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.

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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.