Category: Marriage & Family

Hats off to Mrs. MacFarlane

Via Vociferous Yawpings: Bai MacFarlane is fighting the divorce in court, God bless her.
The story of how the couple met isn’t on his web site CatholiCity any more, but Google’s cache still has it.
It’s hard to imagine these two very public Catholics being eligible for a declaration of nullity, and I presume Mrs. MacF. will make the case against that too if it comes up.
What the heck went wrong?

Back to the ConCon

The so-called “compromise” proposal that would have forced Massachusetts voters to choose between full gay marriage or civil unions, with no option to refuse both — is on the way out. House Speaker Tom Finneran has moved to separate the two issues and give voters a choice. Offering two amendments to the voters — one to ban gay marriage and one to establish civil unions — looks like a compromise package that pro-family legislators can legitimately support.

Family vs. Fraternal Organization

Probably the main topic of conversation at last weekend’s meeting of the Alhambra’s international board of directors was How do we sign up younger members and keep them active?
Of course, being by far the youngest member of our board, many of the other gold tassles turned to me for some possible answers. One of the things I proposed is that the Alhambra shift from a Catholic fraternal organization to a Catholic family organization. De facto, this is how many of our younger caravans (local branches) in terms of membership already operate, and this is how I intend to operate in Ottawa. Basically, these younger caravans keep the monthly meetings short, and invite wives and children to attend as well. All their activities involve the entire family, rather than just the boys. I myself keep pointing to Pope John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio and all that the Holy Father has done to promote the family apostolate. In fact, long before he ascended to the Throne of St. Peter, Fr. Wojtyla was leading a family kayak trip when he first received news that he was to be consecrated a bishop.
Anyway, there seems to be some interest in exploring this idea a little more, especially since our younger caravans in terms of leadership are already operating as de facto family organizations. Nevertheless, there continues to be much divergence of opinion among 1) our WWII era membership who want to keep this exclusively an old boyz club, 2) our boomer membership who see this primarily as an equality issue and want to see women become full members, but are wishy-washy when it comes to families, and 3) our gen-x membership who are basically pushing for full family membership. In case there is any doubt, I fall into the third category.
What I am interested in finding out, therefore, is whether you would be more likely to join and become active in a Catholic fraternal organization that operates as an all boys club, or whether you find a Catholic family organization that gets the entire family active within our Catholic apostolate more appealing? Please use either the comments box or private email to share your answer, and it would also be helpful if you shared your age and marital status. Thanks…