Theology of the Body is not Catholic Teaching

The title of this essay is admittedly a bit provocative, but it is my hope that this will lead to the article being shared with well-meaning Catholics who seem to be muddled on the authority of John Paul II's teachings on human sexuality known as "Theology of the Body."

The immediate impetus for publishing this essay was a recent exchange I had with a young woman who was telling me that "the Church's teaching" on some point of sexual ethics was such-and-such. I told her that I had never heard that such-and-such was the Church's official position, and as if to prove her point she referred me to a citation from a Christopher West book on Theology of the Body. She was surprised when I told her that Theology of the Body is not official Catholic teaching and that Christopher West is certainly not any sort of official organ of Catholic dogma. This was actually news to her; she had been under the impression that Christopher West was some sort of authoritative interpreter or what she took to be a dogmatic teaching of the Church.

Therefore, let me say it again plainly: the teachings known collectively as Theology of the Body are not authoritative Catholic teaching. In this essay I hope to explain why—but contrary to many traditionalist critiques of Theology of Body, I will not in any way be addressing the content of John Paul II's teaching on the subject. So don't get excited; this is not going to be some take-down of the content of Theology of the Body. I think the argument that Theology of the Body is not authoritative can easily be made by an appeal to the manner in which it was communicated by the late John Paul II without ever having to wade into the morass of critiquing the principles of TOB.

Before we begin, it is necessary to understand the background of TOB and why John Paul II thought the Church needed a new grounding for sexual ethics.

Prior to the post-Conciliar era, Catholic sexual ethics were largely centered on the procreative ends of the sexual act viewed through a Thomistic-Aristotelian framework. Those things which were conducive to the natural ends of the sexual act were permissible, those that hindered the fulfillment of those ends were not. This is all well and good, but from the point of view of John Paul II, this approach had two distinct downsides:

(1) The pedagogy of Catholic sexual ethics tended to be reduced to a series of "don'ts" grounded in mere obligation and obedience.

(2) The sexual act tended to be discussed only with reference to things external to the spouses themselves (i.e., the procreation of children, or the obligations laid upon the couple by God and the Church).

The first point is admittedly a problem I have often seen in older Catholic literature on relationships and sexual ethics. There is a Fr. Lovasik flyer or pamphlet on Catholic dating that is essentially one long list of prohibitions. Catholic sexual ethics are weakened when they are reduced to simply telling single people "Don't fornicate! Don't fornicate! For the love of God, DON'T FORNICATE!"

The second objection holds some validity as well; people want—I would argue need—to have intrinsic motivations for their actions. Appeals to authority or the procreation of children, even though they are perfectly valid, are not always enough for some people to get on board. For example, people whose only substantial argument against divorce are that it can harm the children don't have much of an argument when addressing an infertile couple considering divorce. Similarly, in education, it is not sufficient to tell a student "You must learn this material because if you don't you will get grounded by your parents and won't be able to get into college." Both of those things may be true, but they are what we would call extrinsic motivations; students do not truly learn and internalize material—do not truly enjoy and embrace education—unless they have an intrinsic motivation based on wanting to know the material for its own sake because it is interesting to them.

Pope John Paul II wanted to give Catholic couples an explanation of the Church's sexual ethics that was not based on an ethics of obligation or reference to procreation alone. Now, the Church's tradition already had some raw material for this in the concept of "the good of the spouses" as one of the ends of matrimony. John Paul II sought to elaborate on this aspect of the sexuality and chose as his point of reference the school of thought known as Personalism or Phenomenology. It is beyond the scope of this article to give a comprehensive account of Personalism as a philosophy, but it suffices to say that Personalism takes an approach to ethics that makes the reference point of moral actions the dignity of the human person (if you've noticed the ubiquity of the phrases like "human person" and "dignity of the human person" in modern Catholic literature, it is due in large part to the influence of the introduction of a Personalist vocabulary into Catholic thinking).

I am neither pro nor anti-Personalism; and please don't spam the comments with links or YouTube videos arguing one way or another on it. It's not relevant. The point is, John Paul II thought the Personalist vocabulary could help provide Catholics with a fuller picture of sexuality that could fill out the traditional approach by using the good of persons as a point of reference. In other words, instead of just telling Catholics what they should not do regarding sex, John Paul II wanted to tell them what they should do, and more importantly, why they should do it. This goal is at the heart of Theology of the Body. And it's not an ignoble goal. Catholics ought to understand what they should be doing and why with regards to sex. Too many Catholic couples are crippled with debilitating anxiety, uncertainty, ignorance, and embarrassment about sex—and I am talking about traditional Catholics as well as mainstream Catholics.

But I digress. So, John Paul wanted to deliver a fuller explanation of the Church's ideas about human sexuality using Personalist ideas to help build a more anthropological case for the Church's teaching that would give Catholics a deeper intrinsic motivation to live out the Church's integrated vision for marriage, sexuality, and family life. These ideas he fleshed out in a series of Wednesday audiences spanning five years, from September 1979 to November of 1984. It was this series of speeches which were later collected and termed Theology of the Body.

Why is Theology of the Body not an authoritative teaching of the Church? Catholics know (or ought to know) that papal statements carry different levels of authority. An ex cathedra declaration is infallible; papal encyclicals and apostolic exhortations where the pope intends to teach authoritatively are of very great authority as well. These are the sorts of papal teachings that command the assent of the faithful; ex cathedra teachings demand the assent of the Catholic faith, while others call for human assent.

But below this, there are teachings of the pope that are of lower authority. This could include letters (such as John Paul II's "Letter to Artists") or formal addresses (John Paul's "Address to Scientists of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences"). In these sorts of teachings, the pope is often speaking as a private theologian, or even if he is speaking as pope, he is speaking on matters that are more particular and are not considered universal teachings of the Church. Often times he is giving his opinion on a matter. These letters may later be collated into a single body of teaching and granted a higher level authority (Dictatus Papae of St. Gregory VII and the Syllabus of Errors of Bl. Pius IX were both authoritative documents composed of excerpts of papal letters), but the excerpts of the letters were later elevated to this level of authority by subsequent papal acts.

A still lower level of papal teaching comes from verbal statements made by the pope in the context of homilies, audiences, ad limina visits, and other formal occasions. In a papal homily or audience, the pope is speaking merely as a pastor and private theologian. Now, if we recall, TOB was originally this level of communication. It was a series of speeches given in the pope's Wednesday audiences. These audiences were subsequently compiled by independent authors—for example, Christopher West—and marketed as "The Theology of the Body." This has given the illusion of a comprehensive, single corpus of thought to what was essentially a series of homilies on a common theme given over many years. Some Catholics even think Theology of the Body is an encyclical.

A collection of papal speeches cannot be an authoritative teaching of the Church. Though John Paul later reiterated some of the themes from the TOB audiences into his encyclicals, there has never been the sort of wholesale elevation of his particular audience statements to the level of authoritative teaching, such as occurred with Dictatus Papae or the Syllabus of Errors. Theology of the Body is essentially a very popular collection of papal speeches, but it does not constitute "the teaching of the Church" anymore than if we took a collection of Francis' scattered statements on ecology, smooshed them into a single volume and called it "The Theology of the Earth." Such would not be Catholic teaching, no matter how popular it was.

Incidentally, speaking of Pope Francis, there is a level of papal teaching even lower down on the food chain than speeches and homilies: that is unplanned, informal, "off the cuff" remarks. And yet these very sorts of statements are somehow supposed to constitute the most important teachings of the Franciscan pontificate. This just demonstrates how backwards things have become where Catholics feel free to ignore the authoritative teaching of the Councils but a pope's comment on an airplane is treated like a fifth Gospel.

At any rate, regardless of what you think of the content of Theology of the Body, it should be clear that TOB is not any sort of authoritative Catholic teaching. It is essentially a compilation of papal speeches that has gained a broad popularity among contemporary Catholics. I do not blame the young woman for thinking TOB was authoritative; the way it is trumpeted about, the lauds that are heaped upon it, and the ubiquity of Christopher West materials gives the impression that this collection of speeches has way more weight than it does. If only the Church would push authentic liturgical renewal with the same vigor that TOB is popularized!

Mainstream Catholics who think TOB is Catholic dogma are simply wrong—as are trads who will inevitably come back with "Theology of the Body is modernist heresy!" and other such nonsense statements. Ultimately, TOB is merely one pope's idealized pet project for better explaining Catholic sexual ethics to modern man, no more, no less. 

Let's Suppose...

Let's suppose - just hypothetically - that most of all Catholic marriages today are invalid. And let's suppose that the reason they are invalid is because the partners, when entering into their marriage, were deficient in some aspect of the faith, or did not fully understand that marriage was indissoluble. They were not sufficiently educated. Let's just suppose that this was the case, that such a lack of knowledge rendered the sacrament invalid.

In that case, the sacrament of marriage would be reserved with those to who have an exceptional level of faith and certain degree of education. Not only the right intention, but also a sufficient level of education would be necessary for the sacrament to be valid.

And not only a certain degree, but an amazing degree, if the knowledge possessed by the majority of Catholics in the most information-rich, hyper-educated age in history was not enough to prevent the majority of their marriages from being invalid.

If that were all true, would it not mean that the sacraments were rewards for the educated, trophies for the righteous, rather than medicine for sinners? 

Because I thought heard somewhere that sacraments are not rewards for the righteous but medicine for the sinners? Or something like that... 

Mercy, Annulments & Matrimony

Some reflections on the current state of things vis-a-vis matrimony, annulments, and mercy.

1. There has been a lot of talk about making sure the annulment process is merciful and compassionate. When people use this sort of language, they demonstrate that they do not understand what the annulment process is all about. The annulment process is primarily investigative; its purpose is to determine whether or not a putative marriage bond is valid or not. It has to do with research and investigation into the historical facts in a particular case. "Mercy" and "compassion" by their nature have nothing to do with such an investigative process. To say such a process should be "merciful" or "compassionate" is like suggesting an archaeologist needs to be more merciful when he is trying to figure out if there are ancient skeletons buried beneath a parking lot, or that a coroner doing an autopsy needs to incorporate compassion into his findings. If we told the archaeologist or the coroner this, they would rightfully look askance and wonder in what sense mercy was even relevant to their investigation. Investigation is about simply uncovering facts, and just as mercy and compassion are irrelevant to the facts of a scientific investigation, so they are irrelevant to the annulment process.

2. The annulment process is a legal process. Legal procedures can be just or unjust, but they cannot be merciful or unmerciful. It could be argued - because of the above point about the nature of investigative enterprises - that mercy has no place in legal proceedings. Mercy does have some place in legal proceedings when it comes to the prudence of a judge or magistrate in handing down a particular sentence. We may implore a judge to be merciful; there is a saying, to "throw oneself on the mercy of the court." But (and this is an important distinction) one is appealing for mercy regarding a sentence, not a procedural process. It is the sentence which elicits pleas for mercy, not the process of uncovering facts. A judge may be moved to mercy in issuing a sentence, but no judge would take seriously a plea that searching to uncover the facts of a case was unmerciful. So appeals to mercy are directed towards a sentence, not a process.

Furthermore, we appeal to mercy from persons, not procedures. A procedure can be more or less just, granted; but we do not make judgments about whether a system of procedures is merciful. Mercy is a moral act and can only be granted by a person, never a procedure. The talk about our annulment procedures being made more "merciful" is absurd.

3. It could be argued, of course, that an annulment is exactly that - a sentence. After all, the Tribunal issues a sentence at the end of the annulment process, and upon that sentence depends whether or not a previously contracted marriage is declared null. But the sentence is merely a sentence of fact, not a punitive sentence. The sentence is a statement that such-and-such are the facts of the case. One cannot appeal to mercy in such a judgment; it would make as little sense as saying that the judge's finding of fact that John Doe was spotted at the nightclub on the evening of July 25th is unmerciful. Facts are not merciful or unmerciful. They're just facts. And the annulment decree is a sentence of fact finding, not a punitive sentence. A person can argue that a fact is irrelevant, or needs to be understood in context, or that it is being understood errantly, but he cannot argue that a fact is unmerciful.

4. Finally, it is fascinating to me that there seems to be an eclipse of the concept of the sanctity of the marriage bond itself. For example, despite the great moral shift in the West, if you took a survey, most Americans would still say adultery or "cheating" is wrong. However, if you were to reword the survey and say, "Is it acceptable to have extramarital sex if your partner agrees to it?" we would see widespread agreement. If adultery is wrong, how could it be acceptable because a partner agrees to it? In other words, while many in the West still think adultery is wrong, they no longer understand why it is wrong. For most, adultery is wrong because it violates the trust of a spouse. This explains why so many will say it is acceptable in an "open marriage" situation or when the spouse assents to it. It is only wrong when the spouse has not consented. The betrayal of the spouse's trust is the real evil. Thus, the issue becomes whether mutual consent is violated - the Lockean libertarian principle applied to matrimony.

On the contrary, Catholic Tradition has always held that an extramarital affair is always immoral - even if the spouse consents to it - because it is an offense against the marriage bond. Of course violating trust is a bad thing, but it is not the only thing. The Catholic Tradition recognizes the marriage bond as something that exists objectively; it can be violated and sinned against by certain acts, even if both parties consent to them. But our culture no longer has any concept of an objective marriage bond; marriage is nothing other than consent - with consent, anything becomes permissible; without consent - a continuing consent - the marriage ceases to exist. Whereas Tradition sees the marriage bond as arising out of  a one-time act of consent, for the moderns the bond is nothing other than the consent itself. Thus, they do not understand why anything that is consented to can possibly be objectionable.

5. Finally, even if we could disregard all of the above and suggest that "mercy" should be applied in annulment cases, we ought to note that if "mercy" contradicts objective fact - that is, if in the name of mercy a declaration of nullity is issued that is not warranted by the objective facts of a case - well, this is not mercy; it is simply lying, which is an injustice.


We need to recognize as Christians that not only will our teachings be increasingly rejected, but they will not even be understood. When society cannot even understand that an objective marriage bond exists, the difference between a procedure and a sentence, an investigation of fact vs. a judgment, then the time has probably come to return to the deserts and lonely places and beat our breasts in prayer until renewal comes or the comes and smites the earth in flame.

Ask Dr. Boniface

Many years ago, when I first started blogging while I was a DRE and Youth Group director, I did a series of posts on questions relating to dating, courtship, marriage, etc. I have not written much on this topic lately, but over time several queries have trickled in on these subjects, so I thought I would respond to a few of them - it is time for Ask Dr. Boniface!

Just so you know where I am coming from, I have been married for 14 years this June and have four kids. I was 20 years old when I got married; my wife was 19. I went to college after marriage. My wife and I both basically got married out of high school. We were relatively poor for the first - eh, four years of marriage - but now have settled down into a comfortable bourgeois existence in the Midwest.

By the way, all the questions happened to come from men, and being a man myself, these answers will necessarily be a bit "masculocentric."

Q. I keep hearing this line from priests that one should be "financially ready" for marriage before dating. I've been thinking about this, and it just doesn't seem right. Like, if you go to college, you're gonna be up to your neck in debt. If you don't go to college, you may just be making around 10 dollars an hour, and that's not a lot for supporting a family. In other words, the system is screwed up, and unless you're born with silver spoon in hand, or get lucky with a really good job, you're going to have financial problems. What's your opinion?

A. Well, I would question your assumptions. You may not be "up to your neck" in debt if you choose an inexpensive community college or vocational school or if you work industriously during the summers to at least pay down some of your debt. I know a young woman who finished college with nursing certification with zero debt because she paid her whole way. I would also question the assumption that if you don't go to college you'll be making ten dollars an hour. My neighbor is a plumber who makes $65,000 a year working for another plumber who makes about $350,000 per year. Neither went to college. Another guy I know is a master electrician (no college) who makes about $200,000 per year and lives on a piece of property worth a million. I also know some lawyers who got great educations and law degrees and are struggling. So there are no guarantees.

But in response to your question, finances are very important in marriage; they are not all important, but they are important. In the old days, many marriages were essentially financial arrangements in which questions of affection, compatibility were more of an afterthought. Given that one of the top reasons cited for marital difficulties is financial problems, you would be foolish not to at least take this into consideration. Love will not pay the bills, and if the bills aren't paid, fridge isn't full, and utilities shut off, well, it's hard to feel affection. You're wife isn't gonna want to go near you in a scenario like that. Believe me, I have been there. A woman thrives in a secure environment and freaks in an insecure one.

So, yes, you need to have some sort of financial game plan, some sort of feasible means for how things will be paid, as well as the flexibility for in case something happens, if possible.

That being said, "financially ready" need not be taken to the extreme. A lot of secular people think "financially ready" means both partners making $75,000 each, college completed, loans paid off, and ready to purchase a $450K home immediately after the wedding. Obviously the world's conception of "financially ready" is crazy. And no, this certainly does not mean poor people can't get married. However, I am addressing this article to people in the western world who are (typically) not in abject poverty. Obviously in the third world, people will make do with what they can.

So in short, you need to have a stable job that can support you and your spouse with the addition of possibly a baby (though babies are cheap; they cost next to nothing - it's not till they get to be around 10-12 that kids really get expensive). A stable job with prospects for some advancement is fine, just something that can support you in a crappy apartment or rental for a time and maybe allow you to buy a house in a few years. You must have some form of income; what father would consent to their daughter marrying a man who had no job and no intentions of finding one? So, financially ready, yes. Financially settled for life, no. 

Q. Do you think it is generally possible to learn enough about a woman only meeting them at Church and occasionally talking to them, and if not how would you propose getting to know them better prior to starting an intentional relationship?

A. It is good to observe a woman from a distance - at first. Church is a decent place to start: to learn about her modesty, maybe her family, to find out if the way she breathes through her nose while praying the Our Father is too annoying, etc. Obviously, though, you need to get more familiar with her before starting an intentionally romantic relationship.

I have for some time repudiated the "courtship" concept of dating that is popular among many conservative Christians. Thus idea ultimately has its roots in evangelical fundamentalism; if you don't know what courtship is and why it is fundamentally flawed, I recommend the aptly titled article "Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed" by Thomas Umstaddt. How can you ever get to know a woman privately if you only ever see her sitting in her living room with all her family around? If you are a single man, it is certainly okay to have a platonic, social engagement with another woman without any romantic commitments. But how to arrange these? 

This should be very non-chalant; just invite her to do something socially with you and another group of friends - ideally, mutual friends. This is very non-threatening, and she can comfortably attend without feeling like it is a commitment to you personally, although it is setting the stage for a possible commitment, and that is what is important.

If you can get her hanging out socially once or twice, try bumping up to the next level by inviting her on a solo engagement. Don't make a big deal out of it or invest it with a solemnity it does not yet have. "I am considering you for a future spouse and would like the opportunity to evaluate your character more intensively. Would you like to go to the movies?"  Of course not. Just something like, "Hey, I'm gonna be in your neck of the woods next Tuesday. Wanna meet up and grab lunch?" Totally simple. Once you get to the one-on-one hang-out (which, goes without saying, should be in public or otherwise open settings to keep things easy and safe), it is much simpler to start making the assessments you need to decide whether you want to pursue things further with this female.

Q. Do you have an opinion the proper age to get married in our current times and on the ideal and acceptable age differences between husband and wife? I ask because at the age of 30 I already find myself becoming hesitant to pursue a relationship with someone my own age due to the desire to have a large family but would feel awkward marrying someone significantly younger than myself. It so happens that there are very few eligible young women between the ages of 25 and 30 at my TLM parish.

A. Well, first of all, you will probably need to broaden your horizons beyond the girls at your TLM parish. That is a pretty small pool.

But secondly, the rule-of-thumb for age compatibility (if you believe in such things), is half your age plus seven. If you are 30 years old, then 30/2 = 15 + 7 = 22. The reason for this is because women are said to mature more quickly than men, so a younger woman is more compatible with an older man. 

That is the ideal compatibility, according to some obscure custom whose origin escapes me. As far as what is acceptable...well, I have come to see over the years that age is really irrelevant. People are people. I am 34. I recently had the opportunity to develop a very deep friendship with an elderly man over the past two years. I never thought I could have such an open and meaningful relationship with a man so much my elder. But we are buds. We call and talk on the phone, meet for lunch, hang out, etc. My wife thinks it is a little weird, but hey, amicitia is amicitia.

On the other end of the spectrum, one of my best friends is a boy who used to be one of my students and is now a young adult. He is 21. We have a very deep friendship.

So, regarding what is acceptable, as long as she is legal, I'd say it is irrelevant. I know two Catholic couples who have a 12 and 13 year age gap between husband and wife. In both cases the husband is the elder. I would not suggest marrying a woman 12 to 13 years older than you. In my opinion, the age gap works best only going one way. See my response to the last question on this post as to why that is.

Q. My parish priest is making my fiance and I take a compatibility test. He is attaching a lot of weight to it; seems like too much weight, maybe. I find the whole thing suspect. What's your opinion on modern marriage prep in the Catholic Church?

A. Whew...don't get me started on that. I'll have to restrain myself to speak only of the immediate question on compatibility tests.

In general, there is a trend towards over-intellectualizing marriage: focusing on personality tests, psychology, and all sorts of pseudo-intellectual stuff while downplaying the role of grace. I recommend my article "Intellectualizing Marriage?" (USC, June, 2012) for more on this trend.

Compatibility tests are stupid. I will restate the what a very kick-ass priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit once said to some friends of mine when they came to him for marriage prep: "If you haven't figured out by now if you're compatible, there's nothing I can do for you."

Two more great quotes on this, the first from Chesteron:

"If Americans can be divorced for 'incompatibility of temper' I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one" ("The Free Family", What's Wrong With the World).

Second, from the letter of J.R.R. Tolkien:

"Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to" (Tolkien to his son Michael, March, 1941).

How can a compatibility test predict how you two will respond to each other five, ten, or twenty years into marriage anyway? It obviously can't. People change. Such tests' usefulness is very limited. If you guys like each other and have come as far as starting marriage prep, you have obviously figured out you are compatible. For the rest, stay close to Mary and leave to grace.

Q. I am a 29 year old man. I've been hoping that I would have been settled down and married by now, but I am starting to get worried because I am turning 30 this year and have no prospects. Should I be worried about this?

A. I can't answer that. It depends on how bad "you want" to be married. I personally never advise people to strongly desire marriage in that way; St. Paul tells us to be content in whatever state we find ourselves in. "Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife" (1 Cor. 7:27). I typically congratulate a man who has made it to 30 without getting snagged.

Okay, I'm only half-joking. Still, if you really believe you want to be married and this is your calling, I would not worry. You see, time works for men but against women. A man at 18 has very little to offer a woman. He is a new adult, no financial security, probably kind of scrawny and dorky looking. No stature in the world. He has very little "capital", shall we say? An 18 year old girl, on the other hand, has everything in the world to offer. She has no strings. She will probably never be more beautiful. She is fertile and able to bear children. She is prime marriage material. She has a lot of "capital", if you get my drift.

But notice, as that scrawny 18 year old goes out into the world and becomes a man, he gets more capital. By the time he is 30, if he is not a total screw-up, he has probably built up quite a bit. More manly and handsome. More successful. Able to make his way in the world, able to take care of a woman. Now that is desirable. His capital has gone up. And - again, as long as he isn't a screw-up - a man's capital will continue to go up as he moves into middle age. Not that we care what the secular world thinks, but have you ever noticed how the "world's sexiest men" are always in their mid-40's or early-50's?

Now what about that 18 year old girl? What happens when she gets older? Well, her "capital" goes down. An unmarried girl has less to offer at age 30 than at 18. Her looks have deteriorated severely. She is almost past childbearing years. If she has gone to college, she may have debt that any potential husband will have to deal with. She has much less to bring to the table. Her capital has gone down.

Bottom line: a 30 year old single man is at the top of his game and has every reason to be confident he will find a woman because time works for the man. A 30 year old woman who is still single is running out the clock because time works against her. So, rejoice, my friend. The world is yours, and all things being equal, I would not worry. In fact, I would consider your position somewhat envious.

Now my female readers will undoubtedly be saying, "Well shoot, I am that 30 year old single woman looking for man. Now you say time is working against me? What am I to do? Why haven't I found my man and what should I do about that?"

The answer to that is a bit more complex and will have to wait for another time. Sorry ladies!

Contact: uscatholicam[at]gmail.com

Intellectualizing Marriage?

The prevalence of divorce within Christian groups as opposed to the divorce rate in the world at large has long been an occasion of discussion. Divorce statistics are tracked by age group, but if you average the divorce rates across different ages groups, we get an average divorce rate of 18.5% for couples under 39 in the United States (source). Unfortunately, it has long been documented that divorce rates among Christians are little better than divorce rates in the world. This is true of all Christian groups; with some, it is higher - non-denominational Christians and baptists have divorce rates that are higher, on average, then their secular counterparts. Catholics are lower on the list, but unfortunately, still not too much different from the world.

A Barna study on this subject found the following rates:

Denominations and Percent Divorced

Non-denominations            34%
Baptists                                  29%
Mainline Protestants           25%

Mormons                                24%
Catholics                                21%
Lutherans                               21%

This poll elicited a lot of anger in the evangelical Protestant world particularly, where it was typically accepted a priori that Christian families were stronger than secular families. Barna had to defend his results in a New York Times article where he reaffirmed that when it came to divorce rates, pollsters "rarely find substantial differences" in the divorce rates of Christians and non-Christians. 

In the Protestant world, I am willing to bet that the ultimate acceptance of divorce and remarriage as permissible has something to do with it. When I was a teenager, my wife and I attended a small non-denominational church where I was stunned to find that almost every single adult couple there had been divorced and remarried.

To be sure, there has been a general trend towards divorce in the modern world that is affecting the Catholic Church as well. But why does the Church's traditional teaching on the indissolubility of marriage not have the force it once did? There are many factors - worldliness of many Catholics would be a big factor - but without denying the influence of these other factors, I'd like specifically to look at the issue of Catholic marriage preparation and the tools that Catholic couples are given going in to marriage.

Since there has been such a creeping of worldliness into the Church in the past several decades, could it be that we are perhaps taking a worldly approach to our marriage preparation as well? Why not? We have adopted secular theories about architecture, secular ideas about the role of the priest, about how Church government should work, about the nature of different sacraments, about music and even secular concepts creeping into our approach to certain dogma. Should we presume that our approach to marriage or marriage preparation is any different?

I must say that I did not have Catholic marriage prep. I was married in a schismatic group that was not bound by any diocesan regulations about marriage preparation. All I know about marriage prep comes from anecdotal stories, and everything I am reporting is anecdotal. But from what I have heard, it seems that, even in our best dioceses, there is a creeping worldliness that has bled into our marriage preparation.

In the first place, I would highlight an over dependence on modern psychological theories about how men and women interact. Some dioceses require compatibility tests that are based on personality analyses; many of these tests are secular and have an unnecessary emphasis on sexuality and ask a lot of sexual questions. In some cases, the results of these personality-compatibility tests are made the central focus of the entire marriage prep process. Advice on how to handle conflict is based on the latest theories of psychologists and secular concepts of how men and women do, or should, interact. Standard secular ideas about "conflict resolution" may be utilized.

Whether you find this problematic depends entirely on how much value you place on modern psychology. Some, like Fr. Chad Ripperger, FSSP, has written a massive three volume series on the science of psychology and how it interacts with the Catholic Faith. His treatment is based on a Thomistic approach and seriously questions the philosophical underpinnings of modern psychology. Others, notably Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR, have enthusiastically adopted the whole edifice of modern psychology without reserve. To what degree is modern psychology a valid means of understanding our Christian faith and preparing one for the sacraments?

To be sure, some aspects of psychology have valid scientific principles behind them, but others are based on a determinist anthropology that sees human behavior as determined by non-rational factors (chemical makeup of the brain, heredity, instinct, subconscious, etc). This, in my opinion, is problematic.

But whether or not any given marriage prep program adopts the modern psychological theories, it seems that too much emphasis on strategies of conflict resolution, personality compatibility and all these other concepts tends to dumb down the role of God's grace in the marriage. If a marriage is successful, it will be because of God's grace, not because we have integrated the latest psychological research into our marriage preparation courses. The marriage does not stand or fall based on knowledge of how men and women's emotional needs are different. It stands or falls based on how effectively a man and a woman can imitate Jesus and Mary and respond positively to God's grace made available through the sacrament.

Can it be that we over intellectualize our approach to marriage, deeming that a marriage can be made successful by knowledge and application of a bunch of secular psychological principles? Do we place too much faith in the studies and theories of psychologists and not enough in the working of God's grace? If the divorce rates within the Catholic Church look a lot like those in the world, might at least part of the problem be that we are using worldly ideas to prepare people for marriage?

Marriage prep programs vary tremendously from parish to parish and diocese to diocese, so I am making no hard statements here, only proposing something that I think merits further discussion. What do you think?

Love & Matrimony

I have gotten a lot of comments on my post from last week on courtship and dating that took issue with my statement that love was not necessary for the sacrament of marriage. I feel that I must clarify this position and address some criticisms of it.

When I say that love is not necessary for marriage, I emphatically do not mean that true love (charity) is not requisite to have a happy marriage, or a good home, or that it is not commanded by Christ, not only to our spouses, but for everyone. In fact, it is indeed commanded by St. Paul in the context of marriage ("Husbands, love your wives"-Eph. 5:25). So, I am definitely not downplaying the importance of love in a marriage.

But it is nevertheless true that sacramentally, love is not necessary to bring forth the sacrament of marriage, which is the point I was getting at. The sacrament of marriage can be brought about without love. All it that is required for the form and the matter is a Catholic man and a woman free of any impediments, public vows, and a witness of the Church. That is the nuts n' bolts of a sacramental marriage. So, while I agree that love is essential for the practical working out of a good marriage, I maintain that it is not necessary in the least way for bringing about the sacrament of matrimony. I don't think this needs any "proofs" but I will submit two.

First, if we look at annulments (and yes, we all know they are abused) we will see that an annulment regards impediments to marriage that were in place at the time the marriage was celebrated, so that though the couple thought they were getting married in good faith (i.e., putative marriage), they were in fact not getting married at all due to the presence of an impeding or diriment impediment. Now, if "lack of love" was essential either as matter or form to bring about the sacrament, then "lack of love" or "He didn't really love me" would be grounds for an annulment. Of course, even in our modern Church where annulments can be granted for a variety of reasons, lack of love is not one of them. This may be an element in the "psychological" reasons for an annulment, but this alone is not grounds for an annulment and never has been. Therefore, since lack of love cannot annul a marriage, we have to assume that love is not (strictly) necessary to bring the sacrament about.

Second, if love were requisite for the sacrament, none of the world's many politically arranged marriages throughout history would have been valid. Consider in the Middle Ages, where a monarch might bargain with another monarch and receive the other king's daughter in marriage. He would have never seen her, and even the marriage itself was contracted over long distance, via a proxy (an odd rite where the king would ceremonially lay down in bed with a minister of the other family to symbolize comsummating the marriage). The King would meet his new bride for the first time after they were already married legally and sacramentally and then would proceed to consummate the union with a woman who was practically a complete stranger. This was the norm for Christian marriage among the upper nobility in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, a type which everybody, including the popes, recognized as valid. For example. Pope Julius II regarded the marriage of Arthur Tudor to Catherine of Aragon as valid, though the two had never met and were married by proxy. If love were a strict requirement, the pope could not have done this.

There is, however a degree of fidelity or truthfulness that is required to bring about the sacrament. The vows have to be said in good faith, and the vows of course state that the man promises to love and care for the spouse. We must notice something: in the vows, the man swears that he will love his wife, not that he already does. And how is the love to be manifest in these vows? By what comes next: in swearing to take care of her, defend her, care for her in sickness and in the raising up of children, etc. In other words, this love is presumed not by the affection that the husband bears the bride, but by the practical things he promises to do on her behalf.

So long as the husband promises these things in good faith, the sacrament occurs. But let us not confuse the promising of the things with the things themselves. It is necessary that the hubsand and the wife vow to care for each other in love (which is seen in this sacrament as the practical supporting of each other's physical needs and the raising of children), but it is not necessary that they possess that love at the time of the ceremony. In fact, the marriage rite's conception of love is very different from the modern idea of love as an emotive affection ("romantic fondness"). Therefore, traditionally speaking, it is possible for the paradox to arise of a man loving his wife but not liking her, because his matrimonial love is manifest in the tending to practical and material needs.

Now, let me be frank about something historically: it was always seen as ideal and beneficial for the spouses to have true affective attachment to each other. That was seen as a given. You get married, go off with your spouse and learn to love and cherish them as time goes on. However, people who married "for love" were considered to be fools, ignorant of how their union would affect their later lives. If someone did have a marriage for love that worked out well, it was considered a happy (but rare) occurrence. Thus the sister of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, when she married the Duke of Suffolk Charles Brandon for love, was considered rash and foolhardy, and Henry even considered prosecuting against her for marrying without his consent. But he later relented and Mary and Charles had a happy marriage - that is not unusual, but we must look at how it was perceived, and the people of the day perceived their union as extraordinarily fortuitous, for usually such unions "for love" wound up ruinous, as in Romeo and Juliet, for example. Obviously the play is not a true story, but it demonstrates how people thought: though romantic unions for love were passionate, enticing and sometimes envied, in the end (it was thought) they were bound to turn out poorly.

Therefore, yes, of course we want to have love in our marriages. I never insinuated otherwise. But however much we may want to exalt marital love, we are bound to admit that strictly speaking, it is not necessary to bring about the sacrament of matrimony.

Courtship & Dating

This is a post that is a response to an inquiry by a long time reader of this blog. The basic question was this: what is my opinion on courtship, on dating, on how a young Catholic man should go about wooing a woman and about acceptable courting practices. This is going to be a very in depth answer, and it is going to be hard to disentangle it from my own subjective experiences in this matter, but as a man married for almost eight years who has not “dated” for almost ten, I think I can reflect on it with some type of objectivity. But I must stress two things before I launch into this topic:

(1) All of the following is my opinion only. I do not profess it to be the Church’s ideas or even anybody’s ideas but my own. They are just my opinions, formed by a historical study.

(2) I have to warn everybody, my opinions on this issue may diverge from several commonly accepted notions, even notions accepted within the Traditionalist and Homeschooling communities. My opinions on courting/dating and marriage are simply part of a larger worldview, which I am not at this time able to clearly articulate for various reasons. However, because I am going to in this post threaten some sacred cows, I anticipate getting some disagreement. So be it.

So first, let’s come to terminology. Wooing a female. Well, it does not matter one bit to me what you call this process. Some homeschool parents get all bent out of shape about the terminology. My child will not “date”; they will “court.” Okay, well what really matters is the substance of what is going on at these liaisons, not what you call them. You can call it courting, dating, keeping company, going steady, (or, my mother’s annoying phrase from the 1960’s, “going with”), or whatever you want. Don’t get all upset about the name. I know of some families who don’t let their kids “date,” but allow their daughters to be in situations with other boys that would be tantamount to dating, but they for some reason allow it because it’s not called dating and because “we know their family,” as if that makes concupiscence and passion any less intense!

But let’s look at the definitions: courting or courtship, in a romantic sense, first appears in 1596. It grew out of the idea of medieval courtly love, and the idea of courting a woman came from the phrase “paying her court,” which originally meant a knight visiting the court of a noble lady whom he wished to woo. This phrase originally had nothing to do with how the visit was carried out; i.e., whether you visited the woman alone, or with her family present. Generally, this would have been a public display of affection for a lady followed by a solitary (and often amorous) encounter. I have news for people who think the term courting is somehow intrinsically better than dating: medieval courts could be some of the most immoral places on earth, especially from the time the term originates (late Renaissance, early modern period). Even in France, the home of courtly love, the courts of the French kings were known to be rottenly immoral sexually. Sexual promiscuity and adultery were so commonplace in the French courts that syphilis (first introduced into Europe around this time from the New World) was known as the “French Disease.”

Here’s my point (1) Courting, traditionally, had nothing to do with how a liaison was arranged (with family or without) but concerned itself rather with paying a visit to a lady at her court (2) These courts were rampant places of immorality. Therefore, we ought to not be all excited about saying we prefer “courting” to dating.

However, courting later did come to take on a more respectable tone: paying a lady a visit in her home (i.e., her court), presumably in the presence of her family, with a stated or unstated romantic intention. Talking with my grandmother, however, (who is now 90 years old), I am told that even in the old days among traditional families (mine was Sicilian Catholic), it was still common place for the boy and girl to go off alone. The boy might pay the girl a visit at her home, spend a little bit of time chatting with the family, then take the girl off for a picnic, bicycle ride, walk in the woods or boat ride. This modern idea that a boy and a girl who are interested in each other never spend any time alone is (a) not historical or traditional at all (b) stifling to any real intent of getting to know the other. Parents along time ago knew that for a boy to get to know a girl, they needed the opportunity to get to know each other one on one.

Therefore, the emphasis wasn’t on whether time was spent alone or not, but whether the two were put into any compromising positions. Therefore, though the two would be left alone, it would be outdoors, in public, etc., places where they could talk freely but would not be able to act on any temptation. I know two people definitely intent on fornicating cannot really be stopped – there is always a way to sneak off into the woods or go into a Port-a-Potty, like they used to do when I was in Basic Training, but the basic idea is sound: two persons together in a boat or on a walk in the park are much less likely to think about any shenanigans than two persons alone in a bedroom. That would have never been permitted nor do I think it should be.

Interestingly enough, the term dating first comes from the Victorian era (around 1898), a period of much stricter morals than the late Renaissance. Dating had an innocuous meaning originally: simply having a date or appointment set with someone. Therefore, if we are going to look at the eras that the terms dating and courtship came out of, I think dating had a much more wholesome and moral bent to it, since Victorian manners (on a whole) were much more moral and reserved than late Renaissance French morality. But this again just has to do with terminology, which is not the entirety of the argument at all. Dating, of course, has a bad name because it is at the end of the Victorian era that the automobile enters the picture and the date is transformed, with all the silliness about “Make Out Point” and that kind of thing. Like it or not, the automobile is now a factor in romantic liaisons, though it need not have the sinister connotation that it sometimes does.

Therefore, how should a Catholic boy go about in his relations with his female prospect? I’m going to try to be as systematic as I can in this, but because this is such a weighty topic, I’m going to take it for granted that the boy is of age to drive. If he’s not, he probably shouldn’t be worrying about it yet (although, traditionally boys were considered of marital age around 16 or 17. Therefore, let’s not push back dating/courtship until age 20 and pretend like we are being traditional. We might be being prudent, but let’s not deceive ourselves and say that is traditional. If we were really following tradition, we’d be giving our daughters in marriage at age 15).

I reject (my opinion) this modern fascination with “discerning who God wants you to marry.” Obviously we want to discern God’s will in all things to the best of our ability, but what exactly are we discerning and how precise can we be with our discernment? In my extensive reading of history, here is how it has always been done:

The discernment process has always been whether or not to get married, not to whom one gets married.

That is, in the Middle Ages and beyond there is a great focus in spiritual writings on discerning whether you are called to celibacy or the married state. But once one discerns they are called to the married life, there is almost nothing like we see nowadays about “figuring out who God wants you to marry.” There is a lot written, however, about how to best “pick” your spouse. That is to say, the choice of a spouse was not seen as a matter of God’s will but as a matter of human prudence, much like picking a good house or picking a good piece of fruit from the market. Love was never seen to be the basis for a marriage, though it was sought after to arise after the fact by mutual affection and sharing of a common life. The woman (or man) who married simply out of love was considered a fool, and there are no records that I know of any person being taught to ask who God wanted them to marry. It was seen as something that a person was supposed to use their human judgment (common sense) on and not try to be all vocationally oriented with. A man chose a wife based on several factors, and once the marriage was consummated, love was seen to be a worthy thing that could grow on the basis of that union, but it was not deemed essential. My RCIA classes always marvel when we get to the class on the Sacrament of Matrimony and they see that “love” is not required for either the form or matter of the sacrament.

But I want to stress this: the “discernment” came when you decided whether or not to be married at all. That is because, of course, there used to be a great emphasis on the superiority of the celibate state. However, nowadays, pop-Catholic culture would have everybody spend as much time discerning their spouse as they would the question of whether or not to remain celibate. This is because in the past 40 years, marriage has been stressed more and more as a “vocation,” or a calling. This has always been admitted, but the emphasis was different before. In the past, there was those called to virginity, and then there was everybody else. Nobody spoke of being “called” to marriage – marriage was referred to, with virginity, as a “state in life”; i.e., a state that you may find yourself in, not necessarily some heavenly calling. Obviously God has a will for everybody, and you are fulfilling that will to the extent that you conform to God’s design for your life. Therefore, God has a will or a call as to what career I should pursue in life, for example. But people don’t usually refer to their jobs as “callings” in the religious sense. God has a will for everything we do, but we don’t always apply the words “calling” and “vocation” to them. I think in the modern Church, because of the drastic decline in consecrated virginity, people are over-anxious to apply the terms “vocation,” “discernment” and “calling” to other endeavors besides consecrated virginity, in an attempt to make it seem like everybody is still seeking God’s will even though there are a drastic reduction in vocations. God, however, has not stopped calling people – but people have stopped listening.

But that is a digression. So, what criterion does one use to pick a good spouse? Traditionally, the pick of a spouse was foremost an economic decision, and I don’t think this was an entirely bad idea. Economics are very important in marriage, and a home is more likely to be happy if it was financially stable. Therefore, a bachelor might look for qualities in a woman that would lead him to believe she could help him establish a financially secure home. Did she have good work habits? How did she bear up under trials? Was she patient? In some cases, did she have strong arms and a sturdy back? Because a husband wanted his wife to be respectable as well, she had to be of solid moral character: Was she devout? Was she loyal? Would she make a good mother? Therefore, the husband did not so much choose a wife because of an intense love or a desire to do God’s will, but of practical considerations based on what the addition of the wife to the husband’s household would bring to the family collectively; children, financial security, a pious atmosphere and respectability. Of course, all men wanted their wives to be attractive. Attraction is the basis for all of these things, and it was the most fundamental type of desire from which true love could grow. After a man secured a wife who would fulfill all of these requirements, he was considered happy and blessed if, in time, he came to truly love her and she him. But love was seen as secondary and in the end non-essential. It was an ideal to be strived for, not a building block that everybody felt like they had to have to get started.

To some sense, I applied these principles in my own life when I was dating my wife, though I was only 19 and still pretty ignorant. When I was dating my own wife, I looked at her and admired certain qualities about her: her fidelity, joy, industriousness, beauty and virtue. Therefore, based on these factors, I approached her and informed her that I thought we ought to get married. It is kind of amusing: I never asked her to marry me, nor did she ask me, nor did I ever ask permission from her father. If I could do it over, I would no doubt do so. But at the same time, there is a simple logic in the way I went about it: I simply approached her like it was a mathematical formula and said, “Based on X, Y, and Z factors I think we are a good match and ought to get married.” And she agreed (she was young and ignorant, too: only about 18 – that’s the only reason she agreed to marry me!).

That brings up another point: if you are trying to discern whom you should marry, the worst time to do that is while you are already dating them. How can a person make an objective judgment about this when they are already emotionally involved with another person? Just like in college, guys who joined the pre-Theologate program were forbidden from having girlfriends. The reason was obvious – one has a hard time hearing a call to the priesthood if you have a girlfriend distracting you. In the same way, you can’t figure out if you should marry a person after you are already involved with them. This is why so many people get married while they are infatuated, fail to see their partner’s flaws and then accuse them bitterly of “changing” after the marriage is complete.

Here’s how I think it should work: a man ought to observe a woman from afar, from a vantage point of friendship only, and a remote friendship at that. He should look at her objectively, asking himself questions about her virtue, modesty, industriousness, etc. Only if she fulfills all of these requirements ought he to go ahead and pursue a romantic relationship – and even then I don’t think he has to say for sure “yes, this is the person I think God wants me to marry,” but she should at least be a potential. By the way, you will never know if the person you marry is the one you should have until you are old and ready to die. Only then can you look back on your life and really reflect on it. J.R.R. Tolkien said that all marriages were, in a sense, a gamble, and that most were probably mistakes. Here’s what he wrote to his son on the issue:

"Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to."

The last line emphasizes my thought exactly. Instead of worrying about who God wants you to pick (because you’ll never be able to be sure, and even if you are, you’ll second guess yourself as soon as things get hard and then start blaming God for your poor judgment), use the same common human prudence, enlightened by grace, that you would use if you were making any other long-term commitment. Date and marry based on this, and realize you are not marrying to make yourself happy but to make another happy and to establish a home – and in that your happiness will arise, and with it love.

Is it appropriate to be alone together while you are dating? Absolutely - in controlled environments. How can you really get to know a girl if you’re sitting around with her mom and dad all the time? You can’t, and though you want to get to know the family, you’re interested in the girl, not in her family. If you do marry her, you’ll see enough of them in the future anyways (haha), so pay your visits to her, show deference and respect to the family, enjoy some family gatherings, but make sure there is time for you and her to get on alone. There’s plenty of opportunities, besides just going to Mass together: go out for coffee together, take her out to dinner, go for a walk in the park or just down her street. Until you get to know her better, probably she should meet you at these places and drive separately (unless of course she has no car). If these are not options, a good middle ground is doing things together with her friends. This way, you are not alone with her, but neither is she in the company of her parents, and she will be freer to speak and be forthright with you in the company of her friends. Probably shouldn't spend a lot of time just driving around aimlessly, though. If you want to do something aimless, walking is a lot more wholesome than driving.

I have to throw out a closing gripe here: I dislike when people presume they are following traditional morality when in reality they are pursuing novelties. I’ve said this before: withholding your child from dating until they are 18 or 19 is not traditional morality. Talking about discerning whom God wants you to marry is not traditional morality. Adhering to the novel “courting” ideal where a boy and girl spend all their time together hanging out with the family is not traditional either. I’m not saying these are bad ideas – in our society, they may be necessary to protect chastity. But let’s stop pretending that we are going back to some lost moral code with these things, because we are not. We are simply adapting to the times and slapping the “traditional morality” label on it. If we were really being traditional, the father would find a husband for the daughter with no spiritual discernment at all, would base his judgment on financial factors, would betroth the two of them and marry her off around age 16. The wife would be expected to run the husband’s household and prosper him financially, and maybe down the road they would grow to love each other. That’s tradition. I’m not saying it’s the best way, but that is the traditional way – and anything else that claims to be “traditional” is really just a novelty. Maybe a good novelty, but a novelty nonetheless.

In closing: courting or dating? Doesn’t matter. Spend time alone? Sometimes, but not in imprudent circumstances. Hang out with the family constantly? If you can stomach that kind of thing. How to make your choice? Virtue, Industriousness, Beauty, Piety. Who does God want? You can’t really know – just do the best you can.

These are just my opinions, and I only post them here because someone made the foolish mistake of asking me what I think!

Click here for a follow up to this post on Love & Matrimony