She will be taking the case to the Vatican civil court within 30 days, she says.

In her view, the IOR's notification of dismissal was "null, illegitimate and gravely harmful of the fundamental rights of people and employees, and therefore devoid of any effect".

Source

• Crux
• The Guardian
• AP News
• News Channel 12-3-11

A young couple who work at the Vatican Bank are said to have got married. As a result, they are threatened with dismissal.

The Vatican trade union ADLV has shown solidarity with two employees of the Vatican Bank.

It is hoped that regulations do not take precedence over sacraments in the Vatican, according to a statement issued by the ADLV on Wednesday.

According to the internal rules of the Vatican Bank, employees are prohibited from marrying one another.

This rule is intended to prevent conflicts of interest and cliques.

According to the ADLV, there had recently been talks with the Vatican Bank and the Curia in this case, but these had been unsuccessful. Continue reading

Those in the sector have noticed a rising demand for packages in the last six months, as more soon-to-weds choose to tie the knot alone, or with few guests.

New Zealand Dream Weddings owner Donna Dohi believes it's reflective of a changing society.

She says church weddings are becoming a rarity for her business, with the majority of people choosing an 'adventure wedding' at one of our scenic hotspots.

Dohi says couples are looking to focus on themselves and keep their special day stress-free. Continues

The Vatican's document, signed by Pope Francis and Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, was published on the Holy See's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith website on November 8.

Currently, the translation is available only in Italian and Portuguese.

The document is a clarification that came in response to inquiries from Brazilian Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro.

In July, before the recent Synod on Synodality, Negri posed six questions to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the role of LGBT individuals in church sacraments.

Life of faith open to all

The document states that "A transgender person, even if they have undergone hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery, can receive baptism under the same conditions as other faithful, if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful."

The dicastery also reiterated the church's position that children of gay or transgender couples can be baptised, provided there is a well-founded hope they will be raised in the Catholic faith.

The same applies to transgender children and adolescents.

"In the case of transgender children or adolescents, they can receive baptism if they are well prepared and willing."

Echoing the words of Pope Francis, the document stresses that "the Church is not a customs house, but the fatherly home where there is room for every person with his or her difficult life."

Not satisfied with merely opening the door the document keeps the door wide open, stating that "another person in the family circle" other than the godparents, can also "vouch for the proper transmission of the Catholic faith to the person to be baptised."

The document shows that there are many rooms in the Father's house and states that baptism cannot be prevented "even if doubts remain about a person's objective moral situation." It recommends applying "pastoral prudence" in each circumstance.

LGBT+ Ministry

The document also emphasises that there is no current universal canonical legislation that prevents transgender individuals from serving as witnesses at a Catholic marriage.

While the responses encourage pastoral prudence and the need to prevent scandal and confusion among the faithful, the document underlines God's unconditional love and the church's openness to all people.

The document notes that while gay individuals in a relationship akin to marriage, particularly if known in the community, should probably not serve as godparents, they may be invited as witnesses to a baptism.

Again "pastoral prudence" applies.

Context

In July, speaking with a transgender person, Francis reached out saying "Even if we are sinners, he (God) draws near to help us. The Lord loves us as we are, this is God's crazy love."

Then during World Youth Day in Portugal Francis told the crowd there is room in the Church for everyone.

"In the Church there is room for everyone, everyone" he told hundreds of thousands of young people gathered in a large park in Lisbon. "Everyone, everyone, everyone!" he said several times.

"That is the Church, the Mother of all. There is room for everyone."

"This (document) is an important step forward in the Church seeing transgender people not only as people (in a Church where some say they don't really exist) but as Catholics" said Fr James Martin on X (Twitter). He is a prominent Jesuit priest and supporter of LGBT rights in the Church.

Sources

• Reuters
• OSV News - via UCANews.com
• NBC News
• La Croix International

The social consequences that the shrinking number of marriages is causing are not good, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury says.

Speaking at a diocesan Mass celebrating marriage, Davies praised the congregation which was composed of married couples.

Between them, they have amassed "1,275 years of marriage faithfully lived."

This is an "incalculable good," he said.

"It is hard to imagine - in little more than half a century the promises you made, the vocation you embraced, would become more and more exceptional," he continued.

"So exceptional in these early years of this 21st century that most recent statistics show a 61 percent decrease of marriages in our land ...".

That amounts to the lowest number of couples entering marriage for almost two centuries, Davies said.

It's also "the first time in our history that more children are born outside of marriage than in a married home," he added.

The consequences of the collapse of marriage in the UK will have an effect on the country, he said.

"The headlines do not seem to exaggerate when they speak not merely of a cataclysmic decline but of marriage disappearing in Britain."

Optimism

Davies then spoke optimistically to the couples in the congregation of the hope Christian marriage offers.

"At a moment in our history when marriage is increasingly being lost sight of, the witness you have given ... is no small thing and today shines out more and more brightly.

"The Christian vocation of marriage stands out as an invitation to new generations to believe and set out along the same path ..."

That vocation enables couples "to have the courage to make the same awesome promises, to build a stable and loving home for their children by their very faithfulness ... and bring them to old age together."

Statistics

The UK Office of National Statistics says in 2021 there were 113,505 divorces granted in England and Wales.

That accounted for a 9.6% increase in divorces compared with 2020 when there were 103,592.

The Marriage Foundation - a research body - also reported its own statistics.

The Foundation says during the Covid pandemic in 2020, a temporary ban on weddings and tight restrictions in England and Wales saw the number of marriages collapse by 61 percent, the sharpest fall in any country in Europe.

It also says in 2012, By the time children were 14, 46 percent were not living with both biological parents.

The Shrewsbury diocese says the Marriage Foundation research consistently confirms that marriages between men and women are inherently more stable and enduring than any other form of relationship.

Despite this finding, the Foundation notes that UK government family policies focus on providing childcare and encouraging all parents into work, instead of supporting marriage.

Source

• Crux
• Catholic News Agency

My first thought was: Don't swing at pitches in the dirt. And, it is tempting to observe that these dubious cardinals simply had it coming.

Coming on the eve of the opening of the synod, some will complain that Francis is putting his thumb on the scales of discussions before they happen.

At The Catholic Thing, Robert Royal suggested the responses show the synodal game is rigged.

But the disingenuousness of the questions themselves shows that the cardinals were trying to foreclose discussion before it began.

The responses were brilliantly done.

So, for example, on the question of whether or not the Catholic Church can bless same-sex couples, the pope first explained, "The Church has a very clear understanding of marriage: an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to procreation.

"Only this union can be called 'marriage.' Other forms of union realize it only in 'a partial and analogous way' (Amoris Laetitia 292), so they cannot be strictly called 'marriage.' "

He continued, "It is not just a matter of names, but the reality we call marriage has a unique essential constitution that requires an exclusive name, not applicable to other realities. It is undoubtedly much more than a mere 'ideal.'"

Any idea that the pope is simply engaged in an effort to overturn the teachings of the church willy-nilly can be set aside.

That is not the end of the story, as it is for the dubious cardinals.

Francis adds: "When a blessing is requested, it is expressing a plea to God for help, a supplication to live better, a trust in a Father who can help us live better."

I cannot think of anyone who should be turned away if this is their intent and Francis, being a pastor at heart, knows that.

There is something else going on here.

The dubious cardinals seem to forget, and Francis reminds them, that the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, did not suggest revelation exists to achieve some degree of self-satisfaction among the doctors of the law.

Revelation is given "for the salvation of all nations" (Dei Verbum, Paragraph 7).

The dubious cardinals think conversion happens before one gets to the church door, once and for all.

Francis, a pastor, knows that conversion never ends, that those who have crossed the threshold and those far from the doors of the church, are all in need of conversion.

Christ died once and for all. Our conversion to the divine will is ongoing.

What is most striking about the responses is the difference in approach from that found in the original dubia.

"The complex issues that the 'Dubia Cardinals' raise can only be answered with the pastoral type of response that Pope Francis gave," Sacred Heart University professor Michelle Loris told me in an email.

"His method of response resonates with the way Jesus often responded to those who would try to trick and trap him — challenging his accusers to go more deeply into their heart and faith."

Boston College professor Cathleen Kaveny had a different take on pope's responses to the dubia.

She suggested that rather than giving a different answer to the issue of same-sex relationships, Pope Francis is changing the question. Read more

• Michael Sean Winters journalist and writer who covers politics and events in the Roman Catholic Church for the leftwing National Catholic Reporter,

Older women want reform, but younger Catholic women are more conservative. They want the rules on sex, contraception and the priesthood to remain as they are.

About the study

The study surveyed 17,200 Catholic women from 104 countries; 1769 came from Australia.

The authors say the generational differences in attitudes could come from life experience, migration, or the more conservative Church which younger people have experienced.

"There has been a push back towards conservatism [in Australian Catholicism]" says one of the authors.

"I think that's been impactful for young adults in the church."

She also notes that women of all ages expressed disappointment, frustration and challenge with the Church.

"[There was] a feeling that some women's voices weren't heard in the church. That was across age."

This comes as Pope Francis leads a discussion about whether women should have a greater role in church governance and ceremonies.

While women being ordained as priests seems out of the question, Francis has not ruled out the diaconate.

Study results

74 percent of Australian Catholic women want reform, while an average of 84 percent of Catholic women internationally want change.

The authors defined conservatism as adherence to Catholic doctrine and the embrace of traditionalism.

The desire for a more traditional approach was driven by younger women, the study found.

While 74 percent of respondents supported reform, only 44 percent were aged 18-40; 87 percent of 56-70 year olds want reform, as do 94 percent of over 70s.

Survey comments show differences in what reform means.

Older women want the Church and its teachings to change.

However, the authors noted "there was a smaller, younger cohort of respondents who rejected any modernisation of the church and understood reform as a return to orthodoxy and tradition, including the traditional Latin mass."

Fewer than a third of under 40s supported inclusion of women at all levels of the Church or the suggestion of female preachers and priests.

Sex, contraception, divorce

Allowing more freedom of choice on sex and contraception was rejected by two in three of those under 40; the 41 to 55s were about half-half, but the 56 pluses backed the idea enthusiastically.

Young Catholic women were less supportive of remarriage after divorce.

Older women talked about being shunned as divorcees, especially if there had been violence in their marriage.

All agree

All women agreed the misuse of power by male clerics was damaging the church.

They also agree leaders must do more to address abuse.

The Church institution was not doing enough to address the cover-up of sexual abuse.

The generational difference

One report author thinks life experience could influence older and younger women's views.

The survey may have attracted more young women who were highly engaged in the Church, rather than those who might be alienated from it, she suggests.

She also noted religious orders attracting young women seem to be those which continue to wear a habit, despite a ruling against them in Vatican II. Numbers are growing.

Source

• Sydney Morning Herald

Fighting the ban, Mike and Catherine "Kitty" Burke (pictured) turned to liberty group Becket Law who have filed a federal lawsuit on their behalf.

The lawsuit seeks to prohibit Massachusetts from using LGBTQ accommodations to decline issuing foster care licences to religious applicants.

It also asks for the Burkes' application to be granted and for them to receive "nominal and compensatory damages" from the defendants.

Catholic beliefs and the State

The lawsuit specifically claims the State of Massachusetts restricted the Catholic couple from fostering children in the State. This decision was based on the Burkes' adherence to Catholic teachings on gender, sexuality and marriage.

"After months of interviews and training, and after years of heartbreak, we were on the verge of finally becoming parents," the Burkes say.

"We were absolutely devastated to learn that Massachusetts would rather children sleep in the hallways of hospitals than let us welcome children in need into our home."

The lawsuit claims the State listed only one reason for denying the Burkes' foster care application: they "would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA."

The lawsuit goes on to say: "As faithful Catholics, the Burkes believe that all children should be loved and supported, and they would never reject a child placed in their home.

"They also believe that children should not undergo procedures that attempt to change their God-given sex, and they uphold Catholic beliefs about marriage and sexuality."

The lawsuit names several defendants, including the Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary and the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families.

It also includes a copy of the State's letter telling the Catholic couple their application to be foster parents had been denied.

The letter says to be licensed as a foster/adoptive parent, applicants must demonstrate their ability "to the satisfaction of the Department".

Quoting the State regulations for Standards for Licensure as a Foster/Pre-adoptive Parent, the letter reads:

"(d) to promote the physical, mental and emotional well-being of a child placed in his or her care, including supporting and respecting a child's sexual orientation or gender identity

"(e) to respect and make efforts to support the integrity of a child's racial, ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious background"

The CF Foster Child Bill of Rights also says every child "shall be treated with respect by DCF staff, foster parents and providers without regard to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and/or disability".

The Massachusetts Health and Human Services and the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families have not responded to requests for comment.

Source

• Fox News

Those are the two things and the only things my husband and I learned in our marriage preparation classes 25 years ago.

It's hard to say which bit of advice was less helpful.

We already knew communication was important, but what we really needed was practice.

And the financial advice was sound, but we had exactly enough cash for one month's rent and a new mattress, so we spent it on that.

In other words, what we learned during marriage preparation was one thing that was true but uselessly abstract, and one thing that was true but comically irrelevant.

And this, unfortunately, seems to be par for the course for most Catholics.

When I asked Catholics about their experience with marriage preparation, some said they enjoyed and appreciated it and learned valuable things. But many more told me that the experience was just an extra burden during an already stressful time, or even that it soured a sceptical partner against the faith.

The recent announcement by the Vatican of a year-long (albeit voluntary, at least for now) "catechumenal itinerary for married life" has been met with mild to scathing cynicism from Catholics—including priests and lay people—on social media.

"Catholics think if you just get the right program, everything will be fine," said Robert Krishna, a Dominican priest in the archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia. "And if they don't understand what they need to do, repeat yourself louder and slower. That's not the answer."

Still, the answer cannot be simply to require no preparation.

More than one canon lawyer who has worked on marriage tribunals has told me that many couples present themselves at the altar with little to no understanding of what marriage is.

Their relationships fall apart because they were unprepared for marriage.

So someone has to do something.

What type of marriage preparation is actually useful, helpful and stays with a couple as they grow into the sacrament they have conferred on each other?

I talked with Father Krishna, several married people, and a married couple who have been running Engaged Encounter weekend retreats since 2005, and here is what I learned: Circumstances vary widely. Couples should have access to more than one option so they can choose what works best for them. Continue reading

The problem is that church leaders haven't grasped the power of cultural trends in technology, education and economics that are fueling sharp declines in statistics linked to dating, marriage and fertility, said Brian Willoughby of the Brigham Young University School of Family Life.

"The key word is ‘tension,'" he said. Among the Latter-day Saints, these numbers are "not falling as fast" as in other groups, "but our young people are feeling tensions between the patterns they see all around them and what they hear from their parents and religious leaders.

"We are seeing the same changes — only moving slower. The average age of people getting married is rising. Fertility rates are declining. ... We can no longer assume that religious young people are some kind of different species."

It's urgent, he added, for congregations to "start making a more explicit case for marriage and family. Our young people know that marriage is important, but they don't know specific reasons for WHY it's important."

The result is what some researchers call the "marriage paradox." Young people continue to express a strong desire to "get married at some point," but they place an even higher priority on other "life goals," said Willoughby.

"Marriage becomes a transition in which they fear they will lose freedom or success. ... They hear everyone saying: ‘You go to these schools and get these degrees. You get job one that leads to job two. Don't let anything get in your way or get you off track.' With this kind of head-down approach, serious relationships can be a distraction on the path to success. ... The heart isn't as important."

Thus, marriage isn't disappearing, but the population of young adults choosing marriage is shrinking — especially among those with little or no commitment to religious life. In a study published in 2020, Willoughby cited several reasons this matters, noting that married millennials report:

• Relationships that are more "satisfying and stable" than those living "in other types of committed relationships."
• Significantly lower levels of depression, with better exercise and health trends.
• Better access to health care, insurance and retirement benefits.

In Latter-day Saint congregations, said Willoughby, young women and men are asked to serve in parallel leadership networks, working side by side, week after week. This offers opportunities to spot potential spouses with shared beliefs and goals.

But there is one big problem: "More single men tend to drop out of the faith. Often, the ratio of women to men is way too high when it comes to young adults who are serious about marriage."

Meanwhile, researchers are learning that more and more young men are struggling to master the kinds of basic life skills that make them attractive to women seeking marriage partners, said sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

"I think quite a few women would be happy to meet a man at church and marry him," he said. "But they are still going to want to know: ‘Is this man taking care of himself? Is he gainfully employed? Can he take care of a family? Is he decisive about the issues that matter the most in life?'"

At the same time, many religious leaders need to understand that many of today's dangerous trends in mental and physical health are linked to the growing cloud of digital screens that dominate modern life, said Wilcox.

This is especially true with the social media programs that shape the lives of teenagers and young adults.

"Churches have to find ways to encourage men — single and married — to turn off the internet and their video games and get their acts together. ... And let's face it, it's harder to make major course corrections in life when you're in your 30s," he said.

"All of this will require churches to do a better job of encouraging marriage, sanctioning marriage and helping young people prepare for marriage. ... This has to go beyond the old games-and-pizza approach to youth work and what usually passes for ministries with single adults."

• Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.
• First published by Religion Unplugged. Republished with permission.
• Part II of II. Part I was published in the previous edition of CathNews.

What if American women asked their live-in boyfriends to stop playing video games, leave their couches and run errands?

In the "Saturday Night Live" sketch "Old Enough! Longterm Boyfriends!" guest host Selena Gomez asked her helpless boyfriend of three years, played by cast member Mikey Day, to buy her eyeliner and two shallots.

This man-baby ends up in tears with a big bag of onions and "a blush palette for African American women." The frustrated girlfriend says she may need a mid-morning glass of wine.

There was wisdom in that comedy, for pastors willing to see it, said sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

"There's a whole class of young men who are not flourishing personally and professionally," he said, reached by telephone.

"The systems have broken down that help raise up attractive, successful men. Churches used to be one of those support systems.

"The future of the church runs through solid marriages and happy families. The churches that find ways to help men and women prepare for marriage and then encourage them to start families are the churches that will have a future."

The crisis is larger than lonely, underemployed and internet-addicted men. Rising numbers of young women are anxious, depressed and even choosing self-harm and suicide.

The coronavirus pandemic made things worse, but researchers were already seeing dangerous signs, noted San Diego State psychology professor Jean Twenge, in a recent Institute for Family Studies essay. She is the author of the book "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood — and What That Means for the Rest of Us."

"Something began to go wrong in the lives of teens about 10 years ago," she noted.

"At first, I had no idea why teen depression was increasing so much. … But then I noticed some big trends in teens' social lives: They were spending less time with their friends in person, and more time online.

"That tends not to be a good formula for mental health, especially for girls, and especially when that online time is spent on social media."

"Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center study found that most single U.S. adults, even before the coronavirus, were depressed about dating and building relationships.

"This past February, 70% of those surveyed said "their dating lives are not going well."

The survey summary noted, "A majority of single Americans overall are off the dating market — 56% say they are not currently looking for a relationship or casual dates, up slightly from 50% in 2019.

Among the 44% who are currently looking, 32% say they are looking only for a committed relationship, 16% are looking only for casual dates, and about half are open to either a relationship or dates."

It's logical to link these numbers with U.S. birth rates, which have been falling for more than a decade.

During the pandemic, the fertility rate experienced its largest single-year decline in 50 years, to 1.6 per woman, then rebounded slightly to 1.7 in 2021 — well below the population replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman.

These trends should be of special concern to clergy, since religious faith plays a pivotal role in deciding who gets married and who does not, according to Brian Willoughby of the Brigham Young University School of Family Life.

When researchers study "the raw number of marriages in the U.S., a clear and unique pattern emerges," he wrote for the Institute for Family Studies. "Despite steady population increases each year, the number of marriages has been decreasing over the last 20 years."

What does religious faith have to do with this?

"Recent findings confirm what I and others have been noting for several years," he added.

"Marriage is slowly becoming an institution mostly utilized by the religious, who continue to view marriage as a symbolic representation of lifelong commitment to one's partner. While non-religious couples certainly value commitment and still get married, more and more non-religious couples are opting for long-term cohabitation, while an increasing number of individuals in the U.S. and Europe are electing to remain single."

• Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.
• First published by Religion Unplugged. Republished with permission.
• Part I of II. Part II will be published in the next edition of CathNews.

Reaching a platinum anniversary would be a challenge for many couples, but for Lenox and Betty Allison it seemed to have been an easy task as they said had not noticed the time passing.

"Honestly, it did not seem that long. It doesn't take long to that," Mrs Allison (nee Mutch) said.

Friendship, love, support and respect were among the values the couple said were key to a happy marriage. Read more

I booked good seats, spending a bit more than I normally would on birthdays, and began anticipating her reaction.

On the morning of her birthday, she opened my gift, saw the concert tickets, and immediately began (to my surprise and consternation) to laugh. Hard.

When she could draw a breath again, she reminded me that we had already booked tickets for this exact concert: same night, same venue.

At which point I remembered that, oh yes, we had indeed done so months earlier.

A long COVID postponement had pushed the concert entirely out of my mind.

Now we had four expensive tickets. And — to add insult to injury — the birthday seats I had booked weren't quite as good as the ones we had already booked together.

Thankfully, my wife was able to laugh at my mistake. But of course, it was also a bit hurtful, given that I had entirely forgotten a special plan we had made together.

Resilient intimacy

As my wife and I reflected later, we realized that we know married couples for whom my gaffe would have resulted not in laughter but in a blow-out argument — for whom it would have become not an amusing story but a major incident. For the wives, it would have constituted Exhibit A of her husband's callous disregard, and the story would have been repeated (often) with bitterness, anger, and disgust. For their part, the husbands likely would have doubled down, not apologizing or daring to admit fault.

We wondered what makes the difference in our case, why our marriage can weather small slights, stupid oversights, inconveniences, poorly chosen words, clashes of opinion, and sins of attitude and action against one another. And I think an important part of the answer is marital intimacy. By marital intimacy, I mean a depth of mutual knowledge and affection between a husband and wife, a marriage in which both spouses enjoy sharing experiences, emotions, ideas, and sexual romance with one another.

Our own marriage is certainly a work in progress, and I'm not half the husband I ought or want to be, but through God's goodness, we have tasted this intimacy and desire more.

Obstacle to intimacy: Busyness

Despite the beauty and blessedness of true intimacy, I've encountered numerous obstacles to it — both in my own marriage and in years of counselling married couples. One of the most common is busyness.

If intimacy involves shared experiences, emotions, ideas, and sexual romance, it's going to require significant time together.

You can't fit it into fifteen-minute increments here and there. For many married couples, however, time is in short supply.

Work commitments, household chores, church involvement, transporting kids to their activities — all these good responsibilities fill our lives and keep us travelling in different directions. When a husband and wife pass like ships in the night, there's not sufficient time to go deep beneath the surface.

Obstacle to intimacy: Lack of effort

A closely related obstacle is a lack of effort invested in cultivating intimacy. Perhaps this is, in part, a function of our culture's misguided idealization of relationships, in which the dream scenario is to find our soul mate and experience an instant, magical, effortless depth of relationship.

We're disillusioned when we find it doesn't work that way.

A more realistic guide for marriage comes from Hebrews 10:24, which speaks generally of relationships within the Christian community. The English Standard Version translates the verse as, "Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works." But a more literal translation would be, "Let us consider one another, unto the stirring up of love and good works." Note the subtle but significant difference.

The author of Hebrews urges us to consider not mainly a project (how to stir up others) but people ("one another"). The word consider suggests direct observation of something, together with deliberate thought about it.

Since Christian community requires such careful thought toward one another, surely marriage does all the more.

We're to consider our spouse, to observe and ponder this person, to become world experts so that no one knows him or her better. Like any field of research, this long-term course of spousal study requires energy, focus, and attention. Failure to put in the work rules out the reward of intimacy.

Obstacles under the obstacles

Although lack of time and lack of effort are both significant obstacles, they're not the only ones, and certainly not the deepest.

In general, barring other factors, we allocate time and effort to the pursuits we really care about. If we're passionate about the latest Netflix show, the model railroading club, or the soccer league, we make time and engage deeply. So what prevents this same investment in our marriage? I've found that there are usually obstacles under the obstacles.

One of the deepest is selfishness.

True intimacy with a spouse requires time, work, vulnerability, and sacrifice. It's a whole lot easier to avoid those costs, particularly if they obstruct our other aims and desires. Sometimes, at the end of a day, when I'm tired of talking and prefer to be silent, the best way to serve my wife is through conversation.

At other times, the situation is reversed, and I'm the one who needs a listening ear. Our responses in such moments (and in thousands of other ones) will move us either toward or away from intimacy.

Ignorance also cripples intimacy.

We may long for emotional, relational, and sexual intimacy in marriage, but we've never seen such intimacy modelled or learned about it from others.

To many, intimacy is a mystery, a foreign land, and we have no map, no idea of how to get beneath pleasantries or functional conversations in order to explore another person's heart.

When we find time alone with our spouse, we remain in the rut of "calendar and kid" conversations.

Or perhaps the obstacle we face isn't ignorance but insecurity; we've been badly hurt in other relationships and have walled off certain areas of emotional intimacy as no-go zones in order to protect ourselves.

We're not sure how (or if) we could ever open those corners of our lives to another person again.

Finally, one of the most serious obstacles to intimacy is a lack of forgiveness.

When one or both spouses have been hurt by the other, and that hurt hasn't been addressed, repented of, and covered with grace, resentment rankles. Each subsequent interaction is freighted with past pain, interpreted through a lens of suspicion. Bitterness accumulates, undercutting intimacy.

So then, in the face of several significant obstacles, how might we move toward marital intimacy?

Vision for intimacy

A crucial first step is seeing and celebrating intimacy in marriage as a precious and desired goal.

We would do well to remind ourselves that marriage is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church, and that therefore the emotional, intellectual, experiential, and sexual intimacy of husband and wife reflects and expresses the intimate love between Christ and his people.

Ephesians 5:28-31 teaches that Christ "nourishes and cherishes" the church, that husbands are to "love their wives as their own bodies," and that husbands and wives become "one flesh" with one another. These are attractive and compelling visions of intimacy.

Source of intimacy

Once we desire this intimacy, how do we attain it?

We can start by asking God for help.

He is glorified when our marriages express the intimate love between his Son and his people. So, when we ask him for help in this area — sincerely and persistently — he will answer.

Sometimes he'll grow us in pleasant ways, and sometimes in painful ways. Seasons of suffering can deepen and sweeten our relationships.

Early in our marriage, my insecurities and anxieties were exposed to my wife in a particularly painful way over the course of months, and she consistently responded to my vulnerability with tenderness and compassion.

Her patient love set a tone for our entire marriage that continues to this day.

Intimacy in Community

God will act on our behalf, but he also calls us to action. It may seem paradoxical, but one of the most important means of pursuing marital intimacy is surrounding our marriages with other people. True marital intimacy requires an inner core of the gospel and an outer context of the Christian community; intimacy must be sourced by good news and surrounded by the church.

In the community, our sins of selfishness and unforgiveness are lovingly identified, prayed for, and challenged. In the community, we're given examples of healthy, intimate marriages from which we can learn, and that we can imitate. Those marriages provide a road map for ours.

Marriage counselling with a wise and godly couple is great, but so is simply spending time with them and observing their interactions in everyday life.

We can see for ourselves how communication happens, conflicts are resolved, courtesies are extended, and collaboration in ministry is enjoyed. If your marriage is stale and superficial, why not commit to diving deeper into the gospel and into a gospel-saturated community of believers?

What's wrong in my marriage?

If Christian community is the nurturing context for marital intimacy, the gospel is the necessary core.

Only the gospel can fully address our in-built selfishness, lack of forgiveness, and insecurity — those obstacles under the other obstacles.

The gospel draws our hearts to Christ, who surrendered himself to death for our sake and took our punishment upon himself. As we soak in that good news, we experience the magnificence of God's love and the magnitude of our own sin.

I once asked a warring couple to identify the main problem in their marriage, and then listened for 45 minutes as each spouse pinpointed the failings of the other.

For each, their spouse's sin was the real problem. The other's failings were big; theirs were small. The gospel devastates that warped view, because it tells us that the Son of God had to die for our sin.

But the gospel also announces that, in Christ, we're forgiven, cleansed, and treasured by God. God sees, knows, and loves us. So maybe it's possible for another human being to do the same.

True marital intimacy is a precious jewel to be prayed for, prized, and pursued. It's worth the work.

• Stephen Witmer is the pastor of Pepperell Christian Fellowship in Pepperell, Massachusetts, and Adjunct Professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the co-founder of Small Town Summits, an organization that serves rural churches and pastors, and has written Eternity Changes Everything and A Big Gospel in Small Places. He and his wife, Emma, have three children.
• First published in Desiring God.

There are features of our Western world's culture that seem to fit the image.

Important aspects of our lives seem to have become disconnected from what gives them meaning. If this is true, it is hardly healthy. I offer the following examples.

"Me" disconnected from "we"; and "my" from "our"

To say modern culture suffers from acute individualism is by now a truism.

Clamours for "my rights" often involve little or no sense of "my responsibilities".

It seems incredible that some would regard public health requirements as infringements of their rights - it's as silly as regarding the road rules as violations of their freedom.

During the pandemic, some have been willing to put other people's lives at risk for no better reason than to enjoy themselves. Obviously, legal restrictions are no substitute for moral formation.

But all is not lost:

• Catastrophes can still bring out the best in people.
• It is still easy to admire individuals who are generous, even risking their own lives for others.
• It is still easy to dislike gross forms of self-centredness and self-aggrandisement.
• People still give generously to charitable causes.
• And it is still easy to pity individuals caught up in over-anxious self-concern.

But there are also subtler forms of disconnect that we can become used to; they become ‘normalised'.

For example, in most if not all cultures, marriage has been a moment of celebration for whole communities. Now, "what we do is nobody else's business". Within an individualist culture, it isn't easy to see anything wrong with this. It's the culture that has become reductionist.

Work used to be regarded as an expression one's person and relationships with others. Now, within the culture we are regarding as ‘normal', it is reduced to a commodity and business transaction. Commercial value attaches to the work, not the person doing it, so work becomes unmoored from its own deepest meaning.

The common denominator to all forms of self-centredness is failure to realise that we can become our own true selves only through being "for others".

This paradox is at the centre of Jesus' teaching.

The drift away from his Gospel has become a drift away from what we need to become our own true selves. This will show up in the uglier kinds of self-centredness.

Facts' unmoored from truth

When truth is reduced to whatever we say to get whatever we want - whether it is true or not - we are targets for manipulation. We become vulnerable to every kind of spin - commercial spin, political spin, and agenda-driven ideologies.

Scientists work hard to establish facts.

They know we need to act on what is objectively true.

Solving crimes, the judicial system, and research in every field are all based on the premise that truth matters.

All these, and most of life, would be turned up-side-down if it were enough to say: "truth is whatever the individual thinks it is - it is true for her/him" and "right is whatever the individual chooses - it is right for him/her".

How could we even say rape or sexual abuse are wrong if it might be "right" for the person doing it?

So, we cannot escape the need to acknowledge an objective difference between true and false, and right and wrong.

Conspiracy theories during the pandemic duped some people into believing claims that were far more bizarre than anything the sciences ever present us with.

What kind of culture is it when they are so gullibly believed?

Parroting cliches is a lazy alternative to serious thinking. For example: lazy thinkers don't distinguish between judging a person's actions (which we may do, and sometimes must), and judging their conscience (which we may not - because we cannot know whether or how much they are guilty before God.)

That is the meaning of the saying: "who am I to judge?"

"Who am I to judge", doesn't mean we can't judge their actions!

But even when we rightly judge that another's actions are wrong, it is often necessary to look further.

Their offending can have deep roots in early experience of abuse or deprivation or cultural alienation.

If we are personally attached to truth, we will look more deeply, and avoid superficial judgments and demonising.

Lazy thinking also buys the slogan used to justify abortion: "it's my body," even though the sciences leave no doubt that the embryo is actually someone else's body.

Sexual activity unmoored from sexuality's meaning

I recently heard some young people say they felt it was wrong to send sexual imagery online, but they didn't know why.

They will not come any closer to knowing through "consent education".

"Consent education" is right to teach the need to avoid activities that are not legal or consensual or safe. But that is as far as it can go because it is unconcerned with sexuality's meaning - other than it being a source of pleasure.

That kind of ‘education' allows, if it doesn't promote, the idea that anything goes provided it is legal, consensual and safe.

But is it?

A more holistic education would allow young people to learn about virtue.

Modesty is the virtue that protects chastity.

Of course, if society has given away the virtue of chastity, then it won't feel any need for modesty. Chastity is the virtue that applies self-respect, restraint and respect for others, to sexuality.

Unchastity involves a lack of self-respect, restraint and respect for others.

The Department of Internal Affairs' statistics regarding the extent of attempts in NZ to access child sex sites, and the increasing demand for younger children, and more violent forms of abuse, show where we go when the meaning of sexuality is ignored, or reduced to pleasure.

There have been strong, organized and determined cultural movements whose agenda has been to "liberate" sexuality from all previous restraints.

We look back incredulously to the 1960's through 1990's when some activists described themselves as ‘victims' of harsh laws aimed at preventing "man-boy love"; and children as ‘victims' because harsh parents didn't want them to have that kind of loving care!!

"Inter-generational sex" and "man-boy love' were euphemisms intended to promote the acceptability of what society calls pederasty.

For some, the aim was to shed categories such as ‘heterosexual' and ‘homosexual' in favour of more fluid and non-binary language. Even though by the 1990's those movements had mostly lost their credibility, the underlying ideologies have a way of re-surfacing.

So sooner or later, we do need to come to the question: what is sexuality's meaning?

What is its purpose?

Yes, it is for pleasure.

But so is unchastity. So, there must be some meaning beyond that.

Honest reflection recognises two purposes that are entwined and come together uniquely in marriage: they are sexuality's potential for deeply nurturing the love of two people, and in a way that is also designed to generate new life as the fruit of their love. And because new life needs to be protected and nurtured, the child's parents need to be in a relationship that is stable, committed and faithful.

Whatever allowances we rightly make for people of various orientations or preferences (see below), ultimately it is marriage that can fulfil sexuality's deepest meanings.

Detached from marriage, sexual activities are detached from sexuality's meaning.

Gender identity unmoored from sexual identity

Gender identity is not a label that is put on us, by ourselves or by others. It is given by nature long before we start making our own decisions.

But what about the tensions between biological reality and psychological/emotional reality that some people experience?

We move closer to an answer when we allow both faith and the sciences to be part of our thinking: the world is a work in progress, and we are part of this evolving world.

This means that none of us is a finished product. We are all at one stage or another of being unfinished.

We can be born with deficiencies, or incur disabilities, some of which last through life.

In fact, we are never finished while death is still in front of us.

When there is something that cannot be resolved or fulfilled within our present span of life, it helps to remember that our life was not something we had a right to in the first place; it is simply a gift. And our present life is not the whole of it.

In that kind of world, personal development does not always take place at the same pace or even follow the usual pattern.

Those who are caught in any of the dilemmas resulting from different stages of, or lines of, development have a right to the same respect and unconditional love as everyone else.

Still, as Professor Kathleen Stock, herself a lesbian, writing about "Why Reality Matters for Feminism," reminds us, there are only two biological sexes and no amount of hormonal or surgical treatment can change that.

She is aware that by seeking surgical or hormonal treatment to support gender change, people are implicitly acknowledging the link between gender identity and sexual identity.

But she is also aware, and critical of, the more recent claim that they should not need to; it should be enough simply to declare that you are male or female, regardless of biological reality.

Is that where the separation of gender identity and sexual identity can take us?

If reality matters, then it matters to acknowledge that, both socially and biologically, male and female find a certain completion in each other, precisely by being each other's ‘opposite' - which is what the ancient Genesis story has been saying all along.

Politics unmoored from the common good

Politics unmoored from the common good is politics unmoored from its own purpose.

The purpose of political involvement is to create a social and economic environment in which everyone has the opportunity to progress towards achieving their own potential and a fulfilling life.

In a true democracy, political parties differ over how to do this, while being united in a common pursuit of the common good.

Partisan self-interest placed above the common good is a throw-back to tribalism, and like ancient forms of tribalism, it undermines the unity that is needed for achieving the common good.

The alternative to the common good is mere partisan power.

This gives rise to all kinds of inequalities and absurdities (e.g. being duped by misinformation and lies that have been discredited by the courts; basing decisions about masks and social distancing not on science but on which political party you belong to!)

We might be surprised at such fickleness, though perhaps less surprised that it happens in a country where States can still pass anti-democratic laws, and that does not yet have a proper separation of powers.

But the lesson for ourselves is how foolish and self-destructive we too could become through unmooring rights from responsibilities. ‘facts' from truth, and politics from pursuit of the common good.

"Religion" unmoored from ordinary life

Early in the Christian tradition, St Iraneus said the glory of God is human beings coming alive through seeing God in all that God has made and all that God is doing in human lives.

We are being drawn to God through the experience of created beauty, goodness and truth.

Popes St John Paul II and Benedict XVI have picked up Iraneus' theme, emphasising that since human beings becoming fully alive is God's agenda in creating and redeeming us, it is also "the route the Church must take."

So, religion is not somehow running alongside our ordinary lives; it is our ordinary lives being made extraordinary, being sanctified, graced - family life, civic life, industrial and commercial life, political life…

Of course, this is unfinished work, and so it will be until God is "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28).

In the meantime, people for whom life's shortfalls create a sense of insecurity are the ones more likely to seek escape into "religion" perceived as some kind of separate sphere, or construct built on to life, or, worse, a kind of bubble (even having its own separate language).

This perception of ‘religion" being alongside ordinary life is the assumption of some bloggers, and it seems, even some bishops (in Britain, Ireland, France and USA) who resent government restrictions affecting church gatherings even during a pandemic.

It is as if the sciences and good government don't apply to "religion's" separate sphere.

A concept of religion unmoored from the needs of the common good is unmoored from the ordinary processes of becoming more truly human and fully alive, which is what gives glory to God.

Conclusion

A culture in which so many aspects of life have become unmoored from what gives them meaning is a culture that is reductionist, superficial, utilitarian…

The question is: within that kind of culture, how well equipped can we be to deal with the epic issues of our time - those that degrade human life, human dignity, human rights and the planet itself?

• Peter Cullinane is Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North. He has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum, Rome and a Master of Theology from Otago University. Bishop Cullinane is a former President of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference and between 1983 and 2003 he was a member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).

A man who said he is her husband viewed the most recent ceremony differently: "There are not two marriages here. She is my wife." Read more

Rev Prof Michael Mullaney, President at Ireland's national seminary, St Patrick's College Maynooth and a leading Canon Lawyer said the couple party to such a marriage "must-have capacity (ie the requisite freedom and knowledge to give such matrimonial consent), be free from any impediment in canon law and marry according to canonical form."

This latter stipulation means they must marry before "the local Ordinary (usually refers to a bishop), priest, deacon and two witnesses" or a suitably Church-appointed layperson and two witnesses.

The "necessary pre-marriage preparations and catechesis are also required although not for validity," he said.

Impediments to valid marriage in canon law include age. Both parties must be old enough to marry and usually, this is in accord with the relevant civil law.

Another impediment would be a previous marriage, whether conducted in the Catholic Church, in another church, or by the State and not yet declared null and void.

Other impediments include where one of the parties is a priest or deacon; impotence; where there is a blood relationship between the parties, or where abduction/other crime is involved.

Fr Gary Dench, a canonist with Brentwood Cathedral in Essex, pointed out that marriages "in registry offices, hotels, non-Catholic Churches, beaches, (before) Elvis impersonators" and such, "do not require a formal annulment procedure" in the Catholic Church as such marriages involving baptised Catholics "are invalid" in the eyes of the Church.

In a Twitter thread, he said that under canon law once you are baptised Catholic you remain a Catholic and that defection from the Church was no longer recognised as possible "following ‘Omnium in Mentem' (For the Attention of All) in 2009, promulgated by (Pope) Benedict XVI."

On this issue, Rev Prof Mullaney said "the term ‘formal defection' from the Catholic Church was introduced in the Code (of Canon Law) in 1983 but it was removed from the Code by the motu proprio ‘Omnium in Mentem' (October 26th, 2009)."

This, he said was because experience "showed that this new (1983) law gave rise to numerous pastoral problems. Continue reading

It was an unremarkable breakfast—a fried egg—but it is now digitally fossilized in a floral dish we moved with us when we left New York and headed west.

I don't know why I took the photo, except, well, I do: I had fallen into the reflexive habit of taking photos of everything.

Not long ago, the egg popped up as a "memory" in a photo app!

The timestamp jolted my actual memory.

It was May 2019 when we split up, back when people cancelled weddings and called off relationships because of good old-fashioned dysfunction, not a global pandemic. Back when you wondered if seating two people next to each other at a wedding might result in awkward conversation, not hospitalization.

Did I want to see the photo again?

Not really.

Nor do I want to see the wedding ads on Instagram, or a near-daily collage of wedding paraphernalia on Pinterest, or the "Happy Anniversary!" emails from WeddingWire, which for a long time arrived every month on the day we were to be married.

Never mind that anniversaries are supposed to be annual.

Yet nearly two years later, these things still clutter my feeds. The photo widget on my iPad cycles through pictures of wedding dresses.

Of the thousands of memories I have stored on my devices—and in the cloud now—most are cloudless reminders of happier times. But some are painful, and when algorithms surface these images, my sense of time and place becomes warped.

It's been especially pronounced this year, for obvious and overlapping reasons.

In order to move forward in a pandemic, most of us were supposed to go almost nowhere.

Time became shapeless. And that turned us into sitting ducks for technology.

Our smartphones pulse with memories now.

In normal times, we may strain to remember things for practical reasons—where we parked the car—or we may stumble into surprise associations between the present and the past, like when a whiff of something reminds me of Sunday family dinners. Now that our memories are digital, though, they are incessant, haphazard, intrusive.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when apps started co-opting memories, madly deploying them to boost engagement and make a buck off nostalgia.

The groundwork was laid in the early 2010s, right around the time my now ex and I started dating.

For better or worse, I have been a tech super-user since then too.

In my job as a technology journalist, I've spent the past dozen years tweeting, checking in, joining online groups, experimenting with digital payments, wearing multiple activity trackers, trying every "story" app and applying every gauzy photo filter.

Unwittingly, I spent years drafting a technical blueprint for the relationship, one that I couldn't delete when the construction plans fell apart.

If we already are part cyborg, as some technologists believe, there is a cyborg version of me, a digital ghost, that is still getting married.

The real me would really like to move on now. Continue reading

The Catholic Church cannot claim to safeguard marriage and family life if it simply repeats its traditional teaching without supporting, encouraging and caring for real families.

This is especially when families are struggling to live up to that teaching, Francis notes.

"It's not enough to repeat the value and importance of doctrine if we don't safeguard the beauty of the family and if we don't compassionately take care of its fragility and its wounds."

Francis made the comments on 19 March in a message to a Rome conference marking the fifth anniversary of "Amoris Laetitia," his 2016 exhortation of marriage and family life. Most participants took part in the conference online.

The conference was sponsored by the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, the Diocese of Rome and the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for the Sciences of Marriage and Family.

Celebrations of the "Amoris Laetitia Family Year," will conclude on 26 June next year at the World Meeting of Families in Rome.

Francis told conference participants that his exhortation was meant to give a starting point for a "journey encouraging a new pastoral approach to the family reality.

"The frankness of the Gospel proclamation and the tenderness of accompaniment," must go hand in hand in the church's pastoral approach, he explained.

Francis said the task of the church is to help couples and families understand "the authentic meaning of their union and their love" as a "sign and image of Trinitarian love and the alliance between Christ and his church."

At the same time, that message of the church "cannot be and must never be given from on high and from outside," Francis stressed.

The church's ministry to families can proclaim the truth and assist families only by "immersing itself in real life, knowing up close the daily trials of spouses and parents, their problems and sufferings, all the small and large situations that weigh them down and, sometimes, block their journey."

The Gospel is more than that, he stressed. It is a way to proclaim to the world the love of God and the beauty of his plan for humanity.

While many modern people believe the importance of the traditional family has diminished, Francis noted the pandemic has shown that for most people, the family is "the most solid reference point, the strongest support system and the irreplaceable basis for the defense of the whole human and social community."

"Therefore, let us support the family," he said.

"Let us defend it from that which would compromise its beauty. Let us draw near to this mystery of love with awe, with discretion and with tenderness."

Source

• Catholic News Service
• Image: Catholic Courier

Spending more time together — a common result of lockdowns, furloughs and layoffs — has been a blessing for some couples who gain a greater appreciation of one another. For other spouses, deprived of opportunities for individual pursuits, the increased time together "may seem more like a house arrest than a fantasy," suggested Steve Harris, a professor of marriage and family therapy at the University of Minnesota and associate director of a marriage counselling project, Minnesota Couples on the Brink.

Gregory Popcak, a psychotherapist in Steubenville, Ohio, who specializes in marriage counselling for Catholics, says the pandemic has been particularly troublesome for spouses whose coping strategies have been disrupted.

"For couples who had a tendency to use their business to avoid problems, the pandemic has made things infinitely worse," he said. "The lockdown has raised the emotional temperature a few notches. … Things that were provocative before are now catastrophic."

Overall, people have become more cautious amid the pandemic, said sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

"This caution is making them less likely to get divorced, less likely to get married, less likely to have a child," he said.

Comprehensive national statistics on marriage and divorce during the pandemic won't be compiled for many months, but the numbers available thus far from a few states suggest there's a notable decline in each category.

In Oregon, divorces in the pandemic months of March through December were down about 24% from those months in 2019; marriages were down 16%. In Florida, for the same months, divorces were down 20% and marriages were down 27%. There also were decreases, though smaller, in Arizona.

One reason for fewer divorces: In many states, access to courts for civil cases was severely curtailed during the pandemic's early stages. Another reason, according to marriage counsellors, is that many couples backed off from a possibly imminent divorce for fear it would only worsen pandemic-fueled financial insecurity.

The Rev. Russ Berg, who runs a faith-based marriage counselling ministry in Minneapolis, tries to encourage that kind of hesitancy among the couples he advises.

"Some come in saying they're overwhelmed, fighting over finances, their kids' education," Berg said. "Without going to work, they don't have that buffer of being physically gone. They feel they're on top of each other."

"I try to put it in perspective, that everyone is stressed out right now and it's not a good time to make decisions about the future of your marriage," he said. "I say, ‘Let's work on it for six months and make sure you don't add the pain of regret to the pain of divorce. Explore all your options before you decide."

For countless couples on the brink of marriage, the pandemic plunged fine-tuned wedding plans into disarray due to restrictions on large gatherings and wariness about long-distance travel.

In San Diego, Kayleigh and Cody Cousins initially planned an April wedding, postponed it after the pandemic took hold, rescheduled it for December, then had to shift gears again when a new lockdown was imposed.

"That was devastating," said Kayleigh. "We said, ‘Let's just do it on Zoom.'"

So they set up an altar at home, recruited a friend to officiate virtually, and had a wedding ceremony Dec. 27 watched remotely by about 40 of their friends and family.

Professionally, Kayleigh helps her husband run a tree-cutting service, so they understand each other's work demands. For many couples, there's work-related friction.

Danielle Campoamor, a freelance writer in New York City, says she and her partner of seven years find themselves arguing frequently as the pandemic complicates the challenges of raising their two children and earning needed income. She works from home; he commutes to an Amazon fulfilment centre.

"He goes to work for 12-hour shifts," said Campoamor, 34. "I'm left alone helping my 6-year-old with online learning, potty-training my 2-year-old, cooking and cleaning.

"There are days when I think, ‘Yes, we can do this,' and other days I say, ‘No way that I can do this,'" she said. "We don't have time to discuss our relationship, to work on improving it, or on separating. Sometimes I don't have the capacity to remember what day it is."

Atlanta-based attorney Elizabeth Lindsey, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, says she and other divorce lawyers generally have kept busy, in some cases grappling with pandemic-related complications regarding child visitation rights.

She expects there will be pent-up demand for divorces once the COVID-19 threat eases.

"Plenty of people I've consulted with were not ready to pull the trigger during the pandemic," she said.

Recent months have been busier than usual for Louise Livesay, a lawyer in St. Paul, Minnesota, who specializes in collaborative divorce — a process in which the spouses are represented by attorneys seeking to negotiate outcomes fair to both parties.

Livesay said the stresses of the pandemic exacerbated existing strains in some marriages, pushing couples toward divorce. But she said many of her clients were eager to avoid contentious litigation and were open to equitable financial arrangements.

"I found people to be a bit more willing to work toward solutions when things are difficult," she said.

For some couples, a jarring consequence of the pandemic has been the discovery by one spouse that the other was cheating on them.

"It has brought to light a lot of extramarital affairs that people couldn't hide anymore," said Harris, at the University of Minnesota. "Maybe they would meet on the way to or from work.

Now they're texting, and the other spouse asks: ‘Who are you texting?'"

For other couples, a key problem is the loss of their pre-pandemic routines.

Harris described one troubled couple who entered marriage counselling a year ago, just before the pandemic took hold.

Now, the wife feels pressure to keep working, Harris said, while the husband tries to help their children with online schoolwork even though his teaching skills aren't great. His beloved adult hockey league has shut down.

"They're in this relationship that's struggling, and all their coping mechanisms are stripped away," Harris said. "My heart breaks for them."

In the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, psychologist Michael Horne, who counsels couples on behalf of Catholic Charities, has observed one heart-warming development that he attributes partly to the pandemic. There are now 20 couples enrolled in the agency's adoption program, up from seven a year ago.

"Having more time together has afforded couples time to have those really important conversations," he said. "What does it mean to be a family?"

• David Crary is an author at Religion News Service.
• Republished with permission.