Most marriages today are invalid, Pope Francis suggests

Take 20 random married couples under 35 who have been married for less than 5 years. Ask them "Do you think that divorce is an option if your marriage becomes boring and you think you no longer 'feel' in love"

Almost all are going to say yes. It is a problem. I see it way too often. That 'feeling I have an out' right there makes most marriages a candidate for annulment. It is mostly a cause of the society we live in today that does not teach the couple correctly. EVEN if the parents work on it over and over, the popular culture can have a strong influence. Trust me, I know.

I wish this was not the case. But it is where we are.

Love is a decision! We need to decide every day to love our spouse. And as my spouse knows, some days are easier than others .

 

On the contrary, claiming a civil marriage is sacramental and capable of conferring grace is indeed something new.

Stop tempting people against our Pope when he did nothing of the sort. There's more wishing for division and schism justification in the hearts of those who claim to be above it all than in those who for so long have been led astray by such pride and ill teaching by the so called "mainstream" Church.....or....the "establishment" Church. Pray for the Pope....but especially for those around him who themselves wish to be popes and divide everything. It's the heart that is seen by God and He will give graces as necessary to come closer to Him.....just as Jesus Christ did for those in ignorance (and not most of time due solely to themselves) all around Him. He sought them out and asked others who followed Him to do the same.....instead of ostracizing them on the basis of the legalists!

 

Where There is No Hatred of Heresy,
There is No Holiness

by Father Frederick William Faber

If we hated sin as we ought to hate it, purely, keenly, manfully, we should do more penance, we should inflict more self-punishment, we should sorrow for our sins more abidingly.

Then, again, the crowning disloyalty to God is heresy. It is the sin of sins, the very loathsomest of things which God looks down upon in this malignant world. Yet how little do we understand of its excessive hatefulness! It is the polluting of God’s truth, which is the worst of all impurities.

Yet how light we make of it! We look at it, and are calm. We touch it and do not shudder. We mix with it, and have no fear. We see it touch holy things, and we have no sense of sacrilege. We breathe its odor, and show no signs of detestation or disgust.

Some of us affect its friendship; and some even extenuate its guilt. We do not love God enough to be angry for His glory. We do not love men enough to be charitably truthful for their souls.

Having lost the touch, the taste, the sight, and all the senses of heavenly-mindedness, we can dwell amidst this odious plague, in imperturbable tranquillity, reconciled to its foulness, not without some boastful professions of liberal admiration, perhaps even with a solicitous show of tolerant sympathies.

Why are we so far below the old saints, and even the modern apostles of these latter times, in the abundance of our conversations? Because we have not the antique sternness? We want the old Church-spirit, the old ecclesiastical genius. Our charity is untruthful, because it is not severe; and it is unpersuasive, because it is untruthful.
We lack devotion to truth as truth, as God’s truth. Our zeal for souls is puny, because we have no zeal for God’s honor. We act as if God were complimented by conversions, instead of trembling souls rescued by a stretch of mercy.

We tell men half the truth, the half that best suits our own pusillanimity and their conceit; and then we wonder that so few are converted, and that of those few so many apostatize.
We are so weak as to be surprised that our half- truth has not succeeded so well as God’s whole truth.

Where there is no hatred of heresy, there is no holiness.

A man, who might be an apostle, becomes a fester in the Church for the want of this righteous abomination. We need St. Michael to put new hearts into us in these days of universal heresy.

But devotion to the Precious Blood, with its hymning of the Church and its blazoning of the Sacraments will give us Michael’s heart and the craft to use Michael’s sword. Who ever drew his sword with nobler haste, or used his victory more tenderly, than that brave archangel, whose war-cry was All for God?

The Precious Blood is His Blood, who is especially Uncreated Truth. It is His Blood who came with His truth to redeem souls.

Hence love of souls is another grace, which comes from the spirit of devotion to the Precious Blood. I wish “the love of souls” were words that were not so shortly said. They mean so much that we should linger over them, in order to imbibe their sweetness, perhaps also their medicinal bitterness as well.

A volume would hardly say all that wants saying upon this matter. In all ages of the Church a zeal for souls is a most necessary grace; and this is hardly an age in which it is less necessary than usual.

Alas! It is a rare gift, incredibly rare, rare even amongst us priests, and a gift unfortunately dishonored more than most gifts by base counterfeits and discreditable impostures.

Of all things that can be named, the love of souls is perhaps the most distinctively Catholic. It seems to be a supernatural sense, belonging only to the Church.

There are several classes of saints, classes divided from each other by wide discrepancies of grace, and a dissimilitude, almost an incompatibility, of gifts. Yet the love of souls is an instinct common to all saints of whatever class.

It is a grace, which implies the accompaniment of the greatest number of graces and the exercise of the greatest number of virtues. It is the grace which irreligious people most dislike; for it is a grace which is peculiarly obnoxious to the worldly.

It is a gift also, which requires an unusually fine spiritual discernment; for it is always and everywhere the harmony of enthusiasm and discretion. Natural activity, vulgar emulation, the bustle of benevolence, the love of praise, the habit of meddling. The over-estimate of our own abilities, the hot-headedness of unripe fervor, the obstinacy of peculiar views, the endless foolishnesses of indocile originality — all these things prepare so many delusions for the soul, and so multiply them by combining in varieties, that the gift of counsel and the virtue of prudence, as well as the cool audacity of an apostle, are needed for the exercise of this love of souls.

It is also a very laborious grace, wearing the spirit, fatiguing the mind, disappointing the heart.

This is the reason why in so many persons it is a short-lived grace. It is a part of almost everybody’s fervor, while it is part of the perseverance of very few. It is a grace which never grows old, never has the feelings of age, or the repose of age, or the slowness of age.

Hence many men cast it aside as a thing which belongs to youth, as if it were a process to be gone through, and then there was an end of it. The soul of an apostle is always youthful. It was mature in its young prudence; and it is impetuous in its grey-haired zeal.

- Taken from The Precious Blood, Chapter VI “The Devotion To The Precious Blood”, by Frederick William Faber, originally published by Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., Publishers to the Holy See with a Dedication by Fr. Faber dated 1860 on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

 

This finds an echo with 'eccles' today:

http://ecclesandbosco.blogspot.ie/ [One needs a laugh these days].

Is our pope out of control?

Why bother work at your marriage when the pope himself provides an easy out?

Will they be able to keep up with the annulment applications?

Will they even bother with annulment applications, sure their 'marriages' are meaningless?

But, he also says that you're probably in a proper marriage if you fornicate.

Black is white. Up is down. The sky is underfoot.

Christ help us.

 

Well, if such misunderstandings have been caused throughout the whole world, in all the major media, about something so absolutely fundamental (the basis of human society and the image of Christ's relationship with His church), we will assuredly hear a comprehensive, unambiguous clarification from Pope Francis in order to clear up any possible doubt...

 

If you want a valid criticism on why he maybe should not have said what he did, I think this is a valid concern... Edward Peters, a U.S. canon lawyer who has been an adviser to the Vatican, wrote that the pope's words were "very bad" because they could spur couples in difficult marriages to "give up now" instead of trying to overcome problems.

 

I wouldn't disagree with you. I'm merely pointing out that it appears to me the Pope is taking the valid teaching that the Church doesn't marry anyone because the couple marry each other and stretching it to include couples whose marriages are invalid by fudging the lines between the sacramental and valid. According to the Pope, God pours his grace on such unions. He doesn't say whether that's a little grace, a lot of grace or the full outpouring of grace that comes with a marriage that is both sacramental and valid.

I also get the impression that this most recent statement is laying the groundwork for implementing the real intention of Amoris Laetitia which is opening Communion to anyone who shows up, be they remarried divorcees or other not validly married couples, even same sex couples. If you wanted to enlist support for an innovation and marginalise all those who are likely to oppose you, what would you do? Would you set out to please just one section or pitch your message to bring as many as possible on board? Don't forget that it isn't just the couples in "irregular situations" that will be supporting this. Their parents and other relatives are unlikely to push hard against it. After all, the Pope is putting their loved ones right with God and what worried parent wouldn't grasp the opportunity with both hands?

We can blame Pope Francis all we want but the truth is that a lack of faith in Church teaching has crept up on us over decades if not centuries. What's the solution? Plodding along as we are while the haemorrhage increases? The scatter gun approach of denying all sacraments to anyone who doesn't commit unconditionally to conforming their lives to Church teaching? Pope Francis appears to be adopting the approach of something is better than nothing so give the sacraments to anybody who shows up and be grateful to see them. How much worse is his approach than what has been happening on the ground where very few Bishops had the courage to address it openly and those who did were mocked as unmerciful dinosaurs? To me it's a lot worse but I can see why others embrace it. I believe that we will eventually see the scatter gun approach possibly even towards the end of my lifetime. That will give us a purer, remnant Church but it will take a major upheaval not least because it raises the issue of infant baptism.

 

Perhaps a more balanced approach:

The Pope’s comments about modern marriage have raised eyebrows – but he has a point

by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith
posted Friday, 17 Jun 2016

Pope Francis discussed marriage at a meeting with Rome's parishes at St John Lateran yesterday (AP)
Our current approach to marriage preparation is failing catastrophically

The Pope’s recent comments on marriage, which have raised a few eyebrows, do at least contain one statement with which I wholeheartedly agree. It is this: “Marriage is the most difficult area of pastoral work.”

As for the rest of what the Pope has said, most of this raises a “Yes, but…” response from me.

But one thing has to be underlined: our marriage preparation is not doing its job. There are lots of people who are entering marriage ill-prepared for it and with little understanding of the sacrament.

I myself have known engaged couples who simply should not have got married. I was not, needless to say, presiding at their weddings. If I had been it would have been the cause of a considerable crisis of conscience on my part.

But even if I had been charged with “marrying” them, it would have been next to impossible to have intervened and stopped the wedding. Couples determined to marry may have little self-knowledge; one party may be self-deluded and the other party deluded; but the only way out of those delusions may be the school of bitter experience.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/com...iage-have-raised-eyebrows-but-he-has-a-point/

 

I think it was in Akita that Our Lady said that the church would be filled with those who accept compromise. That's where we now are. In the June 2nd message in Medjugorje Our Lady said 'pray for the church, love it and do works of love, no matter how betrayed or wounded it is here because it comes from the Heavenly Father', and she as usual asks us to pray for the shepherds. I think we should pray now as she requests. That's the only way forward.

 

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/the-great-majority-of-christian-marriages-are-valid/
The great majority of Christian marriages are valid
Last time a ranking prelate (Cdl. Kasper) opined that half of all marriages were null his attribution of such a reckless assertion to Pope Francis himself could be dismissed as hearsay, deflected as referring to marriage in general and not Christian marriage in particular, or at least minimized as describing merely ‘many’ or even ‘half’ of all marriages. But none of those qualifications can be applied to blunt the impact of the pope’s startling claim “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null”.

If last time was bad, this time is very bad.

Consider: Marriage is that natural human relationship established by God as the normal way for nearly all adults to live most of their lives. God blesses marriage and assists married persons to live in accord with this beautiful state in life. When, moreover, baptized persons enter this quintessential human relationship, Christ adds the special graces of a sacrament and assists married Christians to live as signs of his everlasting spousal union with his Church.

To assert, then, that “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null” is really to claim that the great majority of Christians have failed to enter the most natural of human states and have failed to effect between themselves the exact sacrament that Christ instituted to assist them in it. The collapse of human nature presupposed for such a social catastrophe and the massive futility of the Church’s sanctifying mission among her own faithful evidenced by such a debacle would be—well, it would be the matrimonial version of nuclear winter. I am at a loss to understand how anyone who knows anything about either could seriously assert that human nature is suddenly so corrupted and Christ’s sacraments are now so impotent as to have prevented “the great majority” of Christians from even marrying! How can anyone responsibly even posit such a dark and dismal claim, let alone demonstrate it?

But beyond the arresting scope of the claim that nullity is rampant, there is the debilitating effect that such a view can and doubtless will have on couples in difficult marriage situations. After all, if “the great majority” of Christian marriages are, as alleged by Francis, already null, then couples struggling in difficult marriages and looking for the bread of spiritual and sacramental encouragement may instead be offered stones of despair—‘your marriage is most likely null, so give up now and save everyone a lot of time and trouble.’

This is just a blog post so, simply invoking the same extensive credentials to speak on Catholic marriage law that I invoked two years ago, let me just say that I believe that the great majority of Christian marriages are valid, that a matrimonial contract was therefore effected between the parties at the time of their wedding, and that by the will of Christ an indissoluble sacramental bond simultaneously arose between those spouses. To be clear, I also hold that many marriages are (and could be proven to be) canonically null and that the percentage of null marriages has indeed risen over recent decades, but I can and do reject anyone’s claim that the majority, let alone “the great majority”, of Christian marriages are null.

+ + +

Finally—and I make this point mostly to preserve it for future discussion—the pope, toward the end of these remarks, made some comments about cohabiting and/or civilly married Catholics being in “a real marriage [and having] the grace of a real marriage”. Canonically (if I may be forgiven for mentioning canon law) such a claim is incoherent. Whatever good might be going on in the life of cohabiting and/or civilly married Catholic couples, it is not the good of marriage and it is not the grace of matrimony, but this—and here is my point—largely because of the Church’s requirement of canonical form for marriage. I would be glad to see the requirement of canonical form eliminated, but unless and until it is, cohabitation and civil-only marriage is not marriage in the Catholic Church.

 

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/even-if-the-pope-said-it-it-was-reckless-to-repeat-it/
Even if the pope said it, it was reckless to repeat it
Cardinal Kasper, in a lengthy interview that shows no let-up in his push to change Church discipline on marriage, said, among other things, “I’ve spoken to the pope himself about this, and he said he believes that 50 percent of marriages are not valid.”

I am stunned at the pastoral recklessness of such an assertion. Simply stunned.

Suppose the cardinal had claimed that “50 percent of ordinations are not valid”. Would not such a claim, coming from an internationally-renowned prelate and attributed to a pope, have a shattering effect on the morale of deacons, priests, and bishops around the world? Would not especially those clergy laboring under vocational difficulties immediately conclude that their difficulties were the consequence of having been invalidly ordained, whereupon most of them would just give up? And would not those preparing for holy orders be paralyzed with fear over proceeding to ordination until whatever is behind such a massive invalidity rate were discovered and remedied? Of course they would.

Well, if tossing out a comment to clergy alleging rampant invalidity of holy orders would be pastorally unthinkable, by what right does the cardinal casually tell laity that 50% of their marriages are invalid—even if the pope did say it? Does turmoil among married persons in the wake of such a remark not matter to any except those who suffer it? As I said, I am stunned that such a remark was made, even if it was a mere repetition of another’s views.

But, no matter who said it—and I have no patience left for this string of ‘guess-what-the-pope-supposedly-told-me’ disclosures—let me outline several reasons why the claim that ‘half of all marriages are null’ is not just reckless, it’s also wrong.

I preface my remarks thus: I worked in diocesan tribunals for more than 10 years and concluded that hundreds of the marriage cases I saw therein were canonically null; I have been married for nearly 30 years; and I have seen, in my own family and among my closest friends, dozens of successful and failed marriages, some of those latter being canonically null, others just ruined. In short, my perspectives here are at least as professionally credentialed and as personally experienced as anyone else’s.

1. Marriage is, before anything else, a natural contract. Any claim, therefore, about “marriage”—including the shocking claim that half of all marriages are invalid—must be true about marriage as entered into by the great majority of the world’s population; that, or it must be abandoned. So, does Cdl. Kasper really think that half of the marriages around the world are invalid? If not, he should never have expressed himself so.

2. But perhaps the prelate only had in mind sacramental marriages (marriages entered into by two baptized persons) when he asserted that half of all marriages are null. But, if sacramental marriage perfects natural marriage and if grace builds on nature, what would make Christian marriage less stable than natural marriage?

Actually, a few things come to mind.

Some Catholic marriages are invalid for reasons having nothing to do with natural law, because they were, say, entered into by boys under age 16 contrary to Canon 1084 or by renegade priests contrary to Canon 1087. But those invalid marriages represent a proverbial drop in the bucket of invalid unions; their presence hardly allows one to claim that half of all marriages among the baptized, or even among Catholics, are invalid.

Admittedly one source of canonical nullity has no foundation whatsoever in natural law yet accounts for thousands of invalid marriages among Catholics: what I have described as the outdated requirement of canonical form. But, while this requirement allows tens of thousands of Catholics to walk away from ‘marriages’ that we would require Protestants (and indeed all non-Catholics) to honor, violation of form does not occur in numbers that would make half of all marriages, even among Catholics, let alone among Protestants, to say nothing of non-Christians, invalid. Not even close.

Or perhaps Cdl. Kasper wants to take on the “automatic sacramentality” point of Church teaching on marriage (see 1983 CIC 1055), and from there tease out a contractual invalidity argument for any sacramentum fidei attentatum sine fide, but I’ve seen nothing so complex offered yet.

Well, there is much more to say, but keeping in mind that this is only a blog post, let me conclude by reminding all that a long, long tradition of Church teaching recognizes humans’ natural capacity for marriage, reminds Christians that the grace of matrimony adds to the stability of marriage, and presumes the validity of all marriages unless and until it is proven otherwise.

In short, the validity of marriage far exceeds the odds one enjoys in a coin toss. +++

Update: Two more posts on this matter are: Cdl. Kasper’s claim cannot be ignored (8 may 2014), and Does Canon 1066 amount to a coin toss? (9 may 2014).

 

"The final confrontation between the Lord and Satan will be over marriage and the family"

Words attributed to Sr. Lucia of Fatima

 

Apparently the Holy Father also stated that priests should not 'put pressure on cohabiting couples', as, 'by living together their union may eventually ripen into a Sacramental union' So that confronted by a sinfu situation that may lead to them both winding up in hell a priest shoudl not speak out as it may do more harm than good.

I don't know quite were to start with that one.

Again there are times when people say something so outrageous that it is like being suddenly transported to some wild and unnerving other dimension were trees grow upside down and there is no longer any force called gravity, no light, no time, just weird otherness.

You are left with your mouth wide open, gaping speechless, awed into complete silence by the utter bizareness of it all.

You realise at once you have landed on Planet Bizarro and normal rules of reality no longer apply..

Comment is superflous because the rules no longer apply here. Best to stay silent and hope that the force that has transported you to Bizarro transports you safely homewards again.

 

It is bizarre but as Crewdog keeps stating and I agree 100%, this is all God's plan.

 

'....strict logical categories are really foreign to the Pope's thinking and way of expressing himself,'

Yes , exactly what I thought Peter. Planet Bizarro.

Imagine I got into a vehicle and at once crashed it into a wall. I got out of the wreck , people sypmpathised and gave me adivice on how to avoid such a wreck i nfutre.

Then I got back in another vehicle and ran straight into another wall. Now suppose I kept on doing this vehicle after vahicle wall after wall.

They Holy Father keeps doing this wreck after wrech with this off the cuff remarks. Then the Vaticna Press office rushes up with with bits of canvas to cover the wreck from our horrifed eyes.

Now what are we to think of someone who keeps getting into wrecks like this and never learns from his mistakes?

Well we might suppose he is drunk of on drugs. No I donit suppose for a moemnt the Holy Father is on any intoxicants.

We might suppose the driver is crazy. Well to be honest after reading some of his perorations which I and others ottally cannot understand I do sometimes wonder. But no I will give him the benefit of the doubt on that one too.

My third and inscable conclusion is that as a sane, sober , thinking person driving repeatedly into these wrecks is that he knows exactly what he is doing and has an aenda in what he is doing. That he means and meant to wreck the car in the first place.

If he has indeed no strict logical categories I hope he grows a few before he destroys the Church. A Pope without strict logical categories is not in my opinion such a good idea. Even my dogs have the basic logic that is they do bad things bad things happen to them. So they learn and no longer do the bad things. Logic.

The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Pess Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up, The Holy Father does and says bad things , then the Press Office do a conver up; then he says some more bad things, then the Press Office do a cover up, then he says more bad things and the Press Office do a cover up.....

 

It is Pope Francis who is the legalist here. Who but a pharisee would proclaim the vast majority of marriages invalid-now, that's what I would call legalism?

I will have to reread the Gospels. I could have sworn that Our Lord asked the sinners he met to abandon their sins, as He forgave them.

 

I feel lie someone who keeps shouting, 'Fire' in a burning building and some folks pay attention some don't.

I don;t intend to keep shouting 'fire', as a career move. By this stage of the game if folks do not indeed realsie that there is a serious fire in progress , if they have not woken up and smelt the coffee, well I suppose they never will. I will leave this subject until the next off the cuff remark and consequent car wreck.

I am off to mass. I will leave you with a story that seems apt:

 

My younger daughter married not quite three years ago. Both she and her husband-to-be were baptized Catholic but not living their faith. She realized that it was important for them to return to the Church to give them the best chance of a successful marriage. They were living together so the first step was to live apart, go to confession, and return to the sacraments. Her fiancee was beyond lukewarm to the idea so she sought the counsel of a priest. He told them that most couples that go into pre-wedding preparations are living together. He suggested that they lie on their questionnaire to make it easier on everyone and that she just put down her parent's address as her own. She was furious and shocked. Her fiancee thought that was a great idea. She moved back to Oregon and left her fiancee in New Jersey to satisfy their separation until marriage.

My daughter called her parish priest back in Oregon and he backed her up 1000%. But the damage was done.



The next hurdle, yes, hurdle was to find a church in Portland because we live in a very small coastal community. The deacon at one church also told her most couples are living together so they have had to make some "compromises".

On her Pre Cana retreat for marriage prep, while both bride and groom were assigned separate rooms, many snuck into each other's rooms for the night..........all sanctity of marriage talk apparently in one ear and out the other. But Mary, my daughter, thought that the Deacon and his wife were the icing on the cake. She said that they ended up talking about the joy of sex and their own personal experiences in the bedroom, My daughter was humiliated to even be sitting in a Catholic retreat house and listen to such a worldly presentation of what real marriage meant.

We had the help of several old family friend priests (God bless the Dominicans), they were married. But this whole process shocked me on a number of occasions.

Our Holy Father has a supernatural relationship with God who sees all things. They talk. I'd bet my life on it.

EDIT: My daughter told me that it was a lay couple leading the Pre Cana retreat, not a Deacon and his wife. And I was incorrect about the overnight retreat. The couples who were living together went back home each night of the two day retreat to the same house. Sorry.

 

What can we do but pray and go to church?
I often wonder if Pope Francis is certain that the Illumination of Conscience is going to occur soon. It is as if he knows that all of these things will be taken care of when the I of C happens. "Who am I to Judge" when he knows that God is going to be judging, with mercy but still. I don't know why exactly he would say "the great majority..." but maybe he is not certain how to be the shepherd for us when he knows that God is going to be intervening soon. In other words, if God feels the need to intervene then what can he do to improve things? It is like he is pointing out the problems and is at loss of how to fix them, so he appears confused.
(Let's say you were him, working for the ultimate boss and you know that the boss is coming in a few months and there is no time to really fix anything. Pope Francis is agreeing, yep, we have a mess here, I can see why the boss is showing up soon. Pope Francis is the guy left holding the bag in a sense. I pray for him.)
No one needs to agree with me, maybe it is just my way of finding peace with everything. Instead of screaming "Fire", I keep saying to myself "It's God's plan, it's God's plan."
The other thing I have tried to do is tell people about the I of C, and very few are receptive to it. They are ready to commit me to the pysch ward. Which is just more proof to me that it will occur and then they will see. So maybe I am screaming "Fire" and I'm getting blank stares back at me.

 

I am not in a position to determine whether most marriages are null, but there is a lot of good points being made on both sides of this debate.

What I would like to bring up is the fact that I believe marriage is so hard is because our modern society is very much against family. If society had a list of priorities... marriage and family would be far from first on the list.

I subscribe to a channel on youtube called Sensus Fidelium. One day a Father was giving a talk about how the education system goes against nature. Todays education system has children go through a minimum of 12 years of education, followed by 4 years of post secondary. By the time this education has happened a person is typically 22-24 years old and has around 50,000-100,000 dollars of debt. Then the person enters the work force on the bottom rung and has to work their way up to gain experience to earn a higher wage, while paying off their debt load. A person is typically 30 years old before they pay off the debt and have enough seniority to earn a decent wage. Then if they want to get married they have to save money for a house and the wedding. So by the age of 32 at the earliest a person is ready to get married and have children. This is if everything goes perfectly, which rarely happens. Yet the time for having children is when people are young, in their teens and twenties. Just like birth control goes against the family and nature, so does the education system.

This is just one example of the stresses on the family. With so many stresses on marriage and family its easy to see why so many fail, and why so many people co-habitate prior to marriage. With such a system, sinning against God is a natural outcome. Much like a garden, if it is not tended and maintained with the support of nature and a gardener, the garden will fail and go wild.

The Church now has to navigate a path through the context that marriage and the family is currently in, while holding onto Teaching. I do not believe the answer is as simple as claiming that most marriages are null, thereby allowing people to get married again, which is just a loop hole in Teaching. But in light of the current context I must agree with the Pope that most marriages are Null. People in my local Church only need to be baptized and go to two pre-cana classes in order to be married. People getting married today have no idea what a marriage actually is because marriage and family is not a priority in the world. The catholic school I grew up in did not teach the Catechism. I figured I knew my faith growing up because I went to a Catholic school and Church on Sundays, it is a very false assumption that many have. Thank God for the internet because without it I would still be in the dark.

These interdependent factors which contribute to the current state of marriage also need to be addressed by the Church. If they are not Marriage will continue its decline. I am not suggesting people deserve a free pass on Divorce, but in light of the current context its hard to expect Marriages to thrive.