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.
“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.”
Irrelevant. And of questionable accuracy in the current era. It appears that feminism has encouraged women to do a lot of “catching up” in this area.
As to shared custody, etc., that there are some women who divorce their husbands and inflict lower levels of pain and suffering on their family is not an issue of socioeconomic circumstances. It just means some folks are worse than others.
And nowhere have I said there aren't some men who are truly bad folks. Just that laws, as currently written, empower women to oppress their ex-husbands and children that don't go in the other direction.
With all the “shared custody” you're talking about, count: 1) How many divorced families with children do you know where the ex-husband pays child support? 2) How many where the ex-wife pays child support?
Which is the greater number?
Now, get back to me about “shared” custody.
“What is it that makes so many women want to marry the men in your family—and then leave them?”
Who said it's all in one direction? There are the ladies among my siblings and my wife's siblings who have initiated divorces.
sitetest
We’ve got, I think, to the nub of it. Like many bitter male Freepers on the subject of American women and divorce, you apparently think that when men work while their wives raise their children that the assets and the earning power of such men should solely belong to them—rather than being shared according to the arrangement of the marriage.
I disagree, and so we I expect we’ll continue to disagree in this discussion.
Tell us how you really feel.
As through out the discussion, you've missed it by a mile.
I don't think that the assets and earning power belong only to men.
You're deflecting having to answer my previous question - who gets child support? Who doesn't?
Nearly as many women work as men, now. And many women now out-earn their husbands. Yet, who gets child support? Who doesn't?
In my brother's case, he was willing to take physical custody of his kids, to protect them from the depradations of the whore that he'd married, and from the various & sundry men who traipsed through the whore's life and bed. He was a good father, the kids loved him, he stayed in the area, would have kept them in the same home and school, had relatives in the area willing to help him out (we often babysat our nephew and niece when he needed some help), and even better, wasn't screwing every object he could find or getting high. She had a more steady job (which she promptly quit to go whoring a thousand miles away, dragging her two little victims in tow), and made just as much money. Why not give my brother physical custody and give HIM child support?
My own view, as I mentioned previously, is that in no-fault divorces, the initiator should receive none of her/his victim's earnings or assets, and only a small part of the communal property. There should be penalties for initiating the voiding of serious contracts.
If the person believes he or she was the wronged party, one may still sue for divorce on a variety of grounds. My wife and I have a friend (a woman, of course) who sued her then-husband on grounds of mental cruelty. And won. Deservedly. Having proved substantial reasons in a court of law to void the marriage contract, she was entitled to custody, child support, etc.
So - how many guys do you know are getting child support? How many of the ladies? Do any of these ladies work? Any of the guys ever experience unemployment?
sitetest
“careers” are more glorified than family and children. Also today there is little ‘start from nothing’, got to have a two new cars, a furnished house, ample clothes and a few dogs. DINKs was an old term.
The only times I’ve actually seen men impoverished by divorce is when they’ve resented child support—and so have refused to work, either altogether or at the level at which they are capable.
Don’t know the circumstances of your nephew’s divorce, but child support laws AFAIK are based on situation, not sex.
If your nephew was unable to win custody in that situation, I take it that his wife was the primary caretaker of the kids, despite apparently making as much as or more than your nephew—in which circumstance I’m not surprised she became resentful.
"Tell us how you really feel."
Ah... I think I did. ;-)
I use a little hyperbole, but do not exaggerate.
Over the years, as I've met folks we both knew, me and my brother's ex-slut, I've found out that there is not a male we knew in common over the age of 16 whom she didn't either screw or proposition. Some of these revelations have been rather embarrassing. In all cases, they have astonished me.
I've never met any male with whom she refused to have sex.
sitetest
Still avoiding the question, I see. I'm not surprised. How many men do you know who receive child support from their ex-wives? How many ex-wives from their ex-husbands? Even in “shared custody” situations.
Why don't you look for some statistics on-line?
You might not like what you find.
sitetest
That is because young women will only consider the top tier of men, and ignore everyone else.
The top 20% of men get 80% of the sex. Most single men go man years without female companionship during the prime of their youth. The few men who are successful have no reason to settle for any one woman.
That's quite a set of relatives and acquaintances you've got there.
Then she is quite likely insane
I answered that question by implication. But actually the one divorce in my family did involve the wife paying child support after she had finished law school and had a high-paying job—even though she also had primary custody of the kids.
But in most situations I know, the woman has stayed home with the kids or at least worked the lesser job for more time with the kids, the man makes very good money, and he pays child support and educational costs through college.
He also generally doesn’t express resentment for the arrangement, but again, I seem to live in the land of mensches compared to wherever you live.
Look, the slut ultimately hooked up with its first cousin, and brought its young son and young daughter into that household. A chacun son gout, I guess.
I didn't say that all the thusly-approached males took up its offer. Just that it approached them. A lot of folks were apparently just as bewildered by the slut's actions as I was, and a bunch of others were afraid of the disease vector. But others...
sitetest
You lead a sheltered life.
Count your blessings.
And don't research the topic, as it will likely upset your sensibilities.
sitetest
You could be right. I don't know. I don't like to re-label extreme evil as “insane,” as it seems to let folks off the hook a little easy.
sitetest
Oh, and by the way, so the answer to my question is, nearly no women pay child support, nearly all men pay child support.
Thanks.
good point
Maybe I will use “Insanely evil” from now on
LOL.
Freepers are supposed to be about personal responsibility. Objecting to men paying child support does not strike me as an example thereof.
I feel sorry for the children in your circles.
“...top tier of men...”
This is a very interesting insight and probably is fairly accurate, although it most likely works both ways (the attractive girls get the attention).
Many thanks for the input.
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