UK bishop: Marriage is ‘at risk of being eradicated altogether’

 

Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury, England, presides over a Mass for marriage in his diocese on Oct. 14, 2023. / Credit: Simon Caldwell/St. Gabriel News and Media

London, England, Oct 21, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The institution of marriage is not merely in “cataclysmic decline” but is at risk of being eradicated altogether, a U.K. bishop has warned.

During a sermon on Oct. 14 at a Mass for a diocesan celebration of marriage, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury, England, told a congregation of married couples: “It is hard to imagine in little more than half a century the promises you made, the vocation you embraced would become more and more exceptional. So exceptional in these early years of this 21st century that most recent statistics show a 61% decrease of marriages in our land, the lowest number of couples entering marriage for almost two centuries, and the first time in our history that more children are born outside of marriage than in a married home.”

He continued: “The headlines do not seem to exaggerate when they speak not merely of a cataclysmic decline but of marriage disappearing in Britain. The social consequences of such a loss are only beginning to be worked out, not least for the well-being of children.”

Davies went on to speak optimistically of the hope Christian marriage offers, saying: “At a moment in our history when marriage is increasingly being lost sight of, the witness you have given simply by living the promises of marriage through every trial and difficulty is no small thing and today shines out more and more brightly.

“The Christian vocation of marriage stands out as an invitation to new generations to believe and set out along the same path: to have the courage to make the same awesome promises, to build a stable and loving home for their children by their very faithfulness, and with the same prayer that the Lord may protect their unity of heart and bring them to old age together.”

The Mass for marriage took place at St. Columba’s Church in Chester, northwest England.

During the Mass, the bishop said that between them the couples attending the Mass have amassed “1,275 years of marriage faithfully lived,” which he said was as an “incalculable good.”

Among the couples in attendance were Lloyd and Sheila Hayes of Romiley, Cheshire, who will celebrate 70 years of marriage this year. They were wed at ages 20 and 18 respectively and now have eight children, 23 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

According to the U.K. Office of National Statistics, in 2021 there were 113,505 divorces granted in England and Wales, a 9.6% increase compared with 2020, when there were 103,592 divorces.

According to the Marriage Foundation, a research body committed to investigating family breakdown in the U.K., by the age of 14, 46% of children are not living with both biological parents.


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6 Comments

  1. And if the purpose is to destroy a civilized culture, its supporting institutions, the Church, family, justice system, and marriage, marriage the essential and primary target. As it became clear with the doctrine on the sanctity of the conjugal act exclusive to marriage in Paul the Sixth’s Humanae Vitae. If private revelation ever had relevance to events it was Carmelite Sister Lucia Dos Santos’ letter to Card Carlo Maria Caffarra predicting that the final battle between the Church and the Evil One would be over the family. There are multiple reasons, outstanding is same sex union. Once the natural order is trespassed, family structure collapses into disorder breeding further evil malignancy rather than good.
    Our Church, especially since 2013 has promoted the disorder, consequent disintegration of family by subverting both doctrine and structures instituted by the two previous pontificates, works by Benedict XVI and John Paul II that if diminished repudiate Christ. We’re apparently being punishingly tested for our steadfastness or lack thereof in the faith handed down by the Apostles. The astonishing reality of misdirection by top hierarchy from the truth, from what has been revealed and what is accessible to the intellect. Our sole option is to stand fast with Christ as our strength and salvation.

  2. Madeleine Teahan CNA reports, “In the U.K., by the age of 14, 46% of children are not living with both biological parents”. A startling bottom line. Bishop Mark Davies’ alarm a blessing, another bishop aware of the curse.
    A curse primarily [laity sharing the fault] inflicted due to priestly failure from presbyter to bishop – and to pope? Perhaps so, we can find lacuna in moral, administrative judgment in all, some greater, some less. Paul VI and the liturgy, intimidated, holding back from correction; John Paul II, complacently aware of hierarchy abuse, naivete regarding appointments; Benedict XVI, poor administrative judgment; Francis I, unfortunately there isn’t sufficient time and space to list all except to underline the flimsy game of dual good and not so good messaging, humans by [fallen] nature opting for the less burdensome, the more pleasurable not so good. Christ some say decapitated, others perhaps more correctly made over as an exceptionally kind transient. That messiahship improves with age.

  3. Perhaps the Synod on Synodality should discuss this matter and add more verbiage to the “welcoming” thingy, all to be passed along to another pseudo-“synod of bishops”, and another, and another…. Been there, done that:

    “Late marriages and small families became the rule, and men satisfied their sexual instincts by homosexuality or by relations with slaves and prostitutes. This aversion to marriage and the deliberate restriction of the family by the practice of infanticide and abortion was undoubtedly the main cause of the decline of ancient Greece, as Polybius pointed out in the second century B.C. And the same factors were equally powerful in the society of the Empire. . . .” (discovered as an undergrad when it hit the shelves: Christopher Dawson, “The Patriarchal Family in History,” The Dynamics of World History, 1962).

  4. One of the first things the Marxists did in the new Soviet Union in 1917 was abolish marriage and promote abortion. It seems the West has adopted their anti-Christian policies over the years.

  5. Get rid of welfare (including social security and Medicare/medicaid) and compulsory, taxpayer-funded education if you want marriage to make a comeback.

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