Monday, October 31, 2011

A Free Suggestion to the Catholic Church Regarding Marriage

I've recently written about the need to synthesize a Marriage 3.0, one that is closer in spirit to Marriage 1.0 than the Marriage 2.0 that prevails in most Western countries today.  The Catholic Church's orthodoxy and tradition, if perhaps not its current praxis, almost certainly agrees on these points.

Here I have a suggestion for Pope Benedict.  You almost certainly have, through the prestige of your organization, the ability to get the sort of marriage covenants I talk about here:
http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2011/10/mens-rights-activistsmgtow-would.html
enacted in at least several of the states of the US, and possibly in some European countries as well.

You've also got some other cards in your hand that other reactionary elements do not.  For instance, you could decide that the only marriages that your churches will celebrate will be the hardcore form described previously.  If that's too harsh for your sensibilities, there's another option---you could discount the tuition of any child attending a Catholic school whose parents are in a 'covenant' marriage.  I bet you wouldn't even have to discount it much to get quite a bit of adoption of the new marriage standard, especially if you got the ability to easily upgrade an old standard marriage into the relevant statutes.  10% would probably be more than enough to entice the faithful (and frankly, lots of the less than faithful), into it.  You've also got the ability to orchestrate peer pressure that most reactionaries can only dream of, and, should you choose to employ it, even a fairly strong measure of  moral authority.

One other note, because divorce is one of the most financially devastating mistakes most people make, I bet you'll more than make up the cost of the tuition discounts in increased tithes and offerings anyway.  Sometimes the correct moral and doctrinal choice is also the correct financial one.

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