Author: Richard Chonak

…as it returns to its previous standing as an institution for women.

That was a friend’s question today as he sent me a Globe article about cohabiting couples who negotiate and sign legally binding contracts to regulate the consequences of their potential breakup. These agreements aren’t pre-nuptial, since the pairs don’t plan to marry, so what shall we call them: peri-nuptial? para-nuptial?
He wrote: This is weird. If you want to go through this much effort, why not just get married? What is it about marriage that causes these people to try to replicate it while vociferously rejecting it?
Here’s a sample of the article, presented in the usual Globean glow of approval that left-liberalism confers on every new manifestation of abnormality:

In just about every way, Deborah Zysman and Dan Gluck have a near-marriage.
Both 26, they have lived together in Cambridge for four years, and they’ve been a couple for nearly twice that long. They share bank accounts and jointly plan to buy a house. With flowers and gourmet meals, each year they honor their ”anniversary,” pegged to their first date.
They are also about to borrow a concept from the annals of modern marriage: They want a prenuptial agreement – without the nuptials.
”Of course, we will each have our own lawyer,” Zysman said, lovingly, to Gluck.
As America’s cohabitation rates soar, live-in couples are increasingly drafting legal documents to clarify their financial arrangements if they split up. While married people can rely on divorce laws, the nation’s 11 million unmarried same-sex or heterosexual couples don’t have a similar rule book to follow.
To fill this legal void, more couples are viewing cohabitation agreements as a smart alternative, a way to offer legal protections for each other – and from each other. And the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in two key rulings recently, found these documents valid and enforceable.
Zysman and Gluck point out that casual lovers don’t put their relationship in writing, so they see their desire for a cohabitation agreement as a sign of their ”serious bonds.” They don’t believe a wedding ceremony is needed to show their commitment to each other.

Did you notice what’s missing — not only in this passage, but in the whole article? Children. As you know, marriage is ordered toward the procreation of children, and if a couple is committed to having none, then they literally cannot marry validly. Maybe some of these couples sense that, and know that what they’re looking for isn’t marriage.
I should note an exception to my statement above. One of the couples cited as an example in the article does “share…two children”. But as you might expect with the Globe, it’s a case of “Heather Has Two Mommies”.

Circulating on the net:

The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in a position of negative need.
He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area.
He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous liquid.
He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup.
He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal prestige of His identity.
It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make ambulatory progress through the umbragious inter-hill mortality slot, terror sensations will not be initiated in me due to para-ethical phenomena.
Your pastoral walking aid and quadruped pickup unit introduce me into a pleasurific mood state.
You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure in the context of non-cooperative elements.
You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract.
My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis.
It is an ongoing deducible fact that your inter-relational empathetical and non-vengeful capabilities will retain me as their target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended time basis.

(origin unknown, at least to me)

John J. Myers has written some instructive pastoral letters in the year and a half that he has been Archbishop of Newark.
In December 2001, he wrote about “the Church as communion”, and starting from that concept addressed numerous important matters that are often misunderstood. I’ll mark some of his points in color:

The relationship between the local church and the universal church
18. The Church as communion is experienced by her members as they gather together in particular places. Each bishop is entrusted with the care and protection of a portion of God’s people called a diocese. Each diocese can also be referred to as a particular church, and all particular churches are part of the one Church of Christ. In each, the Council teaches, “the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and active” (Christus Dominus 11). We would be mistaken, however, to assume that the universal Church is somehow a federation, or simply the sum, of particular Churches. The universal Church already existed before communities of believers were formed in particular places. Pope John Paul II has described the relationship between the particular church and the universal Church as one of “mutual interiority,” a shared intimacy like that which exists among the persons of the Trinity. Mutual interiority might also describe the relationship of husband and wife or expectant mother and child. It can even describe the way that Jesus abides in us and we in Him when we receive Him in Holy Communion.
19. For the particular church to be “church” in the fullest sense of that term, it along with the bishop, must be in full communion with the Holy Father. In other words, the community of believers must be of one mind and heart (cf. Acts 4:32). The Holy Father should be seen as part of every particular church, a vital member of the family. […]
The relationship of parishes and other institutions with the local church
21. It is not through membership in a parish that we belong to the local Church, but by being members of the Archdiocese. Parishes and other institutions (hospitals, schools, Newman centers, etc.) in any particular church function as intermediaries between individual believers and families. They exist to serve men and women as well as the common good of the local church. Thus, they do not have the same status as particular churches. The diocese is the local expression of the universal Church. Parishes and other institutions can therefore be founded, merged, or retired as required by the needs of the diocesan family. We must always take care to avoid the kind of parochialism that would isolate us from the larger diocesan community and the Church universal.
22. This does not mean that we relate to the institutions of the Church in a purely objective way. Ask any fan of Seton Hall University! Or consult your own experience, as have I. A small parish dedicated to St. Teresa of Avila in the rural Illinois town of Earlville is very dear to my heart and I know that major changes there would hurt me personally. […]
Can’t I live a relationship with God apart from the Church?
31. All creation enjoys some form of relationship with God, for God sustains all things in existence. But this impersonal way of relating to Him is not what God wants for us. Instead, God wants us to know Him from within His own life, not from the outside or at a distance. Jesus came to bridge the gap that separated the human family from God, and to provide for us – through His flesh and blood – a way to be in the Father’s life. While anyone living an upright life according to the demands of conscience is in a relationship with the God of creation, such a relationship remains partial. […]
What if I disagree with the Church?
37. There are many things about which reasonable Catholics -in good faith- can and do disagree. People have different tastes when it comes to art, music, and architecture. Within reasonable limits these disagreements are not wrong. Rather, they can be fruitful expressions of legitimate diversity within a local community as well as within our Archdiocese.
38. There can also exist within local communities disagreements regarding liturgical norms and the implementation of canon law. These disagreements sometimes touch on matters of faith. But, even when they do not, justice and discipline call for adherence to them for the common good. The liturgical rubrics of the universal Church provide for a wide range of options. It would be unjust for any community or person to impose a practice upon the people of God that violates liturgical norms. The liturgy is meant to bring us together and should never be a cause of division. Authentic communion is harmed when liturgical norms are ignored and our common act of worship is used to make a statement or to express discontent.

His most recent letter, given this week, responds in a way to the current church scandal by teaching about the sacredness of the human body, including the Catholic vision of sexuality.