National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage

The USCCB Subcommittee on Marriage and Family Life has been undertaking a National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage. From time to time I have been sharing with you some of the topical research that the Pastoral Initiative has put together on various challenges to marriage and family life in our world. Recently the Subcommittee enlisted the help of the Center for Applied Research to the Apostolate (CARA), a Catholic-oriented polling organization, to conduct a survey of the attitudes of Catholics about this important topic.

In his initial communication sharing the highlights of the results of this research Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, chairman of the subcommittee has the following observation, “This CARA research report brings the work of our Pastoral Initiative to a new level of understanding. It enhances our commitment to teaching about the gift of marriage, to offering pastoral care for couples and families, and ultimately to the renewal of marriage and family life in our Church and society.” A Viewpoint column by Stephen Kent in last week’s issue of The Catholic Missourian touched on some of the implications of this research. Here follows some of the more interesting results of this survey.

We are encouraged to learn that the majority of Catholic adults say they are either somewhat or very familiar with Church teachings on marriage. They express a wide-ranging understanding of the nature and purposes of marriage that includes beliefs about permanence, commitment, openness to children, the value of spousal love, and the centrality of God in a marriage. Moreover, more than half the respondents said their Catholic faith has informed their view of marriage. All of this provides a good foundation here on which we can build further education and deeper spiritual development.

A good example of both the need and the opportunity for education is in the area of divorce. Some aspects of Church teaching about divorce are not well understood by Catholics or are very challenging to them. On the one hand, Catholics are significantly less likely than the U.S. population to agree that divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can’t seem to resolve their marriage problems. Eighty-seven percent of Catholics say they consider marriage to be a lifetime commitment. Yet, twenty-three percent of adult Catholics have gone through a divorce -- a figure similar to the U.S. population as a whole. Also, seventy-six percent believe divorce to be acceptable in some cases and seventeen percent think it is acceptable in all cases. Findings like these reveal how conflicted people can be about divorce as well as how important it is to give more support to couples to help them sustain and, if necessary, reconcile and restore their marriages.

The Catholic Church in the United States devotes much time and effort to marriage preparation. The CARA research indicates that our resources are well placed. Ninety percent of engaged couples meet with a priest to discuss the sacrament of marriage prior to getting married. Most types of marriage preparation currently being offered are rated at least somewhat helpful by about sixty percent of the respondents. It is interesting to note that the issues (trust and commitment, openness to having children) most dealt with by couples in their preparation period are the very issues that married couples subsequently found to be among the least challenging in their relationship. It seems that the right topics are being addressed in a timely manner.

We are concerned that thirty percent of Catholics have neither married in the Church nor have had their marriage subsequently sanctified by the Church. This reveals a lack of understanding and appreciation of the sacrament of marriage by Catholics and points to the need for more extensive and creative attempts to convey the rich meaning of this sacrament. An even greater concern is the growing rate (41%) of marriage outside the Church among younger Catholics as well as the fact that more than half of unmarried young Catholic adults do not consider it important to be married in the Church. These data may indicate an increasing number of Catholics who are unlikely to experience the full value and graces of the sacrament in the future.

There is encouraging evidence about the importance of children. Most Catholics see children as an essential purpose of marriage and understand that openness to children is a fundamental teaching of the Church regarding marriage. For example, sixty-seven percent understand that part of the sacrament of marriage is lived through the experience of having children -- an experience that is meant to bring the couple closer together and therefore closer to God. Seventy-eight percent agree that watching children grow is life’s greatest joy. Seventy-five percent of never married Catholics consider it somewhat or very important that they and their future spouse agree on the number of children they will have.

Here in the Diocese of Jefferson City Michael Van Gundy, Director of our Family Life Office can assist in identifying and making available various resources to help strengthen marriage and family life. You can contact him here at the Catholic Center, 573-635-9127.