Family Decline: The Findings of Social Science
PAUL C. VITZ In this extensive overview, Paul Vitz summarizes research findings on the impact of divorce and single parent families focussing specifically on the factors of violence, suicide, drug abuse, physical and psychological health. What emerges is one of the best-documented findings within the social science in the last twenty years — the great […]
Families’ Priceless Gift to Free Society: Self-Giving Love
LOUISE PERROTTA Jennifer Roback Morse, an economist by trade, was captivated by laissez-faire theory…until she became a mom. It was then she realized that a self-interested approach to family life does not result in personal happiness or the common good of a free, democratic society. Jennifer Roback Morse, an economist by trade, was captivated by […]
Doing What Christ Tells Us About Marriage
FR. ROGER J. LANDRY The liturgical remembrance of the wedding of Cana causes us to remember what Christ has done for marriage. God created this institution in the beginning as one of the greatest blessings a human being could share, and like everything in creation, God pronounced it good. But Christ did something more during […]
Do I Need and Annulment?
JACQUELINE RAPP, JCL AND PETE VERE, JCL Here are some of the common questions about marriage and annulments. As a Judge and a Defender of the Bond within our respective dioceses’ Catholic Marriage Tribunal, we encounter misunderstandings every day about the declaration of nullity (or annulment) process. Often, the people who come into our offices […]
Contraception: Why Not?
JANET SMITH Why does the Catholic Church keep insisting, in the face of the opposite position held by most of the rest of the modern world, that contraception is one of the worst inventions of our time? Thirty years ago the case in favor of contraception seemed eminently reasonable. But the widespread use of contraception […]
Contraception — the Bitter Pill
GEORGE SIM JOHNSTON Each month, to test our courage, my wife Lisa and I stand before an auditorium full of couples about to marry in the Catholic Church and explain to them the Church’s teachings about sexuality. The crowd is generally not happy to be there. Many are not Catholic and few, needless to say, […]
Conjugal Intimacy
MARSHALL FIGHTLIN Although at the wedding ceremony, the man gives up his absolute autonomy, the impulses to act like a single man are still there. It becomes the daily task of the husband to “mortify” these impulses to act like a single man, and to continue to act like a married man, concerned with his […]
Consequences of the sacramental ‘yes’ in Marriage
Fr Ireneusz Skubis Due to the growing number of requests in the world, especially in America, directed to diocesan tribunals concerning matrimonial nullity, the Apostolic See promulgated a special document entitled Dignitas connubii (Dignity of marriage). Pope Benedict XVI spoke about this as well. The document – instruction, has not been commonly known yet. Its aim is […]
Church Teaching on Contraception
FR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS The topic of contraception is so controversial. It seems to always come up at work and many bash the Church for its teaching, including Catholics. I do not seem to know how to defend the Church as well as I should. Could you give an explanation? On July 25, we mark the […]
Chastity Before Marriage: a Fresh Perspective
MARK LOWERY The experience of chastity as a negative phenomenon must be replaced with an experience of chastity as an entirely positive phenomenon. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2350) wonderfully contains this positive message: “Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time of testing […]