Highlights
Earlier this month, I had the chance to visit with bishops in Rome ahead of the Vatican’s October meeting on marriage and the family. Pope Leo XIV convened the meeting on the 10-year anniversary of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia.
Topics at the meeting touched on five areas: the current state of the family, how young people are discovering the vocation of marriage, how the church should accompany married couples in the early years, how difficulties in married life are approached, and how the Christian family should be the subject of the Church’s mission.
At the meeting, participating bishops shared an awareness that the world is experiencing rapidly changing social and economic pressures affecting marriage and family life. Pastorally, there was discussion about a heightened need for local churches to increase their focus on marriage and family life ministry. This included a call for more family involvement in the formation of priests and seminarians. Bishops also expressed a desire for the Church to go out to families rather than just waiting for families to come to them.
A Worldview Crisis
This renewed attention to marriage is needed, particularly as pastors and priests think about supporting young people in discovering and prioritizing family life. In visiting with bishops from America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific, I found it interesting that the same worldview crisis afflicting marriage and family life in the United States presents itself everywhere. In some locales, such as Western Europe or the U.S., we could describe the marriage crisis as being in either Stage 3 or 4, while in others it’s still in Stage 1 or 2. A bishop from India and another from Eastern Europe both separately shared with me the same sentiment. Young people in their countries are so interested in building income and consuming a materially rich life that marriage is not a priority. After explaining the situation in his nation, the European prelate grimaced as he told me that young people are motivated by a desire to live “the American dream.”
We see this worldview clearly in research data where 9 in 10 American parents now say it is important their kids grow up to be financially independent and have a fulfilling career—but just 1 in 5 say it’s important that they get married.
Fundamentally, the marriage crisis is a worldview crisis. Whether one wants to talk about feminism or consumerism, the dominant view in our culture places career success at center stage of life’s search for meaning. Dr. Brad Wilcox has described this phenomenon as the Midas Mindset.
While there is nothing wrong with career success or having a better life, the excessive pursuit of that goal is the vice of consumerism. Pope John Paul II would describe consumerism as a disordered style of life in which people become slaves to a life of consumption, subordinating “being” to “having.” This view forgets that the most meaningful and fulfilled lives are ones enriched by the deepest relationships, not career achievements.
Fundamentally, the marriage crisis is a worldview crisis.
Some theologians and churchmen observing the marriage crisis propose adapting Christian theology on marriage to this moment. The world’s mainline Christian denominations have embraced this approach, yet none are in a situation of either growth or vibrance.
Faith Makes the Difference
If anything, the science continues to show that the historically biblical institution of Christian marriage is where we find the happiest and healthiest people. Most recently, The Devout Difference, a new IFS report, showed that married men and women who most fully embrace the classic beliefs and practices of Protestant and Catholic Christianity enjoy the happiest marriages. The report also found that churchgoing couples report being the happiest and perceive their marriages as stable. And, speaking of conjugal love, they are also the ones most likely to report having sex most frequently and being the most satisfied sexually.
This research builds on an avalanche of secular data showing the growth in nearly every social pathology is associated with the decline of marriage in the population. Whether we are talking about increases in loneliness, crime, lower educational outcomes, or worsening mental health, the decline of marriage factors in prominently.
For the Catholic Church and other Christian communities, this crisis has a spiritual dimension impacting the number of men and women who are raised in the faith and who stay faithful. That’s why, ahead of this Vatican meeting, Communio was asked to produce briefing materials for American bishops attending the meeting. We put together a snapshot of the current state of play around the five areas of discussion.
For church leaders—Protestant as well as Catholic—there is no path to sustained faith revival without the renewal of marriage in the pews.
Our report, which we shared with American bishops, highlighted research that found 9 out of 10 Catholic priests ordained over the last two years grew up in a married family. Going beyond the pulpit to the pews, Communio survey data reveals that 83% of Sunday Mass attendees in the U.S. grew up in an intact married family. This trend holds consistent across age groups below age 60 and the trend is also found in Protestant churches.
The decline in Catholic priestly vocations and in the number of Sunday Mass attendees occurred after the share of adults raised outside of marriage began to grow. Just since 1970, the annual marriage rate has shrunk by 65 percent. In the case of the U.S. Catholic Church, sacramental marriage has dropped by as much as 82%, when crudely calculated as a rate of marriages per 1,000 baptized Catholics in the population.
Renewing Marriage in the Pews
This means that the marriage crisis is the efficient cause of the crisis in faith practice. For church leaders—Protestant as well as Catholic—there is no path to sustained faith revival without the renewal of marriage in the pews.
And the renewal of marriage requires a worldview shift to bring about the restoration of Christian teaching for our 21st century moment. While hard to achieve, changing worldview is not an intractable issue. This is a task where Christian parents and pastors can make a tremendous impact.
As the bishops called for in Rome, more should be done through marriage and family life ministries. This includes helping more young people learn the skills of discerning and living out a healthy marriage. Any pastor or church can begin this work immediately, by teaching the Christian worldview on marriage and family from the pulpit. As many as 85 million Americans could show up for worship this Sunday. Change on marriage can start right there.
J.P. De Gance is founder and president of Communio.
*Photo credit: Shutterstock
