Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Well, we made it to Champaign in one piece. So far the only casualty in the move was a large crock so we are pretty fortunate. We are also very thankful for all the friends in MD who took time out to come help us load up the truck. They helped make a very daunting task seem to go like clock work. We are also very thankful to Tricia’s family who came from Dayton to help us unload the truck and set up furniture and to my brother and his wife who came down from Chicago to help us set up shelving and unpack. As you can tell, we are making good progress unpacking since the wife let me set up the computer and take some time out to blog. Speaking of which . . .   

Zenit published an article today on a recent report out of the National Marriage Project, based out of Rutgers University, which is of direct relevance to the discussions we have been having here. In the report Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe compare marriage in Sweden and the United States. Surprisingly, although Sweden is generally worse off than the U.S. they do have some positive, profamily policies—which may be out of the reach of the U.S. because of the differences in socio-economic structures each culture is willing to live with. Nevertheless, the general trends of both countries are in a negative direction with regard to stable family life which has negative consequences for the children. These consequences are manifested in the numbers of “serious problems in life” which the children of today’s “changing family structures” experience. While I certainly do not agree with all of that which the National Marriage Project does, they do provide some very important data which generally supports the Catholic teaching on the importance of the family for child rearing and societal health.

Once again, the data indicates that we cannot go on acting as we wish, with impunity. Our actions and choices have ramifications. When we reject the way we are made the result is pain and suffering. I had a math teacher long ago who was fond of putting this idea in a not so pithy rhyme; he said: “you drink the wine, you pay the fine.” Unfortunately, it is our children who are paying it.