Posts Tagged ‘Marriage’

Marriage and divorce statistics fall

Monday, May 7th, 2018
Marriage and divorce rates both fall in New Zealand

The number of people marrying in New Zealand is falling, says Statistics New Zealand. It says in 1992 the marriage rate was 18.3 couples per 1000 people eligible to marry. That includes those who formed a civil union from 2005. This rate dropped to 10.9 couples in 2017. Statistics New Zealand says the highest number Read more

Marriage has become a trophy

Monday, April 9th, 2018
marriage trophy

The decline of marriage is upon us. Or, at least, that’s what the zeitgeist would have us believe. In 2010, when Time magazine and the Pew Research Center famously asked Americans whether they thought marriage was becoming obsolete, 39 percent said yes. That was up from 28 percent when Time asked the question in 1978. Read more

Francis’ paradigm shift: mercy migrants marriage

Thursday, March 15th, 2018
mercy migrants marriage

Whenever Pope Francis visits prisons, during his whirlwind trips to the world’s peripheries or at a nearby jailhouse in Rome, he always tells inmates that he, too, could have ended up behind bars: “Why you and not me?” he asks. That humble empathy and the ease with which he walks in others’ shoes have won Read more

The Story Behind Pope Francis’s Airborne Marriage Blessing

Thursday, February 8th, 2018

Pope Francis’s convalidation of the marriage of two flight attendants while in Flight in Chile has stirred up quite a bit of controversy for Catholics. But with confusing headlines about a seemingly spontaneous aeroplane wedding, what are the real facts about the pair of air stewards who met Pope Francis during his trip? Continue reading

Conscience not the same as personal preferences – Pope Francis

Thursday, November 16th, 2017
conscience

“Too many people confuse a rightly-formed conscience with personal preferences dominated by selfishness” Pope Francis said in a video message to an Italian meeting on ‘Amoris Laetitia,’ his exhortation on the family. “Conscience,” he said, “always has God’s desire for the human person as its ultimate reference point. “The contemporary world risks confusing the primacy Read more

Married At First Sight: The time reality TV discovered some morals

Monday, November 6th, 2017

It could be a television first: the moment a reality TV producer actually stepped in to stop his contestants arguing. A reunion dinner party for the feuding contestants of reality show Married at First Sight was brought to an early halt in Sunday night’s episode when a senior television executive intervened. Warner Bros managing director Greg Heathcote interrupted the dinner Read more

Sologamy – Now you can marry yourself

Monday, October 9th, 2017

Sologamy, the act of marrying yourself, is on the rise across the globe. Sologamists say it doesn’t mean they’re cutting themselves off from relationships, but that it means they’ve learnt to love themselves truly. Which they believe if anything, puts them in an even better position to love someone else. Read more

Pope’s nod to civil unions isn’t agreement to gay marriage

Monday, September 11th, 2017

Balancing homosexual demands for legal recognition, marital status and church law has led Pope Francis to argue privately that the Church should come out for civil unions as the “lesser of two evils,”. Sergio Rubin, who is Francis’s authorised biographer, says Francis has suggested this would mean rather than homosexual “marriage”, the term “civil unions” Read more

Charities Commission strips Family First of charitable status

Monday, August 21st, 2017

Controversial group Family First has been stripped of its charitable status “because it does not advance exclusively charitable purposes”. But the group is not going down without a fight, saying it will argue the decision in the High Court. The decision by the Charities Registration Board was made public on Monday. It is the second time the Read more

Catholic parish life has become insufferably middle-class

Thursday, August 10th, 2017
Parish and sacraments

There are plenty of things for which I thank God: good friends, the health of my children, the glorious tenth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum. Another is the fact that my wife and I were never made to attend a Catholic marriage preparation course. If we had been members of a parish where the mind-numbingly dull half-year Read more