The rising incidence of Divorce? Can it be stopped? Does it pose as great a threat to civilisation and the Church as terrorism or climate change?

Dear Friends,

We've literally been up all night engrossed in a long conversation with a family friend presently going through a relationship breakdown and much of our conversation has been dealing with the issues at the heart of this series of commentaries that Andrew Kania completes today. I'm sure we will all bring many different perspectives to the conversation that we expect will unfold as a result of Dr Kania's work. The final part of his commentary today is titled "Zeitgeist" and that is part giveaway as to what triggered this conversation. My son, Ben (29), recently posted on the Catholica Forum a link to a 2 hour film by that name that is available on the net which is attracting a lot of interest amongst younger people. Andrew watched the film and it seems it was the title of the film rather than its content which triggered this exploration of another phenomenon — the breakdown of the family — which is another aspect of the Zeitgeist or Spirit of our Time.

Andrew frankly admits that he is largely writing from the perspective of a Religious Education teacher who has been working with young people for twenty years and observing at grass roots level the devastation that the breakdown in marital relationships so often causes for young people — and for their belief and value systems. Amanda and I come it from a slightly different perspective as parents who have divorced or been divorced by our partners and who have recently been through the annulment process. We are both acutely aware of the trauma that our situations unleashed in the lives of our own children. Divorce not involves the breakdown in the relationship of the two people at the focus of the relationship but the shattering of myriad other relationships that radiate out from the focus point. The friend who was visiting tonight has no religious affiliation having been scared out of that many moons ago by exposure to a very fundamentalist Jehovah's Witness experience in his childhood. It was fascinating sharing our different perspectives on these matters last night.

Andrew's commentary raises a huge canvas of issues. My own personal suspicion is that the Church is not going to turn back the tidal wave change in the incidence of relationship breakdown by any appeals to scripture of what God says (just as it hasn't in so many other debates including trying to get people rocking up to Mass on Sundays). Partly sparked by a comment from our guest last night, I have confidence that the rate of relationship breakdown in society will be attenuated in the coming decades but the attenuation is going to come about through people enduring the pain of relatiionship breakdown and learning through that bitter experience to be far more discerning before entering into their relationships. As some of the studies Dr Kania cites seem to indicate, in some respects religion itself — or at least deluded understandings of what religion is, or ought be, about — is probably as responsible for the rising incidence of relationship breakdown as any other factor in society.

The challenge we collectively face as spiritual people is, if you'll excuse the play on words, divorcing ourselves from fundamentalist and simplistic understandings of religion and spirituality and finding the authentic and Divinely-inspired solutions that will help us — individually and collectively — create better and more enduring relationships. I am not convinced we are endeavouring to return to some "golden age" of the past where marriage and relationships were better than what they are today. For much of human history marriage was more than likely more to do with property and the affairs and ambitions of the rich and powerful in society than it was concerned with love and any sense of personal or spiritual fulfilment for the masses in humanity. The seeming stability of recent generations has probably been more the exception than the rule and that was more that probably induced by fear of social conditions — such as the impact of World Wars and Global Depression as well as part outcome of the changed social conditions of the Industrial Revolution — rather than by any deep theology of relationship or social or spiritual theories about the meaning of marriage.

In conjunction with the many other thinkers he cites, what Andrew does successfully achieve with this series, I think, is to draw our attention to the fact that collectively we (the Church and wider society) have a major problem that needs to be addressed. Andrew, in his conclusion to the series suggests that the Church needs to solve this problem for its own survival. Just out of interest, Catholica readers might be interested in also reading in the latest issue of Madonna Magazine Teresa Pirola suggestion “What we need is not a baptism-centred church, but a marriage-centred church.” I would perhaps go further to suggest that by the process of taking up some of the suggestions of Andrew and Teresa, it might be the very process of endeaouring to solve this issue that the Church might bring about its rejuvenation. I'd venture to suggest, that will not occur if the Church is going to continue its retreat into fundamentalist and Jansenist-style thinking and behaviour — and sadly, in so many places, that seems to be the direction in which things are heading. <Click HERE to read Andrew's commentary>

PETITION UPDATE…

The petition has had a further big jump in the last 24 hours and the total today stands at 10,643. Frank Purcell has also advised that some Melbourne supporters are organising a meeting of people who have signed the petition, or who would like to sign, on Thursday 22nd November at Camberwell Centre, 340 Camberwell Rd, Camberwell 3124 at 8.00 pm. <Click HERE to access the petition information page> and <Click HERE to sign the petition online>.

Best wishes for a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life, and in our world,

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher