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.

I was reading about how Mother Mary MacKillop tried to help children find God in their lives – not only through school-teaching, but also in out-of school activities.

In the 1860s, she started a group for young people in Adelaide which she called “The Guild of the Holy Eucharist”.

Its rules included that the young people must “dress with simplicity, modesty and neatness. They must be known to be obedient at home and at school. They must not be out after dark unless with someone approved by parents or the Sisters. They must hear Mass every day, and suffer any inconvenience rather than miss it.”

* * *

Every day?

Wasn’t that a bit much to ask of young people?

Yet hasn’t God has always demanded of human beings that they give him generously of their time?

The Ten Commandments include the command to keep one day a week “holy”.

In today’s “busy” materialistic, individualistic, self-indulgent world we have plenty of spare time. Ordinary Australians spend up to 20 hours per week looking at television.

We must have time, literally, to kill.

* * *

Most people do, in fact, treat Sunday as in some way a different day.

You could say that everybody worships on Sunday.

*  you play sport on Sunday?  You’re a sport-worshipper.

*  you drink beer on Sunday?  You’re a beer-worshipper.

*  you spend  Sunday with family without devoting time exclusively to God?  You’re a family-worshipper.

Which is not good. 

Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.  He that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.”

* * *

You attend church on Sunday?  You MAY be a worshipper of God — only God knows your motives.

On Sundays, try put God first.  Go to Mass — at least every Sunday. Make it an unbreakable rule.

Just when you thought television couldn’t get any more stupid or perverse, along comes news of  the 2010 version of “Celebrity Big Brother” in the UK, starting next Sunday.

Its theme is  “Hell”. Executive Producer, Shirley Jones, says the notion of Hell “inspired much of what we have done to the house, particularly the entrance which is dark and cavernous with flaming walls”.

She also said, “Hell is other people, and everyone has a different idea of hell . . .”

* * *

What the series will NOT be about is whether Hell exists – not just as an idea, but something real, eternal, with burning, screaming, hatred, remorse, pain and despair.

 And whether there is some way of escaping it.

* * *

There is no doubt that Christians are obliged to believe in Hell.

Jesus himself taught, “Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Hell.”

Our Lord also taught how he intends people to avoid Hell.

In Saint John’s gospel, he told the apostles at the Last Supper, “Receive the Holy Ghost. Whoever’s sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.”

This is Jesus giving his first Catholic priests, the 12 apostles, the role of forgiving sinners who repent and make their confession to their priest.

* * *

What if Hell did not exist?

If Hell did not exist, we would not exist as real people.

Life would be meaningless. What we chose to do in this life would have no meaning — no effect on anything, including our eventual future fate.

We would be mere robots.

It’s true. “Celebrities” like Tiger Woods do a lot of harm if they set an immoral example.

But it’s true also, that most of us know right from wrong, and can’t blame anyone else if we live badly.

Worse again if those claiming to be God’s representatives live badly — Catholic priests molesting children being, perhaps, the worst example imaginable.

The Church exists to be the ongoing presence of Our Lord in today’s world. Woe betide those of us who belong to it if we lead others astray.

* * *

The Catholic Church’s understanding of marriage is different from any other.

Well, it was . . . until the 1960s Second Vatican Council . . . after which its teaching was turned upside down.

Since then, younger Catholics (all those aged now less than 50-odd) have been taught a worldly, compromised substitute for the supernatural, sacramental, God-centred understanding of marriage which is truly Catholic.

Catholic teaching always was, as per the old Code of Canon Law, that “the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children” — having children, provided it is possible, being essential to the nature of marriage itself. But the new (post-Vatican II) Canon Law version says the opposite: “The matrimonial covenant . . . is by its nature ordered towards the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring.”

* * *

Subtle, eh?

The secondary end of marriage (the personal fulfilment of the spouses) is now put ahead of its primary purpose (children).

Catholics today are taught to misunderstand marriage — as though it was something primarily for the couple, rather than a participation in God’s work of creating and sanctifying children.

This has been a rebellion at the Church’s top levels — a misrepresentation of the purpose and nature of a Sacrament of the Church.

* * *

Unfaithfulness in marriage is not just letting your wife down, it is letting God down — not a wise thing to do.

The day must come when Catholic schools, Catholic theologians and Catholic parish priests begin again to teach truly what it means to be married and to be a Catholic family.

They say this so-called Copenhagen “Convention on Climate Change” is not primarily about climate.

They say it’s about weakening western nations by forcing signatories to take orders from unelected “technical panels” regarding their economic, environmental and energy policies — also handing over $60-plus billion of “reparation debt”, plus ongoing levies forever, to governments of developing nations.

“Developing” nations which include China and India — despite their space rockets and nuclear weapons.

The Copenhagen “treaty” has already been written in draft form, dated 15 September 2009 – much like the 1960s Second Vatican Council, where the world’s bishops gathered to discuss the Church’s future, only to be confronted with un-Catholic documents (drafted by “experts”) which had somehow become the Council’s agenda.

* * *

What could one do to stop this Copenhagen apology-fest transferring astronomical sorry-moneys to a bunch of mostly corrupt governments?

Check the internet. People suggest “write to your government senator” etc.

But why ask governments to promote justice? Unfortunately we have the governments we deserve. They won’t do it.

* * *

If you feel like writing to somebody, write to your bishop.

The world’s one organisation based on a non-greed philosophy is the Catholic Church. Yes, there are things wrong with the Church, but that is not the point. The point is that only God can save us.

 “It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes,” says the Bible — not presidents, not senators, not prime ministers.

Don’t ask your bishop to dabble in climate-change politics. Ask him to revive the doctrine that the Church is the one way to God and that all must turn to the Catholic Sacraments — for starters, going to confession, shall we say twice per month — and aiming at perfection in our lives. Why not? Didn’t Our Lord say, “Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect”?

Then we might start treating the environment as something belonging to God — to be respected for supernatural reasons.

This 21^st century has so far been a backward century, arguably even more so than the 20^th. We must return to a spiritually-based culture — more spiritual than ever before.

THE Family Court of Australia recently ruled that separated parents must hand over children for access visits, whether they want to go or not, and that children refusing to go are to be punished.

This follows a typical case where the dad complained to the court about getting the crossed arms treatment from the mum, standing there and saying, “Well, I can’t force them to come, can I?” The disputed offspring were, in this case, aged 11 and 12.

The court ruled that she had not been trying hard enough. (News.com.au, 21/9/2009)

* * *

Does not every single one of us know at least one family where this is happening today or this week?

Is not our present post-Christian, life-is-cheap, abort-the-unwanted-young, euthanase-the-unwanted-old, adultery-is-fun, californication-is-entertainment, condom-lessons-are-responsible-education, don’t-mention-God-in-school-or-lose-your-job, don’t-get-the-kids-baptised-but-let-them-decide-about-religion-themselves-later (after exposing them to a few million hours of the super-saturated materialism and greed of Australian television), dress-little-daughters-like-prostitutes-and-then-copy-them-yourself, so-called-wedding-ceremonies-in-parks-or-non-consecrated-buildings-officiated-at-by-non-priest-agnostic-bureaucrat-mercenaries-type society exactly the kind of society you’d design if entering a contest for dreaming up the situation most likely to create separation, divorce and non-delivery of the goods on access day?

* * *

If it is really true that God does not exist, then the children might as well do what they want from birth.

Parents might as well do what they want every time they feel frustrated or tempted.

If it’s true that God does not exist there is no reason, in logic, for having any law or any courts anyway.

If there is no God then we might as well press on with a society based on brute force and intimidation, spiced with never-ending streams of titillation and mind-numbing, soul-destroying trivia, and tinselled with wall-to-wall whingeing of passive-aggressive minority groups wielding power in the name of victimhood.

* * *

If, however, there is a God, then children should be taught about Marriage and the other Catholic Sacraments from before birth — plus about the self-restraint, Commandment-keeping and love for our Creator which underlies such a way of life.

Perhaps we need a society based on such understandings and on setting examples to the young of how to live lives of devotion and obedience.

That day is coming, thank God.

Pray to God that it will be soon.

.