This talk was delivered on October 20, 2006 for a Conference on Marriage and Family Spirituality sponsored by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales.

Introduction

Alistair Cooke, one of your more notable expatriates, spent many years of his long life broadcasting a regular "Letter from America" on BBC radio. Tonight I want to bring you my own letter from America - not so much to explain the confusing habits of your former colonies -- as Mr. Cooke did so brilliantly -- but rather to tell you about a project of the U.S. Catholic bishops - one very similar to yours - and to join with you in deepening our shared commitment to strengthen and support marriage.

Prior to any of this, however, I want to express my gratitude to Bishop John Hine and Elizabeth Davies for inviting me to this conference so that I can stay connected with the important process of marriage and family renewal you have been undertaking in the Catholic community of England and Wales over the past three years. I was fortunate enough to take part in two diocesan meetings of the family listening process in 2004 -- one in Portsmouth and the other in Salford. In the intervening years I have been able to follow your progress through reading the reports and the website postings and, of course, by staying in touch with Elizabeth. I would be the first to acknowledge that your national process of listening to families and of honoring their input, contained in the extensive report that was subsequently issued by your bishops, have been a strong source of encouragement to the pastoral initiative we have begun in the United States. Thank you for this model of collaboration and consultation.

Tonight my "letter from America" will deal with the topic of marriage and specifically with a project launched in 2005 by the U.S. Catholic Bishops known as The National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage. I would like to discuss it in three ways:

First, I will offer a description of the pastoral initiative:

• what are its aims?
• what are its components?
• how and why did it come about?

And, third, I will offer some thoughts on strategy: what has been achieved so far, what we have learned, and what we see ahead of us, especially in the next two years.

1. Description

   There are several ways to describe the National Pastoral Initiative and to outline its goals, components, and timeline. The handout I've given you does all of that on a single page and then invites you to visit our website (www.usccb.org/npim) for a fuller treatment. Please have a look. The internet is our primary vehicle of communication.

   But, if you glance for a moment at the handout, you will see a few helpful points. First, as regards the Initiative's purpose, we try to express our goals in general, non-churchy terms, e.g., to call attention to the meaning and value of marriage, to establish a dialogue between Catholic belief and the contemporary situation, to invite the church to become a community of hope and help for marriages, and to join with others in building a pro-marriage culture.

   Second, in describing the methodology, we use the image of weaving together three strands of fabric into a single cloth. Those strands are: the Catholic faith tradition and its pastoral practice, the data of social science, and the life experience of married couples.

   Third, the bishops state that their purpose is to offer guidance and resources aimed at promoting, strengthening, sustaining and restoring marriages.

   Is this ambitious? Yes, of course. But spreading the gospel is not for tired or timid souls. Somebody once said "make no small plans." This could well be our unofficial motto!

   Look further down on the handout and you will see that our Pastoral Initiative unfolds in three chronological and somewhat overlapping phases: first, research and consultation; second, expanded public communication; and third, development of further resources and local pastoral programs.

   Each of these phases is constructed using activities that fall into the general categories of communication, research and consultation, theological and pastoral reflection. In a given phase, one category of activity takes precedence but the other two are not entirely absent. They weave in and out continually.

   At the present moment we have reached a point in the timeline when we are moving out of the consultation phase and more deliberately going into a public communication phase. This means we are using what we learned from our listening process and our research projects in order to help in crafting messages about marriage that we will begin to communicate through television and radio spots, through a special website, and eventually through a pastoral letter from the bishops. However, from the very beginning of our consultation and research phase, we have been communicating by posting on our official website all the reports of our listening activities as well as other background papers, speeches, research summaries, and so on. In many ways, this resembles your "celebrating family" website with its various pages and links.

   The Pastoral Initiative got its start in late 2004 with a proposal by a bishop that the entire U.S. Conference of Bishops utilize a pastoral letter to bring to both the society and the church a timely and necessary message about the meaning of marriage, its value, its purposes, and the urgent challenge of strengthening it.

   Eventually this proposal was amended and expanded to become a larger project of engagement and communication that makes a pastoral letter its centerpiece but which also offers other items of value in the process leading up to and away from the letter itself. One bishop described the Initiative by using the image of a party platter which contains a bowl of cheese dip in the center with fruit and vegetables surrounding it. A person can either go right for the tasty dip, or can nibble on the fruits and veggies, or can do a bit of both. In any case, you're likely to come away with something to satisfy your hunger!

   It is easy, and even a bit tempting, to dwell on the parts and sequence and other details of the Pastoral Initiative. The risk in doing so is that we might lose sight of understanding the larger effort.

   So let me add a few comments on the larger effort. What is it really? How do we name it?

   The National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage is basically a work of evangelization - in the fullest sense of that term - an example of bringing the good news of Jesus into the very human situation of married life and seeking, by the power of the gospel itself, to move individuals and society to a different vision of what that life is about.

   Because the Initiative is evangelizing by nature, it involves a two-fold dynamic of sharing the good news by explicit proclamation as well as by witness. As Pope Paul VI said in his Exhortation on Evangelization: the good news is proclaimed first by the word of life and also in the witness of lives (Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 22).

   In this same spirit, nearly thirty years ago, the U.S. Catholic Bishops developed their national pastoral plan for family ministry based on the acknowledgement that two elements would be essential to the success of the work: first, the faithful proclamation of the gospel in word and sacrament; and second, a perceptive, trusting, compassionate listening to what people are saying about their Christian understanding of marriage, sexuality, and family life (Plan of Pastoral Action for Family Ministry: A Vision and Strategy, 1978).

   The National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage is very consciously designed with these evangelizing elements and pastoral values in mind. It is the only effective and credible way of acting, given our understanding of the Church as a communion of life, love, and truth.

   I would also like to point out that our Pastoral Initiative is not solely the work of the bishops. They have begun the Initiative and are doing their part to sustain it. But they are also depending on others - particularly lay leaders and groups to take the initiative and do things within their own spheres of competence and influence to promote, strengthen, sustain, and restore marriages. In a special way we want to offer encouragement and resources to local bishops so they can write and speak about marriage and related issues.

   We hope that the perception that the bishops are concerned about the state of marriages today will encourage and empower others to put their hands to the plow - particularly as regards bringing resources to bear on the needs of married couples at all stages of life as well as those contemplating marriage or preparing for it. We want to see this happen especially in the parish.

   It is sobering (and even shocking) to note how little systematic attention is given in parish ministries to fostering the Christian vocation of nearly ninety percent of the congregation and, for that matter, to acknowledging that the couple themselves are the ministers of marriage and therefore in need of their own ministry formation and support!

   To describe this Pastoral Initiative as a work of evangelization carries with it many more implications that I don't have time to discuss now. However, let me mention an important one and use it as a bridge to the next point in my presentation.

   Evangelization is directed both to individuals and to society. It takes place within a given culture and must be attuned to the possibilities as well as the problems existing within that culture. Both Pope Paul VI and John Paul II taught that evangelization must transform culture by focusing the light of the gospel on the "criteria of judgment, the determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration, and models of life" that make up our contemporary world (Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 19). In short, you can't evangelize the culture unless you first know the culture.

   The urgency for evangelizing arises first and foremost from the advent of God's reign, which is to be proclaimed, but also from the pressing situations within a culture that are in such obvious need of conversion.

   And so, to appreciate the urgency of a Pastoral Initiative for Marriage it's necessary to inquire into today's cultural situation that shapes the way we understand and undertake marriage. I will try to highlight this briefly.

2. Context

   As soon as the U.S. bishops announced their National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage the question arose: is this just really all about defeating same-sex marriage? The question was natural enough and not unexpected.

   When people today think about marriage as being in a social or moral crisis they sometimes attribute the situation to the "threat" posed by homosexual persons seeking to marry. In our country, in yours, and in several other nations the movement toward making homosexual unions the legal equivalent of marriage is indeed a serious problem, which is having an eroding effect on marriage. The situation deserves our attention and our efforts to reverse it - for all sorts of reasons that I haven't got the time to discuss tonight.

   However, the debate about same-sex marriage is merely the tip of the iceberg. It is indicative and even symptomatic of a deeper crisis in marriage. The very fact that we could entertain the possibility of redefining marriage to include persons of the same sex indicates that we are losing our grip on the meaning of an institution that has been understood uniformly and supported commonly for generations upon generations.

   The fundamental crisis in marriage is the deconstructing of its commonly-shared meaning. This crisis is the seed bed for most of the other crises or problems that we experience individually and socially - for example, the dramatic rise in non-marital cohabitation, the high divorce rate, the low birth rate, the declining rate of marriage, and, of course, the advocacy for same-sex marriage. Some analysts have described this crisis of meaning as a matter of two different models of marriage that are competing for recognition at all levels within our culture (Council on Family Law, The Future of Marriage Law. Institute for American Values, 2005). What are these two conflicting models?

   There is the conjugal model of marriage that has been in possession from the beginning. This model understands marriage as the lifelong unitive and procreative relationship of a man and a woman. It is premised on the complementarity of the sexes. This unique blend of difference and equality makes a distinct contribution to the welfare of society, particularly in the procreation and upbringing of children. It is, in short, the way we understand marriage using natural reason and what we also believe about it using the eyes of faith.

   However, there is also the more recent close-relationship model of marriage. This model emphasizes the task and the capacity of a marital relationship to satisfy the needs of committed, consenting adults. It downplays the procreative purpose of marriage. Sexual difference and complementarity are not absolutely essential in this model inasmuch as it focuses on the couple's ability and freedom to create a close relationship and satisfying life together.

   In truth, I think that most people construct their idea of marriage using bits and pieces from both the models. But I also think that the lure of the close-relationship model is a powerful one that threatens to displace the conjugal model - at least insofar as marriage is becoming more and more an individual lifestyle choice with little or no objective demands on the couple and their commitment. In classical theological terms this amounts to ignoring the fact there are any "goods" of marriage, e.g., a sacramental bond, or children, and saying instead that marriage will be "good" as long as it's "good for us". It is easy to see, given an attitude like this, how divorce can become the preferred solution to marital difficulties or how lifelong commitment can seem so out of reach that people will live together in a temporary relationship rather than in a marriage.

   To the extent that the foregoing analysis of two competing models of marriage is correct, we have before us a major task - namely, to reclaim marriage, to re-position it within societal understanding and popular imagination, to help couples and society re-discover marriage and live it with realism and hope.

   When Bishop Kevin Boland, who chaired our Committee on Marriage and Family Life in 2004, introduced the National Pastoral Initiative to the bishops he said: "As leaders of the Catholic Church in the United States, we can help to create a positive climate that places healthy marriages at the heart of strong families, a strong nation, and a strong and holy church. This is a pastoral moment we should seize upon. We can and we must do more for marriage than simply defend it against certain forces that seek to erode it."

   The pastoral moment to which Bishop Boland referred is composed of both positive and negative elements. I've listed the key ones on the reverse side of the handout. The picture is a composite of good news and bad news. The negative trends are much the same in our two countries. Obviously, the scale is different. In the United States the Catholic population is 69 million. It constitutes 23% of our entire population. Persons of Hispanic origin account for almost one-third of U.S. Catholics. This median age of this group is far younger than the larger population. We have a little less than 19,000 parishes in which, during the past year, 213,000 weddings were celebrated. This number, as large as it may sound, does not represent all marriages involving Catholics. An increasing number are celebrated outside of church auspices. In the past twenty years 48% fewer marriages were recorded in Catholic parishes. It should be noted too that 45% of U.S. Catholics now marry someone who is not a Catholic.

   Over the past several decades the negative or problematic trends in marriage have accumulated and coalesced into a force for change - a proverbial "wake-up call". Here is the most salient example.

   In the last decade or so we have experienced the birth and growth of a "marriage movement" that has broad support in many sectors of society: educational, therapeutic, religious, legal, and governmental. In different ways these agents are working together to acknowledge the important role marriage plays in stabilizing society, protecting the wellbeing of children, transmitting values, and strengthening the bonds between generations. Several very influential efforts have taken root in the soil of this marriage movement including a new emphasis on learning the skills to stay in a marriage rather than looking for the kind of counseling that provides a quick and easy way to get out of one.

   Another important effort is the federal government's Healthy Marriage Initiative in which grants of various sizes totaling over 118 million dollars have been awarded to 225 local groups and non-profit agencies for programs to help couples form and sustain healthy marriages and equip men to be involved, committed and responsible fathers.

   The U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Initiative for Marriage is unfolding against the broad sociocultural backdrop I've just highlighted and in response to the positive and negative trends within it. The Initiative itself is also part of this social milieu. It represents a public Catholic contribution to the larger marriage movement - introducing the voice of the bishops and the efforts of other Catholic leaders at a critical moment.

3. Strategy

   Now I'd like to move on to some thoughts about the progress of our Pastoral Initiative. What have we accomplished? What have we learned? Where are we going with it all?

   We have spent two years in the consultation and research phase of the Initiative. This time has been an extended period of listening and learning in which we've undertaken the following:

   • a survey of our bishops asking what are their principal concerns about teaching and pastoral ministry concerning marriage;
   • meetings with the leadership of national associations and movements such as Engaged Encounter, Marriage Encounter, Retrouvaille, Christian Family Movement, American Association of Interchurch Families, the National Association of Catholic Family Life Ministers inviting their input to our work and encouraging them to initiate their own projects;
   • contacts with other committees and offices of the Bishops Conference asking what they might do to share in the goals of the Pastoral Initiative;
   • regional consultations involving nearly 300 canonists and marriage tribunal officials to gain their views on marital commitment and readiness, factors that strengthen or weaken a marriage, how to be more effective in marriage preparation, etc.;
   • dialogues on two different occasions bringing together theologians, social scientists, and ministry practitioners to explore questions of marital commitment, the meaning of sacramentality, the attitudes of a younger generation toward parenthood, divorce and a host of other issues;
   • an email survey of deacons followed by conversation at regional gatherings as well as listening sessions with parish priests at diocesan gatherings - both in order to gain their insights into what is needed in the pastoral care of marriages;
   • nearly 200 focus groups - or what you might call listening sessions - held in sixty-four dioceses spread across twenty-nine states involving nearly 1500 laity who are married and single, separated and divorced, including also Hispanic couples and people in religiously mixed marriages - all in order to learn what people are saying about the positive and negative aspects of marriage, about the role of church teaching in their marriage, and what kind of ministry they need on their vocational journey.
   As I mentioned earlier, the products of each of these activities have been or will be reported on our website (www.usccb.org/npim). We see this as drawing a greater number of people into shared understanding and action and of providing them with helpful tools.

   What have we learned? We have discovered that all sorts of people are happy to be consulted about marriage and to know that the bishops are giving it their attention. They are eager to express themselves, even though their expectations vary as regards what the bishops might do with their ideas and concerns. We have learned once again that dialogue, with an emphasis on listening, is more than a method of gathering information. It's really part of the product, not just a process leading up to it.

   We have not finished our listening and consulting, but I can give you a sense of what we have heard so far. Because the focus groups in the sixty-four dioceses were our most extensive effort, let me summarize a few findings from them. I should also stress that people who joined the focus groups would certainly be considered mainstream practicing Catholics who are connected to their parishes. We did not, and in fact could not, draw in large numbers of marginal or non-practicing Catholics. We want to listen to this group but will have to find another means of doing so.

   When we asked people in the focus groups to identify positive elements in their marriages we heard about shared faith and values, children, the place of mutual support and friendship, good communication, the support of extended family, and the enjoyment of sharing an intimate relationship. Some even mentioned the enrichment gained from their different religious traditions. Negative elements included financial challenges, balancing work and family time, caring for children and elderly parents, concerns about health, adjustment to a new culture, domestic violence and addictive behaviors. Don't all these ring true!

   We asked people to talk about church teaching and its influence on their marriage in terms of what is most affirming and what is most challenging. We learned that most people do not have a well differentiated grasp of church teachings. With some exceptions, they tend to think in generalities. So, for example, most told us that the church's teaching about commitment and permanence is most affirming to them. They are able to find practical support in this when the going gets rough. Some also mentioned the church's teaching about marriage being a vocation, a graced path to holiness, as something from which they draw strength. Not surprisingly, and across all the age cohorts of couples, we heard that church teaching and discipline about contraception and about annulments present the major challenges. Some simply do not agree; some say they don't understand; and some express a desire to learn more despite the difficulties they are encountering. In some groups of newly-married couples we heard of an interest in natural family planning.

   There were a few groups of single young adults in the twenty to thirty age range. When we asked about their view of marriage we discovered a few things. Parental behavior, for good and ill, is a strong influence. These young people consider marriage to be a worthy life goal, but not the only one, and maybe not the most immediate one before finishing one's education and getting started in a career. Their most common fear is divorce and, because they don't see much difference in a loving sexual relationship before or after a wedding, they tend toward trying out a relationship before committing to someone in marriage. An overwhelming recommendation from these groups was that marriage education, in a broader sense, begin earlier in adolescence and not be left to the months immediately before the wedding.

   Interchurch and interfaith couples identified many of the same issues as all the others except the obvious one of religious difference. Those who regarded this positively spoke of mutual enrichment, a greater sense of tolerance, and a sharpening of commitment from having to think about choices and make decisions about participating in one or both churches. Negative issues often mentioned were the experience of being treated as unwelcome second-class citizens and, of course, not being able to receive holy communion in the Catholic Church except in special circumstances.

   When we asked the groups about ministry to marriages, we found that most had participated in a marriage preparation program but very few expected that the church would follow through with educational and spiritual support after their wedding. They did not see their parish as a source of ministry except possibly in times of crisis. But even when they did approach the parish priest with a problem, most did not find help either in direct service or in a referral.

   When a parish did offer a marriage enrichment program or something similar, the couples said they were pleased and perhaps surprised because they were not expecting it. On the other hand, some pointed out that when they participated as couples in parish activities, including adult faith formation programs, they found enrichment for their marriage. Sometimes, they told us, labeling an event as marriage support can have a reverse effect and turn couples away. Focus groups are a valid but limited research method. Their principal purpose is to surface what is important to a given population. This begins to shape how a response will be given, whether it comes from those who are trying to market a new product or from pastors who want to touch minds and hearts with the gospel message.

   What we learned from listening to the focus groups has been reinforced and expressed in different ways through our other consultative activities - for example, in the sessions with marriage tribunal officials or with the leaders of marriage renewal ministries. We have now begun to look for themes and patterns which call for a response from the bishops.

   As the bishops begin to shape their response and consider how best to deliver it, we have discovered the value of demonstrating how church teaching about marriage converges on several important topics with good social science research. There are plenty of studies that, not surprisingly, are often more persuasive to a younger generation of adults than simply presenting magisterial statements that, to them, may not always self evident. Currently we are providing bishops with some material to help them in preaching and teaching.

   I think the biggest challenge ahead of us is the one we have had from the very beginning: to communicate a faith-inspired message about marriage that combines realism with inspiration, that speaks to a variety of audiences, that integrates beauty, goodness, and truth as revealing divine love, and that does all this and more in contemporary language, images, and probably through a mix of media.

   So I ask you to pray for us as we continue forward in the next two years. In thinking about marriage itself and about this Initiative of ours, I take encouragement from the phrase your project applied to family life: "not always easy, but full of meaning" - and I would now want to add: and also "capable of releasing formidable energies" (Familiaris Consortio, 43).

   Thank you.

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