At a special Marriage Day Mass, Archbishop calls for prayer to save Christian founding principles of
national life.
By Peter Rosengren
Archbishop Barry Hickey has called for Catholics to pray that those who will make up the new federal Parliament will safeguard traditional marriage and not give in to fashionable pressure or agitation to effectively redefine it out of existence.
His call, he said, was not a political act but it was also important that the Church speak out on key matters such as the status of marriage in Australia.
He made his comments at a special Mass in St Mary’s Cathedral on 12 August on the eve of National Marriage Day.
National Marriage Day was organised by the family and marriage lobby, the Australian Family Association, the Catholic men’s organisation, the Knights of the Southern Cross and a number of other organisations strongly supportive of the social importance of marriage.
Similar gatherings across the country were held this week to underscore the vital importance of marriage to individuals and to society; the main event was a National Marriage Day breakfast in Canberra on the morning of 13 August.
“This Mass is not a political act. Nevertheless, it has a lot to do with the social fabric of Australia, and our politicians and governments have much to do in preserving that fabric,” he told around 200 people who had braved a cold wet winter evening to attend.
“This Mass is also to do with raising our voice so that Parliament preserves marriage in its traditional sense,” he said, noting that there are now more forces and groups than ever before seeking to actively change the definition of marriage to include almost any relationship.
In fact, he pointed out, some are attempting to change things so far that they welcome the breakdown of marriage as an institution and argue that this frees people to engage in almost any kind of relationship as a substitute for traditional marriage, a relationship between a man and a woman based on fidelity to each other and open to the possibility of life. Marriage, he told those present, not only provides for the needs of families and individuals but beyond the confines of the family circle into society and acts as a sign.
“It is a civilising vocation that reminds our society of God and of his love,” he said.
As reported in last week’s Record, Archbishop Hickey also issued a pastoral letter to the Archdiocese to coincide with the marking of National Marriage Day.
Entitled Pearl of Great Price, the 1,300 word document reiterates the importance of marriage not only for spouses and society, but especially for children.
A key concern in the Archbishop’s comments were the personal and social cost of marriage breakdown, now at almost pandemic proportions in Australia, and the largely ignored effects on children and how they suffer from this phenomenon.
The Archbishop told those in St Mary’s that there are now something like one million people in Australia from broken marriages.
Part of the cost is the children, who so often get caught in the hostility between spouses, a hostility which usually continues long after the actual separation.
He was particularly saddened by the unseen victims, including children who are placed in foster care as a result of marital and family breakdown. The numbers are simply “frightening” he told worshippers, adding that he knew of cases where children were placed with up to 15 different families in succession.
“They emerge from the experience often with deep psychological problems, depressed and often violent. They haven’t had the love they need to have,” he said.
He urged Catholics to embrace the Church’s teaching on marriage as ‘a pearl of great price,’ the title he had given to his pastoral letter.
And while it was true that marriage is under great threat in Australia today, it was also under threat when Christ was alive, he pointed out.
Under the law of Moses, a man was permitted to divorce his wife for almost no reason at all, while in Roman culture, divorce had become common; it was Jesus who restored marriage to the lofty and original vision in God’s plan for human beings and raised it to a Sacrament.
The Archbishop ended his homily as he had begun it: urging those present to pray for the new Government and politicians “so that the Christian foundation of our nation will continue without change.”
His comments mirrored, in part, comments a fortnight ago raising his concerns at the encroachment of secularism and the marginalisation of deeply held religious values in Australian political life and culture.
Then, he said, Christian voters were becoming concerned at the future direction of social policy in Australian politics and culture as the laws and policies erected generations ago on essentially Christian ethical principles were being eroded by a culture of materialism and moral relativism.