The Holy Father demonstrates how the Church supports marriage and family ...

"Pope Francis married 20 couples on Sunday, some of whom had already lived together and had children..." - Source

It seems to me all that secular media and papal critics take from these stories is that the Holy Father married couples already 'living in sin.'  They seem unable to comprehend the act of reconciliation which occurred, the blessing it brought to couples - especially those with children.  It demonstrated nothing is impossible with God - there is always a way back.  The Pope blessed these couples, dignified and sanctified their love, uniting them to Christ and the Church.  Surely the couples had been properly prepared beforehand to celebrate the Sacrament of Matrimony.  

I like very much what the Holy Father had to say in his homily.  An excerpt:

The love of Christ, which has blessed and sanctified the union of husband and wife, is able to sustain their love and to renew it when, humanly speaking, it becomes lost, wounded or worn out. The love of Christ can restore to spouses the joy of journeying together. This is what marriage is all about: man and woman walking together, wherein the husband helps his wife to become ever more a woman, and wherein the woman has the task of helping her husband to become ever more a man. Here we see the reciprocity of differences. The path is not always a smooth one, free of disagreements, otherwise it would not be human. It is a demanding journey, at times difficult, and at times turbulent, but such is life! Marriage is a symbol of life, real life: it is not “fiction”! It is the Sacrament of the love of Christ and the Church, a love which finds its proof and guarantee in the Cross. - Pope Francis

"God’s mercy does not dispense us from following his commandments or the rules of the Church."

 

 

Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller on remarried divorcees.

God’s mercy does not dispense us from following his commandments or the rules of the Church. Rather it supplies us with the grace and strength needed to fulfill them, to pick ourselves up after a fall, and to live life in its fullness according to the image of our heavenly Father. - On the indissolubility of marriage, Archbishop Muller

 

Failing an annulment, a divorced and remarried Catholic could be admitted to the reception of communion, if...

Where nullity of marriage cannot be demonstrated, the requirement for absolution and reception of communion, according to the Church’s established and approved practice, is that the couple live “as friends, as brother and sister”. Blessings of irregular unions are to be avoided, “lest confusion arise among the faithful concerning the value of marriage”. A blessing (bene-dictio: divine sanctioning) of a relationship that contradicts the will of God is a contradiction in terms. - ibid

It seems to me that this practice could apply to same sex friends who decide to live chastely and celibately in fidelity to Catholic teaching on sexuality.  Catholic teaching on marriage can never be changed to permit same sex marriage or the blessing of civil unions for this very reason:

Blessings of irregular unions are to be avoided, “lest confusion arise among the faithful concerning the value of marriage”. A blessing (bene-dictio: divine sanctioning) of a relationship that contradicts the will of God is a contradiction in terms. - ibid

As for the appeal to Christ's mercy, it may help to be understood this way:

A further case for the admission of remarried divorcees to the sacraments is argued in terms of mercy. Given that Jesus himself showed solidarity with the suffering and poured out his merciful love upon them, mercy is said to be a distinctive quality of true discipleship. This is correct, but it misses the mark when adopted as an argument in the field of sacramental theology. The entire sacramental economy is a work of divine mercy and it cannot simply be swept aside by an appeal to the same. An objectively false appeal to mercy also runs the risk of trivializing the image of God, by implying that God cannot do other than forgive. The mystery of God includes not only his mercy but also his holiness and his justice. If one were to suppress these characteristics of God and refuse to take sin seriously, ultimately it would not even be possible to bring God’s mercy to man. Jesus encountered the adulteress with great compassion, but he said to her “Go and do not sin again” (Jn 8:11). God’s mercy does not dispense us from following his commandments or the rules of the Church. Rather it supplies us with the grace and strength needed to fulfil them, to pick ourselves up after a fall, and to live life in its fullness according to the image of our heavenly Father. - ibid

Bishop Cordileone - straight talker.

“Marriage is about fundamental justice for children,” he said. “Children do best with a mother and a father.” - Bishop Cordileone

Bishop Cordileone is one of my very favorite bishops in the United States.  Why?  Because he's a straight talker - he teaches Catholic doctrine clearly and distinctly, in direct language anyone can understand - and he does so with genuine charity and concern for the welfare of contemporary men, women and children.  In defending the family, he defends the Faith.

Washington D.C., Jul 3, 2012 / 04:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The legalization of “gay marriage” in America, even on a civil level, is unjust to children and poses a threat to religious liberty, warned Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland, Calif.

“Marriage is the only institution we have that connects children to their mothers and fathers,” he said. “So really, the question is, do you support that institution?”

In a June interview with CNA, Bishop Cordileone, who leads the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, explained that Church teaching against the redefinition of marriage on a civil level as well as a sacramental level is a matter of justice. 

He acknowledged that advocates of “same-sex marriage” point to studies that appear to indicate that children can do just as well with two parents of the same sex as with two parents of the opposite sex.

However, he called much of this research “flawed” and pointed to a recent article published in the leading peer-reviewed journal, “Social Science Research.” The article analyzed the 59 studies on the topic used by American Psychological Association and found that they were problematic because they utilized self-selecting or “small, non-representative samples” of the population.

In contrast, he said, a recent social science study conducted at the University of Texas at Austin – entitled “The New Family Structures Study” – examined a very large, nationally-representative and random sample of American young adults who were raised in different family environments, including with same-sex couples and with their married, biological parents.

The study measured various areas of wellbeing, including social and economic condition, psychological and physical health and sexual identity and behavior. It found significant differences between the individuals raised by their married biological parents and those raised in other situations, and “in no area were children better off in an alternative arrangement.”

Based on sound social science, this study complements common sense and “demonstrates what we’ve always known,” Bishop Cordileone said. “Children do best with a mother and a father.”

The bishop explained that this issue is of crucial importance because “we cannot have two different definitions of marriage simultaneously in the country.”

“Only one definition of marriage can stand,” he said. “This is not expanding the right of marriage. It’s changing the definition, or taking away something is essential to marriage – that it’s the union of a man and a woman for the purpose of the binding of the two and the procreation and education of the next generation of offspring.”

Bishop Cordileone also warned that the redefinition of marriage poses a serious threat to religious freedom. This is not merely a potential threat, he said, but one that is already being manifest in numerous ways.

For example, he observed, Catholic Charities agencies in numerous archdioceses have already been forced out of the adoption business because they believed it was best to place children only with a mother and a father.

The “rights of conscience and parental rights” are also at risk, particularly when it comes to education of children. - Read more.

Just last month Bishop Cordileone was asking for an oath of fidelity to Catholic teaching from CALGM, the Catholic Association of Lesbian and Gay Ministries. They refused.  The Bishop has since declared the association 'not authentically Catholic'.  Fr. Malloy of The Shepherd's Voice reported on that story here: Bishop Cordileone Requests Fidelity From Homosexual Activists--They Refuse.

And another thing...

I also want pull this section from the main article/interview I linked to, as it is something I've also been saying all along as well - it has to do with "how'd we get into this mess anyway?"

"Bishop Cordileone then emphasized that “gay marriage” is not an isolated problem but is rather connected to the broader issue of misunderstanding sexuality.

“This isn’t a new threat to marriage,” he explained. “It’s a huge problem, and it’s gone on for decades.”

He noted that the advent of the birth control pill led to an “explosion of contraception” that “divorced procreation from the conjugal act.” Other erosions to marriage quickly followed, including no-fault divorce, which was “a huge blow to marriage,” and experimenting with “open marriages.”

Suddenly, the traditional marks of marriage – fidelity, permanence and openness to children – were all gone, he said. Eventually, this led to a culture of “widespread promiscuity” as sex lost its meaning, a phenomenon that was serious “facilitated” by the common use of contraception.

Now, the bishop pointed out, marriage is seen merely as being about the legal benefits offered to the individuals entering into it, rather than as “a child-centered institution.”
But if marriage is simply about intimate relationships between adults, he asked, “why should the law even get involved at all?”

He observed that there is no real governmental reason to recognize sexual relationships between adults." - Source

Exactamundo! 
Pray for our Bishops.

H/T Ray at Stella

I feel sorry for Tommy

Tom and Katie are divorcing.  Evidently Tom did not see this one coming: Katie filed in NY where the records are sealed, so we will probably never know the details.  I feel sorry for Tom.*  I think he is sort of a control freak, out to prove something - like his manhood.  Why else would he endanger his life doing all his own stunts?  It seems to me he pretty much obtained the marriage he contracted with Katie - he wanted it - he wanted her.  Secular-civil marriage is a form of acquisition and possession - on one level it is a means to contract, or claim ownership of one or the other, or in today's terms, one another... it becomes a legal claim of possession.

In the old days especially it was like that - consider how the woman lost her identity and became known as Mrs. John Doe - not Mrs. Jane Roe-Doe, but Mrs. John Doe, or Mrs. Doe.  What happened to Jane?  See what I mean?

So Tom Cruise is actually an old fashioned kind of guy - he goes looking for brides, buys them, and then they leave him.  He might just be too possessive... although he's obviously a good provider. Ka-ching. 

Anyway - in our day, marriage has lost its meaning, don't you agree?

*I feel especially for him because despite all his fame and fortune he strikes me as terribly unhappy and shallow.

An illustrious testimony and defense of marriage...

On the nature and dignity of Christian marriage.

By matrimony, therefore, the souls of the contracting parties are joined and knit together more directly and more intimately than are their bodies, and that not by any passing affection of sense of spirit, but by a deliberate and firm act of the will; and from this union of souls by God's decree, a sacred and inviolable bond arises. Hence the nature of this contract, which is proper and peculiar to it alone, makes it entirely different both from the union of animals entered into by the blind instinct of nature alone in which neither reason nor free will plays a part, and also from the haphazard unions of men, which are far removed from all true and honorable unions of will and enjoy none of the rights of family life.

From this it is clear that legitimately constituted authority has the right and therefore the duty to restrict, to prevent, and to punish those base unions which are opposed to reason and to nature; but since it is a matter which flows from human nature itself, no less certain is the teaching of Our predecessor, Leo XIII of happy memory: "In choosing a state of life there is no doubt but that it is in the power and discretion of each one to prefer one or the other: either to embrace the counsel of virginity given by Jesus Christ, or to bind himself in the bonds of matrimony. To take away from man the natural and primeval right of marriage, to circumscribe in any way the principal ends of marriage laid down in the beginning by God Himself in the words 'Increase and multiply,' is beyond the power of any human law."

Therefore the sacred partnership of true marriage is constituted both by the will of God and the will of man. From God comes the very institution of marriage, the ends for which it was instituted, the laws that govern it, the blessings that flow from it; while man, through generous surrender of his own person made to another for the whole span of life, becomes, with the help and cooperation of God, the author of each particular marriage, with the duties and blessings annexed thereto from divine institution. - Casti Connubii 7-9, Pius XI

Defense of marriage and martyrdom.

It could happen.
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People have died in defense of marriage.  Could it happen today?  I thought about this after reading today's Gospel.  It is the story of Salome, the seductive daughter of Herodias, whose dance aroused Herod's passion, moving him to offer her half of his kingdom.  At her mother's prompting, the girl asked for the head of John the Baptist instead.  Herod's illegitimate wife hated John since he had condemned their marriage pointing out, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." [Mk. 6:14-20]  Herodias looked for a way to have him killed after that.
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A more modern example of the faithful dying in defense of marriage - amongst other truths of the faith - would be the English martyrs, Thomas More and John Fisher, who died under Henry VIII.  Kind of a stretch?  Not really, they died because they would not take the Oath of Succession.  They refused to take the oath because it denied the authority of the Pope, while supporting the illegal annulment of the marriage of the king to Catherine of Aragon. 
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Today's first reading from the Letter to the Hebrews instructs us, "Let marriage be honored among all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the immoral and adulterers." [Heb. 13:1-8]
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Art Upper:   The Beheading of St John the Baptist c. 1869 - Pierre-Cecile Puvis de Chavannes.
Art Lower: Feast of Herod, 14th C. - Master of the Life of St. John Baptist