Aquinas College Hosts Marriage And Family Conference

In an age when traditional marriage is under assault from all sides, Aquinas College is preparing to equip area youth and young adults with the knowledge to defend what they know to be true.

In partnership with the acclaimed Ruth Institute, Aquinas College will host "Love and Life in the Divine Plan (and in Real Life): A Marriage and Family Conference" on Friday and Saturday, February 25-26, 2011, at its campus located at 4210 Harding Road, Nashville.

The founder of the Ruth Institute, Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., is an economist who studies love and marriage. Dr. Morse has spent much of her career speaking against a declining understanding of lifelong, committed marriages in America.

"Americans are confused about the true nature of marriage because we live in an era of big government," said Dr. Morse. "Government did not create marriage. Marriage is a natural reality that pre-exists the state."

The "Love and Life" conference takes its name from a 2009 pastoral letter of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled "Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan," in which the bishops identified four threats to marriage. Along with addressing each of these threats, conference topics also include Christian anthropology and the real gift of God's love, covered in presentations by Dr. Janet Smith of Sacred Heart Seminary, Dr. Sam Gregg of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, Dr. Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia, Sister Jane Dominic, O.P., of Aquinas College, and other noted scholars.

A modest fee of $25 includes continental breakfast, lunch, and conference materials. Scholarships are available for students, clergy, and members of religious orders. Everyone -- especially students, clergy and pastoral workers of all religious traditions -- is welcome. Register online at www.ruthinstitute.org/loveandlife. For more information, please call (615) 297-7545 or visitwww.aquinascollege.edu.

cnw

Illinois Family Institute Objects To Civil Union Legislation

MOKENA, Ill., In the waning days of the previous General Assembly, during a lame-duck session and by razor thin margins, Illinois lawmakers passed a bill that radically redefines marriage and family. "Marriage was not created by man or governments," said IFI Executive Director David E. Smith. "It is an institution created by God. Governments merely recognize its nature and importance." Marriage is the institution that societies worldwide have recognized and encouraged because this unique relationship between a man and a woman provides particular benefits to society, chief among them, the procreation and nurturing of the next generation. IFI's Director of School Advocacy Laurie Higgins says "If marriages were centrally or solely about affirming love between individuals, the government would have no reason to be involved in the business of sanctioning marriage. Government sanctions the type of relationship into which children may be born and raised because the government recognizes that that institution which best serves the needs and rights of children is the institution that best serves as the needs of a healthy society." "It is either ignorant or dishonest to suggest that the inclusion of sexual complementarity in the list of central defining criteria for government-sanctioned marriage denies homosexuals a civil right," says Higgins. Civil unions are merely a stepping stone to legalized same-sex marriage. Of the central defining criteria for marriage -- number of partners, blood kinship, minimum age and sexual complementarity -- sexual complementarity is the most enduring. Therefore, eliminating it constitutes the most radical redefinition of marriage imaginable. "Gov. Quinn should reject this anti-family bill and reject the efforts of the homosexual lobby to impose this highly contentious and controversial policy on the people of Illinois. Homosexual behavior is not equivalent to race and gender diversity is essential to marriage. It is intellectually dishonest to maintain otherwise," said Smith. Higgins states that "Once marriage is severed from procreative potential and gender, it becomes meaningless as a public institution." Philosophical conservatives and all people who are committed to rational argument need to openly, courageously, and persistently challenge the flawed analogy that suggests that homosexuality is equivalent to race. Likewise, the legislative push for special rights legislation for special interest groups based on sexual inclinations and volitional sexual behavior must be challenged. CNW

More Marriage Support Needed From The Church

California Healthy Marriages Coalition (CHMC) has released an unprecedented in-depth study, The State of California's Unions -- In the Pews and the Public Square. This is the first-ever report that looks at Californians' views on marriage and divorce matters and compares them based on their self-described levels of religious activity.

Commissioned by CHMC, the report revealed findings that faith leaders may find alarming:

• 32% of "Regular" church-goers agree that "marriage is too risky" due to the high chances of divorce;
  
• 20% of married "Frequent" church-goes have "discussed the idea of divorce" with their spouse.

The report also found good news for clergy members. The large majority of church goers -- whether "Frequent," "Regular," "Occasional," or "Rare" -- believe that religious organizations should offer pre-marital education, marriage enrichment programs, and help to couples experiencing difficulties in their marriage.

"This report makes it real clear. People need help in their marriages and families, want help with their relationships, and they are looking to churches and houses of worship to provide that help. As a former pastor, I know how hard it is to try to help couples without having the tools and skills to address their needs. At CHMC we have a plethora of resources to help church leaders meet this growing demand," says K. Jason Krafsky, CHMC Director of Communications and Marketing. Krafsky reports that his organization has developed a how-to kit for pastors interested in launching a marriage building ministry. CHMC also trains leaders in a variety of skills based marriage and relationship education programs.

The Pews and Public Squares report provides findings on topics such as "Faith Habits of Couples," "Does Attending Religious Services Affect How People Rate Their Own Marriage?" and "Do the Church and Unchurched Find Common Ground on Marriage?" The study provides information that CHMC believes will help faith leaders speak more accurately to the topic of marriage and divorce, develop strategic plans for relationship related programming, and expand their expertise in serving their community's families.

For the past five years, CHMC has taught proven relationship-building skills to more than 62,000 Californians through Marriage and Relationship Education classes for all ages and stages. A statewide clearinghouse of Marriage and Relationship Education classes and The State of California's Unions -- In the Pews and the Public Square report are available at www.CaMarriage.com.

Julie Sallee Partin, Media Relations, California Healthy Marriage Coalition

Marriage

Both the Church calendar and the liturgy in these days remind us constantly of marriage, in particular through the feast of the Holy Family that shows how the Lord was received and grew in a family as part of his human nature. We also see in the Epiphany of the Lord the bringing together of three great events that manifest the presence of the Lord: the adoration of the Wise Kings, the Baptism of the Lord and the transformation of water into wine at the wedding of Cana.

After life itself, the greatest natural gift of the Lord to mankind is marriage, which is the permanent and faithful union of a man and woman. Marriage has two purposes: generating and educating the children that they might receive from the Lord, and the mutual loving support of the spouses. As such, marriage is the natural basis of the family, and is fundamental to the well-being of all of society, not just those who are religious. It is for this reason that the preservation of the unique meaning of marriage is not a special or limited interest, but serves the good of all members of society.

Marriage was established by the Lord after the creation of the first woman, but before the Fall. When the Lord presented Eve to Adam, he accepted her, stating: "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Gen 2:23). Interestingly enough the book of Genesis presents immediately afterwards the text that is the biblical ground for the indissolubility of marriage:"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." Jesus Christ quoted this text to demonstrate that marriage can not be dissolved (Mt. 19: 4-6), explaining that the Jewish understanding of marriage that permitted divorce was against the original intent of the Creator (Mk. 10: 2-9).

God has willed to give the union of man and woman a special participation in his work of creation. Indeed, he blessed the man and the woman with the words "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 1:28). Therefore, in the Creator's plan, sexual complementarity and fruitfulness belong to the very nature of marriage. As the liturgy of the Church states in the Nuptial Blessing, marriage is a "blessing which alone was not taken away in the punishment for original sin or in the doom of the Flood."

In the wedding at Cana, where Christ manifested his powers for the first time, marriage was elevated to the dignity of a sacrament. But here also we have the biblical grounds of the doctrine of the intercessory powers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, because Christ anticipated the time of His public manifestation due to her petition, transforming water in wine. Through the presence of Christ in this wedding, a natural gift was transformed into a sacrament, an efficacious sign of grace.

Marriage has been under attack at least since the introduction of civil divorce. Society in an arbitrary way has tried to nullify the gift of marriage trying to destroy its permanent character, which is an essential aspect of the nature of marriage. It is part of the nature of things that a man and a woman should wish to enter into a permanent union, but society erodes this natural good desire, inscribing in its laws that really marriage is not permanent. If it can be dissolved by different causes or worse just by the manifestation of the will of either spouse, how can we call it permanent? With this devaluing of marriage, our "civilized societies" are returning to the barbaric institution of repudiation. We have to remember that this view of marriage, with easy divorce, is not substantially different from mere cohabitation, which can be dissolved by any of the members whenever they wish.

On the slippery slope that leads to an anti-natural society, divorce was the first social sin against life and family, because any attack against the family, which is the natural cradle of life, is also an attack against life. Legal divorce brings about a mindset in many couples that their "marriage" will be maintained until it is comfortable for them, so as a consequence of this grave error they are not ready to make the necessary efforts to solve the difficulties of understanding and communication that marriage life might cause. Instead of trying to solve their difficulties they walk away, legally breaking their marriage. This is like solving the problems caused by a deadly disease through euthanasia.

There is ample evidence of the spiritual and social damage that divorce causes to men and women, and even worse, to children. The children of divorced parents grow without the support of a normally structured family; a family that not only nurtures them, but provides the example of the family that they will create when it is their turn. Through all of this we see clearly that the Church should intensify her efforts to carefully form the couples before they enter into marriage.

In our days, different societies have been legalizing the "marriage" between persons of the same sex, which is clearly against the will of God and the form of natural marriage, which I discussed in my Spirit & Life of October 22^nd. Once the permanence of marriage is removed in law, the question of who (or what or how many) one can marry is up for grabs. If the meaning of marriage really is arbitrary, what boundaries at all can one place on it? How does one define it? Should we be surprised that the promotion of divorce on demand has led to the abomination of homosexual unions?

These old and new attacks against marriage should strengthen our determination to defend marriage as one of the most basic gifts that the Lord has given us. The fact that divorce has been a part of American society for many years should not lessen our commitment to abolish it because it is against the will of God and against the good of society. We have to insist that we cannot have a healthy society with divorce. In the same way we have to resist the new attack against marriage which is the legalization of the union of two persons of the same sex. There is no doubt that the Lord will come to our assistance in the integral defense of marriage.

Human Life International