The 2010 Global Atheist Convention starts in Melbourne next Friday.

Tickets to the three day event have been sold out for months.

It will feature well known public atheists including Professor Richard Dawkins, Phillip Adams and Peter Singer.

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24 Melbourne buses currently display the words, “Atheism – celebrate reason”, and will do so until March 29.

In Britain and Europe, both religions and non-religions have been buying up space on public vehicles for a while. British double-deckers have carried the slogan, “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

But don’t atheists spend just as much time, probably more, worrying about it all, than believers? Look at their countless books, countless websites — and now countless expensive public hoardings.

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Atheism, no less than religion, is a kind of a faith. It goes beyond what can be scientifically demonstrated.

It gleefully mocks the rest of us for our inability to “prove” God’s existence.

Can they prove God’s non-existence?

Oh, no, they say, the onus of proof lies with believers, not with us.

* * *

Let people who pray, pray for those who have no faith — that they may discover the joy of knowing that God exists, and of knowing God himself.

Let us pray, also, for believers — that they may live faithfully by the Faith they profess.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.  Amen.

Marriage provides a more stable family environment for growing children than does living with unmarried parents.

Ten times more stable.

This is confirmed by research, based on almost 30,000 family cases, published last Monday.  

The survey found that in 1992, 70 percent of married couples who had children stayed together until their child’s 16th birthday. By 2006, this had increased to 75 percent.

Only 36 percent of couples who were unmarried when their child was born stayed together until their offspring reached 16 in 1992. By 2006, it was down to 7 per cent. (Family Law Week, ‎22 February 2010‎)

 Dr John Hayward, director of the Jubilee Centre, which commissioned the study, commented that the evidence suggests that families headed by traditionally-married, biological parents provide the best environment for both themselves and their children.

 Didn’t everybody know that already? It seems funny that we need “research” to prove it.

***

Meanwhile, a “same-sex marriage” bill was defeated in the Australian Senate on 25 February 2010, by a vote of 45 to 5.

Those voting for it were all Greens Party members — a party ever so keen to provide the best environment for trees, whales, lizards and so forth, actively trying to promote what is , arguably, the worst possible environment for young humans.

How about that?

* * *

It is important to remember is that Marriage is, first and foremost, a Sacrament of God’s Church.

Marriage was invented by God — the God who created us.

Marriage is not just an option or a photo-opportunity.

Marriage is an obligation that God demands of those who would have children. It is a sin, punishable as God sees fit, to do otherwise.

* * *

Catholic Marriage, like all the Catholic Sacraments, is a means by which God offers us grace.

God’s grace is a practical thing.

The sacramental grace conferred by Christian Marriage offers married couples extra power, unavailable by any other means, for dealing with life’s day-to-day problems.

Couples who are not married must struggle on without this grace and power, in a state of spiritual poverty and impotence of willpower.

The other day, Australia’s federal opposition leader, Mr Tony Abbott, told a women’s magazine that he doesn’t think women should “give away their virginity too lightly”.

Criticism followed.

Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said, “These comments will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott.”

How about Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd? Yes, he ducked for cover again, saying it’s not his place to “provide individual personal and moral advice to the young people of Australia”.

* * *

The question is whether marriage – traditional marriage – is an indispensable basic to society.

Or is marriage just a matter of fashion – currently out of fashion with the media and trend-setters in today’s affluent societies?

Hundreds of thousands of young Australians suffer suicide attempts, drug addiction, dropping out of school and general misery. Ask your family GP how, in his/her experience, do children from stable families compare with those from de facto relationships in this regard.

The traditional family gives children security in a world that can be otherwise frightening and destructive of young bodies, minds and souls.

* * *

The enemies of marriage and chastity accuse the Church and traditional parents, especially fathers, of double standards – focussing on girls being chaste, while condoning young males being unchaste.

But that is NOT what the Church teaches.

The Catholic Church teaches that, “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptised persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a Sacrament.” (CCC, 1055)

And that, “People should cultivate chastity in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart . . . married people are called to live conjugal chastity . . . .” (CCC, 2349)

Jesus Christ taught his disciples that, “You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Saint Matthew’s gospel)

God, in his kindness, has granted you and me still to be alive at the start of this new year.

Each moment of this year will be a gift from God’s hand.  Every day he will be offering us his help to find salvation.

Soon enough, we will leave this world and face the reality of his judgement.

* * *

Let us pray that every day God will check and restrain our tongues, so that our words never cause discord or strife.

May God screen and protect our eyes, so that they do not drink in vanities.

May our inmost soul be pure, and the folly of impurity find no place in us.

May moderation in food and drink wear down the body’s pride.

May we, in all things, put God first, and do only what is pleasing to him.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. 

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Tiger Woods is the world’s best golf player.

In recent years he was receiving about  $100 million a year from companies using him in their advertisements — Gillette, Pepsi, Nike, Electronic Arts, AT&T, Accenture, Upper Deck and others.

Now these companies are dumping him, since it became known that TW has been (apparently) unfaithful to his wife.

These companies have no interest in the morals of celebrities. They are interested in profits. But they ask themselves, “Do ordinary purchasers of razor blades or flavoured water really care enough about faithfulness in marriage to switch brands because Mr Woods’ name is now mud?”

Perhaps they do.

* * *

Surveys suggest that 78 percent of men and 84 percent of woman believe marital infidelity to be “always wrong”. (Professor Bradford Wilcox, University of Virginia)

Why is it wrong?

They say men are like mountain-climbers who enjoy scaling a peak but, on reaching the top, get bored and look around for something else to climb? Chasing women is fun. What about spending the rest of your life with the one who has kindly taken you on?

Is this really the key question? Is marriage basically about who can or should have sex with whom?

It is not.

* * *

That’s where the Catholic understanding of marriage is so different from others.

Or it was.

It was until the Second Vatican Council – after which the Church’s teaching was turned upside down so that the younger generations (all Catholics aged now less than about 50) have been taught a worldly and compromised substitute for the supernatural, sacramental, God-centred understanding of marriage which is/was truly Catholic.

More on this subject tomorrow. If I am still alive tomorrow to write it.

The Atheist Foundation of Australia is complaining about being “discriminated against”, having been refused Victorian Government funding for a conference in Melbourne, while the Parliament of the World’s Religions got $2 million.

The ironical part of this is that the Parliament of World Religions will do the Christian cause more harm than any Atheist’s conference could ever do.

It is mistaken and counter-productive for Catholics to participate in get-togethers with other “world religions”. Until fairly recent times this was understood by all, and accepted as obvious.

* * *

Pope Pius the Eleventh made the principle clear in 1928, when he wrote that:

 “conventions, meetings and addresses are frequently arranged . . . at which all without distinction are invited to join in the discussion, both infidels of every kind, and Christians, even those who have unhappily fallen away from Christ or who with obstinacy and pertinacity deny His divine nature and mission. Certainly such attempts can nowise be approved by Catholics . . . .

“the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part . . . nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises . . . .

“this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it . . . .”

* * *

The rot set when, in the 1960s, the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism actually encouraged Catholics to cooperate with other Christians and allowed them to take part in joint worship on “special occasions”.

Later, in 1986, Pope John Paul II called a meeting in Assisi, Italy, for all “world religions” to come together to “pray for peace”. The Buddhists were allotted Saint Peter’s Church, where they performed their Buddhist cult, adoring their idol which they put on the altar. Yes, on the altar.

Traditional Catholics must get back to basics and recognise such gatherings as a betrayal.

Remember how the original Christians preferred being fed to the lions rather than compromise with non-Catholic religion.