Here is why traditional marriage is so important

The modern definition of marriage, according to the Catholic Church, is for the good of the spouses and the procreation of children.  The idea here is that a man and a woman fall in love, they get married, and they create children and raise them to become productive members of society.  

Yet many people say: "No. Marriage is about love." 

The truth is that marriage is more than love. The idea of “being with someone you love” case fits nicely on a greeting card, but it also contributes to the divorce culture, because the implicit message is that when you no longer love someone, the purpose of the marriage is over. Adults' feelings will trump all, as they too often do already.  

If marriage were just about love, then any two (or more) people who loved one another could marry. There are some people who want to marry their dogs, cats or even pigs because they love them. If marriage is only about love, then that kind of leads down a slippery slope. It could become so watered down that there would be no point to marriage. 

In the traditional sense, people married with the implicit vow that they would stay married and loyal to their spouses "until death do us part."  

There are many examples of people who didn't necessarily love each other who stayed together because it was the right thing to do. One good example here is the wife of Benjamin Franklin. Lord knows Ben wasn't faithful to her, yet she stood by his side.

That's how people used to do it until the progressives came around and said, you know what, we don't have to be faithful anymore. We don't have to do things just because it's right. A perfect example of that is Bill Clinton. He just felt like getting a blowjob in the Oval office and he did just that. The heck with traditional American values. The heck with feeling guilt and taking responsibility for your actions.

Myth Buster: Half of all marriages end in divorce

Statistics show this cartoon is misleading.

There appears to be quite a gloomy view of marriage in our society about marriage, especially considering, as they say, 50 percent of marriage end in divorce.  But, according to livescience.com, this percentage is not even accurate.

The website notes:

It's a common trope: Half of the couples who tie the knot will be untying it before long. In fact, it's true that the divorce rate is about half of the marriage rate, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of 2009, the marriage rate was 6.8 per every 1,000 adults in America, and the divorce rate was 3.6 per 1,000. But simply tallying those numbers doesn't provide a very accurate picture.

That's because the people who are divorcing each year aren't the same ones getting married; the comparison basically stacks up two different generations and equates them as if they're one and the same. Instead, a more revealing way to look at divorce rates is to calculate how many people have ever married and then subsequently divorced. These numbers peg the peak divorce rate, in the 1970s, at about 40 percent. [Marriage & Divorce in America (Infographic)]

The number has declined since, driven by fewer divorces among college-educated men and women, who tend to delay marriage.

So, you see, the divorce rate isn't as high as they say.

The history of marriage

Marriage is a 5,000 year old institution that was not formed to create a stable environment for kids.  It was not an arrangement where a man and a woman could share their eternal love. The true purpose for marriage, according to Fox News, it was a way of getting in laws, of making alliances, and expanding the family labor force.

Historical evidence suggests that most marriages throughout history were arranged marriages to first and second cousins, and the reason for this was to strengthen alliances within the family.  This was necessary in order to keep the peace, but it was also necessary to create a labor force.

If a man married a woman who proved to be infertile, then he was free to dissolve the marriage and to marry another woman.  It was also common for men to have many wives, something that is considered immoral and illegal among most modern societies.

According to uscatholic.org: 

Jesus lived and preached in a world that saw marriage primarily as an economic contract. Jews considered marriage a commandment, but one intended to benefit the wider community by ensuring stability and economic prosperity.

Proverbs 31, today proclaimed at weddings as a poetic tribute to wifely virtue, would have sounded to its original audience like a job description. Can she oversee slaves? Does she understand viniculture? Can she spin both wool and flax? Not only were these skills worth more than rubies, they were far more practical.

By contrast, early Christian communities promoted celibacy and often scorned marriage, since marrying and establishing a household distracted people from preparing for the kingdom of God. Still, limiting the community to only celibate followers had some obvious drawbacks. Instead, early Christians outlawed divorce, polygamy, and incest.

Initially procreating was optional, but the early Christian Church was a "trailblazer" in urging people who were capable of procreating to do just that.  Regardless, guidelines among western civilizations encouraging monogamy were not encouraged until sometime between the sixth and ninth centuries.

During this time there was a battle between the Catholic Church who thought it was important to establish rules for how many wives a man could take, and kings who thought they should be allowed to marry whomever they chose.  Yet in the end the Church won out, and monogamy became the law of the land, at least among western civilizations.

By this time a marriage was considered legal and binding, but only between a man and a woman. Parents who had children that were procreated by extramarital affairs had to pretend these children were their own, or face serious consequences.  Yet by the 19th century people started to become increasingly tolerant to treating all kids as equals.

Prior to the 1500s the Church stayed out of marriage vows, and generally took the word of the couple that they had exchanged vows. After this time, and until the 1980s, the Church required the couple to wear banns indicating that they were indeed married, and had documents and witnesses.

Massachusetts was the first state to require marriage licenses in 1639, and by the 19th century most states required them.

The idea of marrying for love and sexual desire did not enter the marriage picture until about 250 years ago (about 1750).  Yet mutual attraction in marriage did not begin didn't truly begin until about 100 years ago, or around the turn of the 20th century.  It was at this time that family arranged marriages started to give way to love marriages, whereby a man and a woman fell in love and wed.

What played a key role in this transition was the transition from an agricultural economy to a market economy.  The reason for this was that, in an agricultural economy, parents maintained access to inheritance of agricultural land.  Since land was essential for economic growth, and the security of the family, arranged marriages continued to be of importance.  Yet this all changed with the market economy, thus ending the arranged marriage. For the first time ever people could marry whomever they chose.

The transition from monarchies and totalitarian dictatorships to democracies may also have played a role in the transition.  This was because as people democracies allowed people to utilize their natural right of free choice.  Over time people realized that freedom meant the right to choose whoyou spend the rest of your life with.

So, you see, it is only a modern notion that marriage is about love and sexual desires.

What are the Seven Sacriments

There are seven sacraments of the Catholic Faith, and there purpose is to make people Holy, to build up the body of Christ, and to give worship to God.

The firs three sacraments are the sacraments of initiation, or the primary sacraments for which the rest of our life as a Christian depends.

1.  Baptism: This is when we are cleansed of the original sins, receive the sanctifying grace (theological virtues), and enter into the Church. The receiving of the sanctifying grace prepares us to receive the other sacraments and to live our lives as good Christians, or to rise above cardinal virtues that can be practiced by anyone.

2.  Confirmation: It's the perfection of Baptism, and gives us the grace to live our life as a Christian. This is a process where the individual is educated in the way of the Church, and then graduates (becomes confirmed).

3.  Eucharist (Holy Communion): This is the only one of the sacraments of initiation that is received more than once, and may be received daily.  It is where we consume the Body of Christ in order to unite us with Him and to help us grow in our Faith.

The rest of the sacraments are as follows:

4.  Penance (Confession/ Reconciliation): It is when we ask for forgiveness for our sins, and receive absolution, or forgiveness for our sins. When we sin we deprive ourselves of God's grace, so it is important to acknowledge our sins and ask for forgiveness and absolution. Absolution allows grace to return to our souls so we can once again resist sin. It is one of the sacraments that may be received more than once, and should be received often.

5.  Anointing of the Sick (Extreme Unction, Last Rites): It is administered to the dying for the remission of sins and the provision of spiritual strength and health. It can be repeated as often as necessary.

6.  Matrimony: It is the union between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation and mutual support, or love. Each spouse in a marriage gives up some rights over his or her life in exchange for rights over the life of the other spouse. Marriage is meant to be a lifelong union.

7.  Holy Orders (Ordination): This sacrament is a continuation of Christ's priesthood, which He bestowed upon his apostles.  It is when man is incorporated into into the priesthood of Christ at one of three levels:

1. Episcopate: The office of Bishop, the first rank of holy orders 
2. Presbyterate: The priesthood, the second rank of holy orders
3. Diaconate: A ministry of mercy who reaches out and offers help to those in need. 

Will the Catholic Church ever support gay marriage?

Remember a few weeks ago when Pope Francis spoke before an assembly of Bishops, saying that the church must take a more accepting approach toward gays, unmarried mothers, and unmarried couples. Journalists were so excited they could hardly contain themselves.

Yet when Bishops failed to approve even a watered down version of it, this wasn't even reported.  Also not reported were the words of Pope Francis at the International Miriam Conference, where, as reported by CNA:...

He warned against the common view in society that “you can call everything family, right?”

“What is being proposed is not marriage, it’s an association. But it’s not marriage! It’s necessary to say these things very clearly and we have to say it!” Pope Francis stressed.

He lamented that there are so many “new forms” of unions which are “totally destructive and limiting the greatness of the love of marriage.”

Not a word was mentioned about this. And I don't care whether you are in favor of gay marriage (as I am) or opposed to it.  I think this is simply bad journalism.

On the other hand, will the Catholic Church ever accept gay marriage?  Personally, I think the first step is for the Church to decide to accept gay people as equally deserving of its blessings.  I think if there is any group deserving of respect it's gay Catholics who are living in hiding.  And there is evidence this is already occurring.

I think it would be a dangerous slippery slope for the Catholic Church to cave on the issue of marriage, particularly considering it is one based on principle, and one must never back down on principle.  Besides, if the Catholic Church caves on this issue, then the government will find some twisted and perverted way of forcing Catholic priests who don't accept gay marriage to perform marriages between same sex couples.

Sorry media, but your excitement might have just been a little premature.  Regardless, your giddiness is evidence of your bias.  Instead of pushing forth your agenda, you might best serve the people by doing your job as watchdogs for the American public.

(11/8/14) Update:  Pope Francis participates in significant meeting in Rome to determine what to do about the increased acceptance of gay marriage, and it appears as though he is closer to deciding to accept both gay marriage.  Many U.S. Bishops are outraged.

Chapter 7: The first counseling session

She said, "... so the problem with your marriage..."

"Hold on there," he said, rolling back in the recliner, looking at the balls in the corner that were obviously a prop to use when a child sat in this room, "There's no problem with our marriage." He looked at his wife, whose expression said "What the F are you talking about?"

He continued: "There's no more problem with our marriage than any other marriage.  There's no more problem with our marriage than that of my parents, and they've been married for 4000 years."

Without realizing it, he was leaning leaning forward in his chair, an indication, perhaps, of his passion.

"So," Dr. Helen Lockhorn said, "Then why are you here?"  She was a corpulent lady with aged lines around her face eyes, rounded out by a large gray bun of hair, perhaps representative of years of listening to the problems of married folks.  Her exuberant personality, her deportment of cordial delight, was perhaps a token of years of practice, a habit, per se, more so than a  sign of what she was feeling or thinking.

"Because my parents didn't have access to the Internet and Facebook," he continued, "a constant barrage of people trying to convince her there's a problem with their marriage. I remember my dad storming out of the house because my mom was mean to him, and then life went on. Of course I saw the opposite many times too.  Men and women have been getting married for thousands of years, and they have never seen eye to eye.  But now all of a sudden when a husband and wife don't see eye to eye it's abnormal?"

"Well..."

"Then you have lawyers and divorce counselors who thrive on this."

"Well...

"The problem with our marriage is the constant barrage of too much information. Or, better, yet, too many opinions.  There are people like you -- no offense -- who thrive on conflict.  Liberalism thrives on conflict.  hey like to convince people there's conflict -- like the war on climate change and the war on women -- just so they can be perceived to be the people with the solutions."

"I've never heard of it put that way."

"I'm not saying you do a bad job, because this is our first appointment.  I'm just saying that our marriage isn't any different than the union of any other intelligent and highly opinionated people."

"Then why are you here?" she said.

He leaned back on the couch and realized the conversation occurred in his mind. It was a euphoric dream, the kind you wished you didn't have to wake from.