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Christian Marriage

and the Family

Family Life Section

Social Action Department

N. C. W. C.

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D. C.

1932



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/christianmarriagOOnati



Christian Marriage

and the Family

Family Life Section

Social Action Department

N. C. W. C.
1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D. C.

1932

(Reprinted from Catholic Action, January and July, 1932 ).



Deacfcfifed



INTRODUCTION

We take great pleasure in presenting to the reading
public this booklet on Christian Marriage and the Family.

We feel that it will fill a very real need. In spite of the
great interest shown by the Church in the family down

through the centuries, popular literature on this subject

from the Catholic viewpoint is very limited. This is

particularly to be regretted today when naturalistic views

towards matrimony have become so prevalent and when

unstinted publicity is given to theories subversive of the

Christian ideals of marriage.

The articles contained herein are all reprinted from

Catholic Action
,
particularly from the July, 1932, issue

which was prepared conjointly by the editor of the pub-

lication and the director of the Family Life Section of

the N. C. W. C. Social Action Department.

The Family Life Section is especially grateful to the

Right Reverend Martin Veth, O.S.B., president of St.

Benedict’s College, for making the printing of this brochure

possible, to the editor of Catholic Action for permission to

reprint the articles, and to the individual collaborators

for their contributions.

Rev. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B.,

Director, Family Life Section,

N.C.W.C. Social Action Department.



As the family, according to the teaching of Leo XIII,

is the unit of civil society, and as a nation is made up

of distinct families, it follows that the strength and wel-

fare of a nation depend largely on the ideals of family life.

It was the Order of St. Benedict, exemplifying in its

organization 0 true Christian family life, that did so
much to build up Christian civilization in Europe during

the early Middle ages. This fact makes it a pleasure for

a Benedictine Abbot to recommend and encourage every

effort that aims to strengthen the Christian family in our

country.

Martin Veth, O.S.B., Abbot

St. Benedict’s Abbey,

Atchison, Kansas.



CONTENTS

Conserving the Family 7

By Rev. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., S.T.L., Ph.D.

Why the Encyclical on Christian Marriage 13

By Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.

Preparation for Marriage 19

By Rev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap., Ph.D., Litt.D.

Chief Evils of Modern Marriage 25

By Patrick J. Ward

The Church and the Dignity of Woman 31

By Grace H. Sherwood

Blessings of Marriage 36

By Rev. Albert F. Kaiser, C.PP.S.

Preserving the Integrity of Married Life 42

By Mabel H. Mattingly

N.C.C.W. Committee on Family and Parent Education 47

By Mary G. Hawks

Catholic Action and the Family 51

By Rev. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., S.T.L., Ph.D.





Conserving the Family

By Rev. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., S.T.L., Ph.D.

HE realm of the family is a field that insistently
invites action today. This is due in part to the

fundamental importance of the family institution, in part

to its present critical condition. The former reason has

always invited action on behalf of the home; the latter

impels it today if the family is to be conserved. The im-

portance of the family is due to its vital relation to the

entire social system. It is the cell, as it were, of society,

the heart of the social organism. A vigorous home life
means a vital society. A decadent family life implies a
decaying social organism.

The latter unfortunately is the condition that we see

today—a multitude of decadent families and a rapidly
decaying society. Hence the need for action for the con-

servation of the home. That our family life is showing

alarming, symptoms of disease and unmistakable signs of

decay is apparent to all who care to see. The press daily

tells its pitiful stories of broken and disorganized homes;

the statistician constantly sums up his sickening totals

of disintegrated families. Indeed, things have come to

such a pass that the common Father of Christendom has

been impelled to call the attention of the entire human

race to the critical condition of our domestic world.

There is every reason, therefore, to speak of conserving

the family. It is high time for action on behalf of the

home. Such action to be really effective will have to

seek out the causes of the family’s troubles and apply

the remedies there. This implies serious study of the

family situation before more direct action can intelli-

gently follow.

The influences that are at work disintegrating the

home are manifold indeed, and the remedies that might
be applied to help and conserve it are not less few in

number. The present family situation is a most involved



8 Conserving the Family

and complex one. It leaves little room for such simple

remedies as spontaneous action, blind instinct, and mere

intuition. Serious study, a thoroughgoing analysis, is a

necessary preliminary to intelligent and effective action

to conserve our domestic world. Space will only permit

our singling out here one or the other cause and remedy

by way of example, yet this should serve to point the way

to further study and remedial activity.

Perhaps the two outstanding causes of our sorry

family plight today are the prevailing pagan tendencies

and our changing social order. In the following we shall

call attention particularly to the former of these and only

incidentally to the latter.

The pagan tendencies of the time are largely embodied

in what the modern calls individualism. The latter is

truly a pagan force. It is, moreover, a highly disinte-

grating influence. Excessive individualism enthrones self

and worships it; it knows not love of God or neighbor.

As such it is the antithesis of Christianity—a divisive,
a separative force in society. Unfortunately, this socially

destructive influence is abroad in the land today. It is

playing the part of the cankerworm within the social

system. It is playing the role of the moth within the

family fabric. And disintegration is going on apace.

Not only is the general structure of society being affected,

but also all of its component parts, including the most

fundamental unit, the family.

Here, then, is the strategic point of attack upon the

pagan influences that are bringing about the decay of

our domestic life. Here is the logical starting point for

any effective program of action that seeks to conserve

the home. The divisive and separative force of selfish-

ness must give way to the binding and attractive influ-

ence of altruism if family life is to flourish. The 0B
integrating love of God and neighbor must replace the

disintegrating love of self if the home is to endure. In-

dividualism must be routed if the family is to be con-

served. The domestic world, the family hearth itself,

is preeminently the place for such an attack; it is the

logical field for action to protect and conserve the home.

Nothing is more instrumental in curbing selfishness, noth-



Conserving the Family 9

ing more influential in promoting an altruistic spirit than

precisely complete and wholesome living within the circle

of the home. This is due to various influences that nor-

mally find lodging there.

First of all, there is the fact of parenthood. Normal

parenthood directs selfish elements into altruistic channels

within the home. Marriage sympathy naturally centers

in offspring. The children are the parents’ treasures and

their main sources of interest. And next to the possession

of the treasured interest there is no richer experience

than the sharing of it with another to whom it means
much the same. Because they must sacrifice together

for their little ones and must work out in unison their

destiny, parents find in them a mutual interest more co-

hesive than any other binding force within the domestic

world. To parents there is nothing more engrossing

than the triumphs connected with the development of

their offspring. Moreover, the keener their insight into

their children’s natures, the more engrossing and more

successful will their efforts at training be. Parents’

natural interest in children opens up, therefore, an im-

mense field for the cultivation of the affections. It

draws the family group together. Parenthood is a power-

ful influence making for the conservation of the home.

Besides the interests immediately connected with

parenthood, however, there are many others within the

home. These, too, serve to foster an altruistic spirit and

thereby help to conserve the family. In fact, if the home

begins with an endowment of companion interests and

new ones are added as time goes on, reasonable harmony

and happiness within the familial group is practically

assured.

Outstanding among these home interests in the past

have always been those of play; for play is naturally an

integrating force. It tends to bind group members to-

gether. It arouses sentiments common to all. It pro-

motes unity of thought, feeling, and purpose. It fosters

affection within the home circle and makes for loyalty

to the family and its members. Unfortunately, however,

play no longer centers so extensively within the home

today as it did in earlier times. The reason for this is



10 Conserving the Family

not far to seek. It is to be found in that other far reach-

ing cause of our family disintegration, our changing social

situation. The shift from an agricultural regime to a

machinofacture culture has tended to drive play out of

the home. The transition from a rural to an urban life

has brought congestion and lack of play space in and

around the home. Commercialized urban recreation and

entertainment have taken on gigantic proportions and

constantly lure the pleasure seeker away from the family

hearth. Thus the home is robbed of an integrating in-

fluence that it formerly exercised through pleasure and

play.

Here again we find opportunity for action for the

conservation of the home. With zealous and painstak-

ing effort much can be done again to develop recreational

interests within the domestic world. Parents can show

greater interest in the hobbies of their children. Grown-

ups can participate more in the recreational activities

of the little ones. Many of the former indoor games can
be reinstated. All such measures would serve to foster

a spirit of altruism and help to integrate our family

world. They would constitute a genuine contribution

towards the conservation of the family. Here, then, is

another inviting field for action for those who revere

the home.

Then there are also the many apparently trifling

attentions towards fellow members within the family

circle. These, too, contain great possibilities for foster-

ing familial affection and for integrating the home. Even

the observance of the ordinary courtesies and conven-

tions within the home circle can be most influential in

developing goodwill and sympathetic feeling between the

family members, and thus redound to the good of the

home.

If we add to all this the fact that home life holds sway

in about nine-tenths of life, that ninety per cent of the

interests of parents naturally center in their homes and

in their loved ones, we have indeed an impressive picture

of the possibilities within the domestic world itself for

the development of familial love, for action needed to

conserve and integrate the family. Indeed, home life



Conserving the Family 11

is by far the most effective means for drawing the in-

dividual out of his selfish shell and for developing a spirit

of altruism within him. The home is the normal arena

for action against the pagan forces that threaten it.

It offers to the generality of mankind a most inviting

place for effort in behalf of the family.

Not only, however, must the love of self be counter-

acted by the love of neighbor if family life is to prosper;

not only must individualism yield to altruism if the home

is to endure. Domestic life needs more than human love

if it is to remain permanently integrated. Divine love

must find a place to play a part within the familial circle

if home life is really to flourish. God’s interests must

reign supreme and Christ must be King within the

domestic empire if the family is to remain worthy of its

high origin. Nothing less can assure it harmonious unison

and permanent conservation. This implies, of course, a

lively faith and unfailing religious observance. More

than that, it involves religion’s presence within the family

circle. It implies giving expression to one’s faith through

the practice of family devotions and the use of sacred

symbols within the home.

But here again we find the hampering influence of

our changing social order. The latter has contributed

in many ways to the decline of common family prayers
and to failure in other religious practices. Yet with due

care and earnest effort, these observances can again be

made to flourish within the domestic world. Even in

the most mobile parts of our cities this is not an imposs-

ibility. It is true, of course, this will require more effort

than formerly. Yet it will be effort well worth while,

for these practices foster divine love within the home;

they invite God’s grace and blessing; they furnish a

sacred field for action for the conservation of the home.

The foregoing considerations intimate that the task

of conserving the family demands action on the part of

the many rather than on the part of the few. They

suggest that without much effort on the part of the

generality of families and their members, all other activi-

ties in behalf of the home will prove useless and vain.



12 Conserving the Family

And yet there is also need for action other than that of
the individual within his home. There is need, for

example, for organized and community efforts to help

and protect the home. There is need for the activities

of specialists and experts to solve the problems of family

life. There is need for the help of the social institutions

if the home is to be conserved. These are the fields

mainly of leaders and professionals, yet the generality

can lend their influence too. All who are intent upon

conserving the family will make use of these opportuni-

ties, too. They realize that the home is not only deserv-

ing of all their efforts but also that it stands in need of

them today.



Why the Encyclical

on Christian Marriage

HIS preliminary chapter, notwithstanding what

may seem an impertinent “why?” in its title, is to
be in no sense a justification of the Holy Father’s motive

in issuing the Encyclical Casti Connubii, on Christian

marriage. Papal documents need no justification. The

pope is never precipitate, never too quickly alarmed.

The Catholic Church is not easily stampeded: the head

of the Church does not scan the daily papers like a sensa-

tion-mongering preacher seeking some new horror as a

text for next Sunday’s sermon.

Therefore, the word “why” in the caption affixed to

this chapter means merely that I shall attempt a brief

summary of the conditions that made a new papal pro-

clamation on the sacredness of marriage necessary and

inevitable.

Count Keyserling in The Book of Marriage
1 published

some six years ago speaks of “a complete change in atti-

tude” towards marriage and of “a violent revolt against

the former ideals and customs of the marriage relation.”

It may interest us Americans to know that, speaking in
his capacity as a “travelling philosopher,” he thinks that

the “general uncertainty and instability” about marriage

are more marked amongst us than amongst any other

people.

Yet the agitation for a change of view and a modifi-

cation of custom cannot be said to have originated in

America. More than forty years ago Ellen Key, the

Scandinavian feminist, proclaimed the right to mother-

hood without marriage, and complete freedom of divorce.

1 The Book of Marriage. A New Interpretation by Twenty-four
Leaders of Contemporary Thought. Harcourt, Brace & Company,
New York, 1926.

By Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.



14 Why the Encyclical on Christian Marriage

At the time her views were considered extreme, or at

least her expression of them over-frank, but in this genera-

tion her book would create little comment and indeed

some of her contentions for example that mothers must

surrender other interests in order to care for their own

children, are held antiquated and illiberal by the very

school which she founded. “The home is the enemy of

woman,” wrote W. L. George some twenty years ago,

not so much speaking his own mind as summarizing the

opinions of the advanced feminists—with w7hom, by the
way, he was in sympathy. And he added that after a
thorough study of feminist literature he was convinced

that the ultimate object of feminism wTas the abolition

of the home and the family. The tw?o coryphaei of

modernism in England, Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells,

with thousands of their devoted satellites, have advocated

motherhood without marriage as a complement to mar-

riage without motherhood.

In the half century that has elapsed since the debut

of Ellen Key, and her contemporary, Olive Schreiner,

modernistic opinion about marriage has “advanced” so

rapidly that we have arrived at a condition in which mar-

riage is no longer marriage. His Holiness the Pope says,

“Every true marriage carries with it an enduring bond,

and every union contracted without that perpetual bond

is no marriage at all .”2

The conservative G. K. Chesterton (conservative in

matters moral if not economic) quite agrees with his

radical compeers, Shaw and Wells, that it is folly to talk

of the “impending dissolution” of marriage. All three

concur in saying that marriage as an institution (apart

from the Catholic Church) is already destroyed. “Don’t

ask me,” says Wells, “if I believe that marriage should be

abolished. We are abolishing it piecemeal every day.”
Further, the Pope, who is evidently au courant with

the latest matrimonial novelties, speaks of those who

“concoct new species of unions suited as they say to the

2 Marriage. Authorized English Text of the Encyclical better of

His Holiness Pius XI, National Catholic Welfare Conference,

i93i, P- 15-



Why the Encyclical on Christian Marriage 15

present temper of men and the times, which various new

forms of matrimony they presume to label ‘temporary’

‘experimental’ and ‘companionate.’ ” Such unions are,

of course, not marriage in the traditional Christian sense

of the word. Indeed there are sociologists, not a few,

who eschew the word marriage and speak rather of

“mating.” Edward Carpenter, another celebrated pio-

neer of the new era, insisted that there should be no vows

in marriage even for one year. And there was the very
accommodating American woman preacher, Anna Howard

Shaw, who used to ask the bride and groom what kind of

compact they wished to make, and then marry them

with the formula of their own choosing. This idea, too,

dates from Ellen Key who had written, “Each fresh couple,

whatever form they may choose for the cohabitation,
must themselves prove its moral claims. Only cohabita-

tion can decide the morality of a certain case .”3

The notion that one cannot determine antecedently

whether adultery or fornication be moral or immoral

occurs repeatedly in the writings of the new school.

“The cramping of love by institutions” (for example by

marriage), says Bertrand Russell, “is one of the major

evils of the world. Every person who allows himself to

think that an adulterer must be wicked adds his stone

to the prison in which the source of poetry and beauty

and life is incarcerated by priests in black gowns .” 4

And again, “Relations between adults who are free agents
are a private matter and should not be interfered with

either by the law or by public opinion, because no out-

sider can know whether they are good or bad.” Bold

though these assertions are, they cannot be called novel.

August Bebel, a generation before Bertrand Russell, had

said, “The sexual act does not concern morality at all.

It is simply a question of individual taste.” Evidently

we have come a long way from the Scarlet Letter and a still

longer way from the Sixth Commandment. Most of the

new moralists do not pay the Ten Commandments the

3 Love and Marriage, p. 16-17.
4 Our Changing Morality, A Symposium. Edited by Freda Kirch-
wey. Albert and Charles Boni, New York, 1924, p. 14-15.



16 Why the Encyclical on Christian Marriage

compliment of even adverting to their existence. Ellen

Key refers to them only to repudiate them: “The new

morality,” she says, “no longer accepts commandments

from the mounts of Sinai or Galilee. Here as everywhere

else evolutionism can only regard continuous experience

as revelation .”
5

The idea of an elastic and ever-varying sex-morality

is expressed grandiloquently by Isabel Leavenworth (pro-

fessor in Barnard College): “Sex experiences,” she says,

“like other experiences can be judged of only on the basis

of the part they play in the creative drama of the individual

soul (I take the liberty of italicizing a particularly poetic

phrase). There are as many possibilities of successful

sex-life as there are men and women in the world. A sig-
nificant single standard can be attained only through the

habit of judging every case, man or woman in the light

of the character of the individual and of the particular

circumstances in which he or she is placed .” 6 Such

euphemisms as “poetry, beauty and life,” and “creative

drama of the individual soul,” used to describe what have

been hitherto more bluntly called sins of the flesh are

characteristic of the literature of the subject. And the

hopeless confusion of ethical ideas is even more charac-

teristic. Ferhaps the limit is reached by one commenta-

tor upon Ellen Key, J. B. Kerfoot, who expresses a doubt

as to whether we should not call it a sin when the spirit

conquers the flesh.

It must he remarked that the logic of those who love

to call themselves the “new” moralists is quite as un-

certain as their ethics. Miss Leavenworth, for example,

speaks of a “single standard” in the same breath with the

declaration that there are and must be as many moral

standards as there are men and women in the world, and

she seems altogether unaware that her logic and her

ethics are equally nihilistic.

Bertrand Russell, who used to be considered a pro-

fessional logician, seems to feel the necessity of defend-

ing the thesis of an elastic sex-morality by an appeal to

5 Love and Marriage, p. 52.

6 Our Changing Morality, p. 101.



Why the Encyclical on Christian Marriage 17

scientific anthropology. “Economic causes,” he says,

“determine whether a tribe will practice polygamy, poly-

andry, group marriage, or monogamy, and whether mono-

gamy will be lifelong or dissoluble .” 7 And Ellen Key,

who is particularly fascinated with the idea of moral

evolution, demands that “individuals should be granted

that liberty which was allowed to the same nation at

different periods, namely, the liberty within certain

limits of choosing its own form of sexual life .” 8

These few examples of the complete demoralization of

sex-ethics may suffice. They can be augmented ad lib

by anyone who has the industry and the patience to read

the newspapers and the magazines of the day and the

slightly more pretentious bound volumes that may be
found in any bookshop or even on tables in the “drug

stores” (significant word) which cater to the popular

taste. It is not too much to say that we have arrived at

a condition of chaos. And, says Miss Freda Kirchwey

in the introduction to the symposium already cited, “No

one seeks to argue chaos away. . . . Men and women are
ignoring old laws. In their relations with each other they

are living according to tangled, conflicting codes. Rem-

nants of early admonitions and relationships, the dic-

tates of custom, the behavior of their friends, their own

tastes and desires, elusive dreams of a loveliness not pro-

vided for by rules—all these are scrambling to fill the gap
that was left when Right and Wrong finally followed the

other absolute monarchs to an empty, nominal existence

somewhere in exile .” 9

Naturally the chaotic condition of the theory and

practice of marriage has been reflected in the legislation

of the day. An unholy rivalry exists among nations, and
even amongst states within nations, all striving to make

marriage unstable, divorce cheap and easy and the family

impossible.

Time was when Reno occupied a position of supremacy

as the purveyor of quick and convenient divorces. But

7 Our Changing Morality, p. 17, interpreting Mueller-Lyer.
8 Love and Marriage, p. 6-7.
9 Our Changing Morality, p. vi.



18 Why the Encyclical on Christian Marriage

the state of Arkansas entered into the competition and

lured away some of the profits from Nevada. Then

Yucatan in Mexico underbid them both and sold di-

vorces for $25 spot cash. Russia makes it still easier

and cheaper to get rid of one’s “husband” or “wife” and

—

latest in the ungodly game—is the new Spanish Republic
which provides divorces on demand.

In view of these facts and tendencies, any further de-

lay upon the part of the Pope in the attempt to set the

world straight on the question of marriage, the home and

family might well seem sinful. A clear, forceful re-
affirmation of the spiritual and religious purport of the

Holy Sacrament of Matrimony was imperatively de-

manded.



Preparation for Marriage

By Rev. Felix M, Kirsch, O.M.Cap., Ph.D., Litt.D.

POPE PIUS XI tells us that the happiness of marriedlife “depends in large measure on the due prepara-
tion, remote and proximate, of the parties for marriage:

for it cannot be denied that the basis of a happy wedlock,

and the ruin of an unhappy one, are prepared in the souls

of boys and girls during the period of childhood and

adolescence.”

His Holiness goes on to explain why it is necessary
to begin thus early to educate boys and girls for marriage.

Marriage does not make our young people over. After

marriage they will generally be what they were before.

Consequently, if before marriage they were self-willed

and sensual, they will be the same after they are joined

in wedlock. In fact, matters will probably be after

the two young people with their unconquered passions

have been joined in the bonds of matrimony for life, be-

cause they will then be reaping what they have sown in

their early years. Therefore we need not be surprised

to find in their home, as the Pope reminds us, “sadness,

lamentation, mutual contempt, strifes, estrangements,

and weariness of living together under one roof.”

Hence the plain duty of all who are charged with the

education of the young—parents, priests, and teachers

—

is to begin as early as possible with the proper prepara-

tion for marriage. The home has the first opportunity
in this respect. But how could we expect parents to pre-

pare their children properly for marriage if they themselves

have a worldly view of the sacrament of matrimony?

And how widespread even among our Catholic parents
is the ignorance of the rights and duties of Catholic mar-

riage.

Our priests should therefore heed the regulation laid

down by Canon 1,018 of the Code of Canon Uaw: “Let
the pastor not fail to instruct his people prudently about



20 Preparation for Marriage

matrimony and the matrimonial impediments.” Now
“instruct,” here means more than elementary instruction.

It does not mean merely the hurried and perfunctory

instructio sponsorum on the eve of the marriage. Some

priests would seem to expect too much from the half-

hour’s instruction given on the eve of the wedding to a

young couple when they are dizzy with love and distracted

with thoughts about temporal and secular affairs. The

pastor may speak to them with the voice of a prophet,
and the young man and woman may be hearing his every
word, but they fail to grasp what the priest is saying.

Their minds are busy with other things.

As an observation on this point, we are often grieved

to learn that the minds of our young people have been

poisoned by those who should have their best interests

at heart and we are shocked at the attitude of some mothers

who abuse their great influence by spreading the malicious

propaganda of naturalism. In such cases the pastor’s

short instruction tcT prospective brides and grooms is

futile in its effects—his advice has come too late.
_InJPI of these facts, we recognize the wisdom of the

"rule obtaining in some dioceses that every pastor must

give six instructions previous to the marriage. At all

events let no priest imagine that bis people are sufficiently

informed on the subject of Catholic marriage if the matter

has been dealt with in mission sermons, or in a Lenten

course of conferences. These means have been tried and

have not proved adequate.

Some time ago the present writer submitted the follow-

ing question to 500 pastors: What means would you sug-

gest as helpful in educating our young people to have clear

and adequate knowledge of, and training for, Catholic

marriage ? The replies received from 460 pastors were

tabulated into 5 groups, and have been published in the

writer’s book, Sex Education and Training for Chasti-

ty (New York, Benziger Brosthers, pp. 431 ff. ).

The limitations of space prevent us from quoting

extensively from the replies received. Suffice it therefore

to say that the respondents insisted that the priest may

never fail to give in the confessional whatever information

may be required by his married or unmarried penitents.



Preparation for Marriage 21

In the pulpit, too, the priest must deal explicitly with the

Catholic doctrine on marriage and birth control. With

regard to individual instruction, it was stated that the

priest must make certain that young people marrying are

fully instructed about their rights and duties. Much

could be accomplished if no couple were married until

the priest had made sure that both parties had read and

understood some good Catholic book on marriage, for

instance, Plain Talks on Marriage by Father Fulgence

Meyer, O.F.M., (St. Francis Book Shop, Cincinnati,

Ohio). Since so many marriages turn out unhappy be-

cause of the prevalence of the social diseases, those about

to marry should voluntarily offer to each other a certifi-

cate indicating freedom from communicable disease.

While carrying out these and other specific suggestions,

the pastor may never lose sight of the fact that the pre-

paration for marriage is but one phase of a larger campaign.

The Pope insists that the low standard of present-day

marriage is only one phase of the naturalism that is

threatening to destroy all Christian ideals. The pastor,

therefore, while preparing his young people for Catholic

marriage, may not content himself with the sporadic
instructing and warning, but must attack the evil at the

root, drive out naturalism, and be consistent in preach-

ing and practising the Gospel of Christ Crucified. He
must make it plain to his congregation that the Gospel

of Christ Crucified must not only be preached in the

pulpit and confessional, but must also be practised in

the heart of the home, in the market place, in the shop,

in the office, in the press, and in the thousand other ramifi-

cations of Catholic life. But such consistency is imposs-

ible without complete character education of both young

and old.

The Catholic home could and should do much more

to provide such character education. But with the

breaking-up of so much of our Catholic home life, our
schools must shoulder even more than their due share of

Catholic character education. Let our Catholic schools

therefore do all they can in this direction. In each and

every school—whether elementary, secondary, or higher

—

the young people should be trained to know and to prac-



22 Preparation for Marriage

tice Christian self-denial. The Catholic doctrine on

vocation should be studiously inculcated. Vocation is

not what the creature desires but what the Creator de-

mands. Vocation means answering the call of God.

Consequently, if the individual is to realize his God-given

vocation, he must strive to occupy that niche for which

the Lord has destined him from all eternity.

In this connection we must refer to the mistake made

frequently not only by religious teachers but by priests

as well when dealing with the subject of vocation. Is it

not true that all too often both priests and sisters regard

as a vocation only the calling to the priesthood or to the

religious life? In consequence the children receive the

impression, generally retained through life, that marriage

is an unworthy thing, and thus they never rise to the

heights of the sublime view that both Christ and the

Church have of the state ennobled by a special sacrament.

More specific preparation for marriage should begin

on the high-school level. It is then that the child dis-

covers the other sex and that he is passing through the

fire and water of the fiercest temptation. It might prove

fatal in many a case to ignore the fact that adolescent

boys and girls are thinking and discussing problems of

sex. A research project recently conducted at the Cath-
olic University in Washington produced evidence that

the subject of marriage and home-making appealed in

the fourth year of the Catholic high school to 75 per cent

of the boys and to 80 per cent of the girls. The topic of

morals has a frequency of 68 per cent in the first year for

boys and increases to 86 per cent in the fourth year,

while the frequency in the girls’ table ranges from 72

per cent in the first year to 93 per cent in the fourth year.

The appeal of the topic of mixed marriages ranges from

41 per cent in the first year to 73 per cent in the fourth

year for boys, and from 68 per cent in the first year to

73 per cent in the fourth year for girls.* During the past

scholastic year the present writer conducted a question

box in connection with a high school and found that 80

*Sister M. Antonia, S.D.P., Religious Instruction in the Catholic
High School, Washington, D. C., 1930, Ch. X.



Preparation for Marriage 23

per cent of the questions dealt with moral and marriage

problems. How futile there for the teacher of religion
in the Catholic high school to ignore a subject that is of

vital concern to these young people not only during the

period of their schooling but especially after they leave

the safeguards of this Catholic environment.

It is true, both priests and teachers will often be at sea

as to how they ought to meet the needs of these adolescents.

However, so long as the priest succeeds in having the

young people continue frequent in the reception of the

sacraments, he will have in the confessional abundant

opportunity for the individual direction that is so essen-

tial. In Holy Communion the adolescents will find the

support that will not only carry them safely through

these critical years, but will also give them reserve strength

and habits for their later married life. The teacher on

his part will find it helpful to make available to his stu-

dents the question box. Here the boys and girls will

have an opportunity of revealing their individual needs

and doubts.

To sum up: the preparation for marriage should in-

clude a broad Catholic character education, the training

in habits of prayer and the frequent reception of the

sacraments, the instilling of a high appreciation of the

vocation to marriage, the giving of proper information on

sex both at the proper time and by the proper authority,

and practical information regarding the building of happy

homes. Given such a preparation for marriage, the

young people should be well fitted under God for the im-
portant task of choosing their life partners.

On this head, too, Pope Pius XI offers pertinent and
practical advice. He counsels wisely that those about to
enter wedlock should pray diligently for divine help, so

that they may make their choice in accordance with
Christian prudence, not indeed led by the blind and un-

restrained impulse of lust, nor by any desires of riches

or other base influence, but by a true and noble love and

by a sincere affection for their future partner. It is well

that the Pope insists that the young people should not

omit to ask the prudent advice of their parents with re-

gard to selecting the partner for life. Nor should they



24 Preparation for Marriage

fail betimes to take into their confidence their pastor

whose experience may well fit him to prevent their mak-
ing serious mistakes in choosing the one person who is to

be primarily their helpmate in reaching heaven. In his

instructions to young people, the priest must stress the

sacred character of Catholic marriage. The priest must

offer telling proof that love and marriage are not things

to play with, or to take lightly. He may use plain
language to bring home to his charges the fact that those

who fall in love easily are apt to fall out of love quite as

readily. Many unhappy marriages can be traced to the
circumstances that adolescents are rather prone to “fall”

in love. Our Catholic youth should recognize that being

in love implies the realization that here is a life-partner

—

a realization that calls for serious adjustments. The new

state of life is not to be entered into lightly, certainly not

a situation to fall into!

With regard to the large subject of courtship, we can-

. not do better than to quote the old rule of the theolo-

gians: Company keeping will be proper if these condi-

tions are observed
:

(
i ) there must be the intention to

marry; (2 ) there must be a probability or at least a poss-

ibility of marriage; (3) the proprieties must be observed.



Chief Evils of

Modern Marriage

By Patrick J. Ward

CHRIST, says our Holy Father,
ordained in an es-

pecial manner that marriage should be “the prin-

ciple and foundation of domestic society and therefore

of all human intercourse.”* At the same time, He re-

stored marriage “to the original purity of its divine

institution” by making it a sacrament of the New Taw.
The failure of the world to recognize this fundamental

principle and this divine character of marriage gives rise

to those modern evils which threaten with extinction the

Christian family and the society which is built upon it

and depends upon it for continuance and stability.

Even though men may deny the sacramental nature of

marriage, still natural marriage retains it binding char-

acter and is subject to the divine law. It is of divine

origin and can not be dissolved at will by any individual,

by mutual consent of the parties, or by the civil power.

Some believe that in denying this sacramental char-

acter of matrimony and in acknowledging the married

state simply as fulfilling a function of nature, marriage

becomes a convention, which may be regulated, changed,
or discarded entirely at the whim of society. The false

assumption is that men may change or thwart the course
of nature as they please or as they are able to do without

any consideration of the relation between the natural

order and the divine order of things.

Man and his intelligence is wrongly assumed to be in
constant conflict with nature. From this false pre-

mise flows the belief that nature must in some way or

other be changed or frustrated in order to bring it into

the service of man.

*A11 quotations are from the Casti Conubii Encyclical.



26 Chief Evils of Modern Marriage

Man comes into conflict with nature as the laws of
nature are ignored or distorted. The divine law is the

law of nature and of man’s intelligence, and in so far as

man departs from the law he conflicts with the divine
purpose of nature and destroys its harmony. When those
who recognize in marriage only a natural, in the sense of

a physical, function attempt to sustain society on that

understanding, they overlook the abiding principle which

society has long accepted in the development of its juris-

prudence, namely, the identity of the divine and the

natural law. That principle is expressed in our own

charter of American liberty which speaks of the “law of

nature and of nature’s God.”

From the denial of the divine character of marriage

comes two of our greatest social evils, divorce and de-

liberate frustration of conception, both leading directly

to the disintegration and dissolution of society. We
hear outside the Church much condemnation of these two

growing evils. Their bad moral and social results are

evident in many ways. They are condemned because

they are not in the interest of society. They are seldom

arraigned and denounced, outside the Church, because

they are in conflict with the law of God. The material

welfare of society and national prestige are the motives

which seek to keep a balanced order in society.

In the words of our Holy Father “there are those

who, striving as it were to ride a middle course, believe,

nevertheless, that something should be conceded in our

time as regards certain precepts of the divine and natural

law. But these likewise, more or less wittingly, are

emissaries of the great enemy who is ever seeking to sow

cockle among the wheat.”

Excuses are advanced for divorce as they are for birth

control “that the laws, institutions and customs by which

wedlock is governed, since they take their origin solely

from the will of man, are subject entirely to him, hence

can and must be founded, changed and abrogated accord-

ing to human caprice and the shifting circumstances of

human affairs; that the generative power which is ground-

ed in nature itself is more sacred and has wider range



Chief Evils of Modem Marriage 27

than matrimony—hence it may be excused both outside
as well as within the confines of wedlock.”

Christian marriage is a figure of the union between

Christ and the Church. That which disrupts the true

Christian marriage breaks down the union between man

and wife and Christ, and in consequence between society

and Christ. To preserve the marriage union requires

unity of spirit and not merely union of body “for where

there exists diversity of mind, truth and feeling the bond

of union of mind and heart is wont to be broken, or at

least weakened.”

The spirit of the world then which endeavors to sep-

arate man from Christ that it may accomplish his per-

dition seeks to justify not only divorce, but encourages

in marriage a false independence of husband and wife

often fatal to domestic tranquility. It praises particu-

larly a supposed independence in religious viewpoints

which ignores the friendly but serious counsel of the

Church in warning of mixed marriages. The mixed mar-

riage in the majority of cases is a source of spiritual dan-

ger and scandal not only to the parties of the contract but

to the offspring of such marriage. The mixed marriage

makes it specially difficult to avoid sinful relations and

makes almost impossible family peace and happiness

where one party or the other believes in the practice of

contraception.

The mixed marriage very often is a step in the direc-

tion of separation and divorce with ensuing evil results

to the souls of both parties. Further, it encourages that

view which denies marriage its sacramental character.

Those who hold that marriage is a civil contract or an

arrangement which may be voided on mutual consent of
the parties, see no reason why a marriage between a
Catholic and a non-Catholic should not be contracted

without regard to religious or moral beliefs or ecclesiasti-

cal laws.

In favor of divorce it is argued that the innocent party

should have the right to separate from the guilty party,

but the insincerity of such an argument and the useless-

ness of such action is disclosed by the claim that the guilty



28 Chief Evils of Modern Marriage

party should have the right to withdraw from the union

if it is displeasing to that party. Such a claim can be

only viewed in most cases as a dishonest excuse for rela-

tions outside the marriage bond. The guilty party has

quite evidently no intention from the beginning to be

loyal to the marriage bond, knowing well that because

of the, easy path to divorce, there is no effectual bar to in-

discriminate sexual relations. Relations between the

guilty one and a new partner will not be any more perma-

nent or loyal than in the case of the first.

No claim for divorce can legitimately be laid to the
welfare of the children of an unhappy or disloyal marriage.

In nine cases out of ten those who enter such marriages

and seek to leave them on the slightest provocation take

means to have no children. Where there are children

at least equal damage is done both to their spiritual and

material welfare by the divorce as by the dissatisfaction

inside the union.

But the law of God and the indissolubility of a proper-

ly contracted marriage can not in the slightest degree be

weakened or set aside by such claims. A lawful marriage
including that legitimately contracted by non-Catholics

before the civil authorities “can never be deprived of its

force by the decrees of men, the ideas of a people, or the

will of any legislator.”

The practice of contraceptive birth control, like that

of divorce, has arisen from the same utter disregard for

the law of God and the sacramental sanctity of marriage.

Offspring is not desired so that there may be no interfer-

ence w ith freedom of action and improper conduct either

inside or outside the marriage bond.

Specious arguments are advanced from a social and

economic point of view which if analyzed prove to have

as their inspiring motive even more selfish and dishonest

reasons than divorce. “But,” states the Holy Father,

“no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which

anything intrinsically against nature may become con-
formable to nature and morally good.” Therefore, he

has declared, “any use whatsoever of matrimony exer-

cised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated

in its natural power to generate life is an offense against



Chief Evils of Modern Marriage 29

the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in

such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.”

As the law of God and of nature forbids the sinful

frustration of the conception of life so does it also con-

demn abortion or the taking or destruction of life after

conception. Neither medical science nor public authority

has any right to destroy the innocent life in the womb,

to accomplish “the direct murder of the innocent.” The

progress of medicine and surgery has shown on many oc-

casions that life may be preserved which in the past it

had been considered impossible to save. Means have

been discovered by which may be successfully accomp-
lished a parturition which a few years ago meant the sacri-

fice of an innocent life. In the United States today

medicine is faced with a shameful and inexcusable record

of infant and maternal mortality which, it is admitted,

can in large measure be avoided or greatly reduced.

The false conception of the law of nature and of the

relation between our natural functions and the moral

order of things has led not only to frustration of the legi-

timate purpose of marriage, but has also been the cause

in recent years of the removal or rendering sterile of the

organs of reproduction. God is forgotten in the function

of creation. Contraception, abortion, and sterilization

thus unite to defy the purpose of the Creator and the co-

operation with Him of the created.
As the Sovereign Pontiff points out the individual

soul and the family is vastly more sacred than the state.

Indeed if their sacred rights are to be ignored and trampled

upon the ultimate breakdown of the state is the inevit-

able result. “Public magistrates have no direct power

over the bodies of their subjects,” and therefore, where

there is no question of crime or punishment they cannot

“directly harm or tamper with the integrity of the body

either for eugenics or for any other reason.”

“Christian doctrine establishes and the light of human
reason makes it most clear that private individuals have

no other power over the members of their bodies than

that which pertains to their natural ends.” There is

nothing more certain from medical experience than that

men cannot ignore or abuse the laws of nature without



30 Chief Evils of Modem Marriage

complete breakdown of bodily functions and eventual dis-

solution in death. As certain is the result of the abuse

of the moral law which not only becomes evident in the

individual but in society of which he constitutes a part.



The Church and

the Dignity of Woman
By Grace H. Sherwood

ONCE, as a young and immature girl, I accompaniedan older friend to a sermon by a noted Catholic
orator of that time. The church was huge and packed,

even to its aisles, with men and women who sat spell-

bound under the power of the preacher’s eloquence.

In the course of his remarks he spoke of the changes

which the gospel had wrought in the pagan civilization

of Christ’s time, ending with, “And the woman heard
and lifted up her head.”

It was a Good Friday sermon and those few words

were, I dare say, merely an aside. Perhaps they remained

that to most of the others there, the day being what it

was. But to myself, still in my teens, enjoying all the
freedom that women enjoy nowadays, they were startling.

“What did he mean?” I asked myself, going home, know-

ing little then of the long centuries of degradation and

oppression which had been the lot of women before the

Christian era. All the rest of the sermon, moving as I

remember it to have been, faded quickiy from my mind
but those few words remained. The man who uttered
them has been dead for several years but long before he

died I had found the answer to the question he raised in

my young mind that spring night.
For the history of the Catholic Church is the story of

a long battle waged for the dignity of woman under the
new dispensation. She found woman the slave and

chattel of man; she found her the victim of laws which

deprived her of the right to dispose of her person, her life

or the children that she bore. And steadily, the Church

labored to change these laws, to infuse the spirit of her

own law into the code of every country into which her



32 The Church and the Dignity of Woman

missionaries penetrated. And that law was that men
and women, equally, are the children of God.

Inch by inch, century by century, she fought for the

rights of her daughters as well as her sons, beating down,

one by one, the ancient customs which had enslaved

women, clearing out the muck of polygamy, divorce, con-

cubinage, raising woman to be man’s partner in the mar-
riage state, where before she had been but the creature

of his fancy, to be discarded when her charms grew stale.

So steadily did she work that in spite of the ruin of the

Roman empire and the hordes of barbarians that swept
over Europe by the tenth century her law of indissoluble

marriage, so distasteful to the lust of man, had been in-

corporated into the civil legislation of every country of

Europe. Divorce, with its attendant evils, came back

only with the Protestant revolt.

It was the law of the Church, not the civil law, which

first declared that a woman ought not to be given in
marriage without her consent. It was the Church which

first declared a widow had the right to marry again,

although the Justinian code forbade it. The Church led

and, after a while, the civil codes fell in line with her

teachings. At the first council of the Church in England,

in 673, the bishops declared openly for indissoluble mar-

riage, quoting older canons of the Church in support of

their position. Divorce, that is for the man, was common

among almost all savage tribes. Christianizing them,

the Church eliminated divorce and made the wife’s posi-

tion secure and honored.

For the Church has always had Mary in mind, Mary

full of Grace, Mary, the beginning of Christianity, one

may say in all reverence. God had appointed men to be

rulers and priests, but it was to a woman not to a man that

the angel, Gabriel, was sent to say that the long time of

waiting for a Redeemer was over. Gabriel, the arch-

angel, stood before the simple maid of Nazareth, and when

he left her the chains of contempt with which men had

loaded women since the world began commenced to fall

asunder, although none knew it as yet.

Apparently, the world went on as before. The priests

in the temple who would have scoffed, no doubt, at the



The Church and the Dignity of Woman 33

thought of a village girl being taken into the confidence

of God, went about their duties in the temple that her

Son would soon cause to fall about their ears; merchants

sold their wares; men crowded the streets as usual; even

Joseph agonized in secret, not knowing what to do.

But Mary told no one, not even Joseph. The thing that

had happened to her was a secret of the Most High.

He, in His own way, would straighten out whatever diffi-

culties it brought with it. Full of it, she journeyed

swiftly to another woman, her kinswoman, busy only

about the business of her sex.

And so, not to the notables of earth but to a woman,

Elizabeth, was the actual presence of the Redeemer

upon earth first made known. Her husband, Zachary,

was a high priest and entitled, one would say, to such an

honor. But he had failed in faith and had been smitten

dumb for his incredulity. Now he sat in silence while
his wife and her cousin, Mary, spoke of the wonders of

God. Elizabeth and Mary spoke together and today,

after 2,000 years, what they said, two obscure women

greeting each other, is still echoed by millions of tongues

every day, every hour. Popes, bishops, kings and mar-

tyrs die with the name of Mary on their lips and Eliza-

beth’s prophetic “Blessed are thou among women’’ to

give them hope. The vesper service is intoned in lofty

cathedrals; and Mary’s “My soul doth magnify the Lord”
gladdens hearts today as it did hers then. No wonder
that the Church with unerring wisdom, has incorporated

these words of theirs into her liturgy.

Nor has the Church stopped with incorporating these

words to and by the Blessed Virgin into the services by

which she moves men’s hearts. She points to Mary al-
ways as her greatest. Wise and holy men have walked

the earth in countless thousands since Mary’s time but

the Virgin of Nazareth shines out, in her sinlessness,

above them all. And the wisest of men and the holiest
have been the readiest, always, to proclaim her eminence,

and loving her, to honor all women for her sake.

The Church has been the friend of women because
Christ, her Founder, was. It was to the respect of a



34 The Church and the Dignity of Woman

woman, His Mother, that we owe the lovely beginning

of miracles that was done in Cana of Galilee, performed

to set her mind at rest about a question of hospitality, a

woman’s concern. And the Church, remembering that
Christ answered her wish so promptly, bids us go to Mary
when in difficulty.

Likewise the Church has preserved for us, in the

gospels, the story of Claudia Procula, the wife of Pontius

Pilate, who was the only one to raise a voice in behalf of

Christ on the terrible night of His passion. In the same

gospel, it is told that men had been His companions and
friends and had shared with Him the Bread of Life that
very night, but amidst the tumult of Pilate’s judgment

hall there was no one to defend Him but her, “Have noth-
ing to do with this just man.” Similarly the Church has

preserved the story of Magdalene at the tomb, the first

to be gladdened by the sight of Christ’s glorified face,

a woman whom men, having brought her to what she was,
spurned. Each has her place in the Gospel, the purest,

the ordinary, the worst of women, each emphasizing, in

her own way, that woman had her part to play as well

as man.

The Catholic woman knows that there is room in the

Church for all, for the great and the little, the gifted and

the ignorant, the virgin, the widow and the wife. Does

the world talk of feminism? The Catholic woman re-

members that before the word was coined there was

Catherine of Sienna, there was the great Theresa, there

was the Abbess, Hilda, to whom men journeyed to be
taught—all proving that intellect, courage, ability, vision,
holiness, any great quality, can be the dower of women

as well as men. One of our glorious saints, Joan of Arc,

was the very quintessence of feminism. “There are

enough to cook and to sow,” she retorts as she sallies

forth to save her country.

But woman’s greatest privilege, after all, her supreme

and abiding privilege is that of motherhood, sanctified

for all time by the Divine Maternity of Mary. All lesser

privileges lead up to it, exist because of it. Moreover,

most of the work that women do most happily is some

extension of motherhood, when we examine it narrowly.



The Church and the Dignity of Woman 35

But this privilege of motherhood has its price as does

every privilege, every honor. Above the road to it is

set the sign of sacrifice. Everywhere upon it is to be

found, suffering,- toil, self-forgetfulness. Motherhood is

the result of marriage, and marriage, to be successful,

means the subordination of the wife’s interests to that of

her husband’s. The Pope has put it another way but

every happily married woman knew it before he spoke.

There is an order in marriage, as in everything else in life.

And in that order the husband’s interests come first.

To make a home for him, to encourage him and comfort

him, to have children, God willing, these are the first

duties of a married woman. After they are done, proper-

ly, then can come outside things, the cultivation of what

talents she may possess. But when outside things inter-

fere with home life, they must be curtailed, not home

duties.

It sounds like a hard law, to some women. But life

is not easy, at the best, and hardly ever for women.

And after all one is free to choose, marriage or freedom

from this subordination of personal interests. But once

having chosen the path is clear.



Blessings 0/ Marriage

By Rev. Albert F. Kaiser, C.PP.S.

MARRIAGE is a contract between a man and awoman who by free and untrammeled mutual
consent enter a spiritual and physical relationship, whose

primary purpose, which may never be withheld nor direct-
ly thwarted, is the procreation and education of children.

Secondary ends, which likewise justify marriage and its

use, are mutual aid and relief from concupiscence. By
nature and divine institution, this contract, once made

and consummated, is one and indissoluble. For Christi-

ans, it is a sacrament.

This sacred institution derives from God, who created

man male and female and bade them leave father and

mother and cling to each other, as two in one flesh, for

what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

God likewise laid down the indispensable ends for which

it was established, the sacred laws that must govern it

and the rich blessings that flow from it. These very ends,

laws and blessings are one with marriage and inseparable

from it. One cannot truly consent to marriage without

at least implicitly intending to act in accordance with

nature and divine law. The brazen intention to exclude

children, to ignore conjugal fidelity, to break the bond at

will, or to spurn the sacramental form, renders the at-

tempt not only sinful and vicious but even null and void

from the beginning. Real marriage cannot therefore be

contracted as a mere childless, triangular, temporary,

secular affair.

As instituted by God, who knows human nature and

human needs far better than short-sighted “rational”

animals, marriage is not a mere venture or temporary

expedient, much less an experiment; but rather a fixed

permanent state, arising from a physical and spiritual

bond, with exclusive rights and inclusive duties. . Ex-

clusiveness protects conjugal fidelity. Inclusiveness, strik-



Blessings of Marriage 37

ing a balance between rights and obligations, prevents

mere gratification for its own sake. Stability tends to

keep the bond sacred and secure.

The benefits flowing from an unbreakable bond

are quite obvious to anyone who is willing to dis-

engage himself from self-interest and emotion and look

at the matter objectively in the light of social and spiri-

tual welfare.

First, the spouses possess a positive guarantee of the

enduringness of this stability which a generous yielding

of persons and an intimate fellowship of hearts by nature

strongly require, since true love is everlasting.

Secondly, a strong bulwark is set up against incite-

ments to infidelity, should any be encountered from within

or from without
;
all anxious fear lest in adversity or old

age the other spouse would prove unfaithful is precluded

and in its place there reigns a calm sense of security.

Thirdly, stability tends to maintain conjugal and

parental dignity and the ascendency of the spiritual out-

look which in turn guards moral integrity and domestic

virtue.

Fourthly, mutual aid is guaranteed, and secured.

Lovers, who from the very beginning realize that marriage

makes companions for life, since the divine law tolerates

no divorce, will make an honest effort to obtain a suitable

and dependable mate. Once married, they are more

likely to appreciate the all-important psychological fact

that happiness lies in their own hands, depending to a

very great extent upon mutual understanding, sympa-

thy, aid.

Fifthly: only in an atmosphere of unassailable sta-

bility can parents muster up sufficient mutual trust to

shoulder the responsibility connected with the physical

upbringing and spiritual training of children, especially

nowadays when social and economic instability keep one

guessing about his next job or next meal.

Sixthly: The continuance of Church and State rests

on the unshakable firmness of the home, which is the

one mother cell of domestic, social, religious life.

A second blessing closely connected with stability and



38 Blessings of Marriage

designed to buttress the natural firmness with a super-

natural “prop” is contained in the sacramental graces,

to which Christians have a right in virture of the sacra-

ment. Considering all the innate and acquired difficul-

ties of married life, we can easily understand why the
Son of God, in His broad sympathy and deep love for

fallen man, elevated the natural union to a sacramental

one. If natural marriage to a great extent had failed,

it was because men refused to invite God to the marriage
feast to bless their union. Christ attended the marriage

feast *of Cana and probably on this occasion sanctified

marriage with sacramental graces. We recall this scene
not merely because He provided a little wine but also a
great sacrament, through which human love was to be
consecrated to higher and nobler ends. And the sacra-
ment was to be an efficacious sign and source of that

peculiar internal grace perfecting that which is naturally

imperfect; sanctifying what naturally tends to gratifica-

tion; supernaturalizing the sentimental, spiritualizing the

carnal, confirming what nature already made an indis-

soluble union. (See Trid Council. Session XXIV.

)

Christian marriage, stable and sacramental, therefore

opens up to the faithful who with sincere mind and pure

heart enter the contract, a treasure of sacramental grace

from which flows the supernatural power to live holy

lives and persevere in the faithful performance of con-

jugal and parental duties. The sacrament, when re-

ceived in the state of grace and without any impediment

of divine or ecclesiastical law and according to the pre-

scribed form, not only increases the permanent principle

of the supernatural life—namely sanctifying grace, but
also adds particular gifts, dispositions, seeds of grace.

The latter elevate and perfect the natural powers in such

a way that the parties are assisted not only in understand-

ing but in knowing intimately, in adhering to firmly, in

willing effectively, and in successfully carrying out the

aims and ideals of the sacramental contract. We call
these things seeds of grace in so far as they convey actual

assisting grace, when the need arises. Like seeds, they

give one the right to expect fruit in due season.

A third blessing of Christian marriage is unity, or ex-



Blessings of Marriage 39

elusiveness. Marriage makes man and wife two in one

flesh so that conjugal union belongs by right and privilege

exclusively to these two. No other may step in between
to mar love’s holy compact or share love’s intimacies.

Deliberate infidelity, whether in desire or in act, is a

heinous crime against the marriage contract, since there-

by the sanctity of the bond is defiled and dragged into

the mire.

There is a four-fold infidelity to be rigidly guarded

against; the unreasonable refusal of conjugal rights to

one’s lawful spouse, the shameful advancing or cowardly

yielding to a third party, the deliberate abuse of sex,

whether solitary or mutual, the artificial and unnatural

interference with birth or conception by positive means

or interceptive devices. Infidelity to the divine law of

chastity, hiding under the veil of respectability, becomes

all the more despicable.

Peace and harmony require oneness in authority, or as

St. Augustine calls it, order of love. This order includes

primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and chil-

dren, and the ready subjection and willing obedience of

the wife. As regards obedience, the wife is by no means

the slave or chattel of her husband. Hers is the dignity

of a human being, the position of a life-companion and
life-partner. She is not to be treated as a minor or de-

pendent but as an equal, worthy of confidence, considera-

tion and respect. If the husband renders himself in-

capable or unworthy or in any way neglects his duty, it

falls to the wife to take his place in directing the family.

As a matter of order, the structure of the family and its

fundamental law established by God must always and
everywhere be maintained intact.

The divine law positively establishes marriage as one

and inseparable and the Christian dispensation makes it

a sacrament. Whether a particular marriage is blessed

with children or not, man and wife remain one and insep-
arable unto death. Unity and indissolubility are posi-

tive divine law. The law of offspring, however, is not a
positive command in the strict sense, since men and women
are free to marry or not to marry, and once married are

free to use or (with mutual consent) refrain from using



40 Blessings of Marriage

conjugal relations, presupposing a worthy cause and un-

blemished conduct. Because God told Adam and Eve
to increase and multiply and fill the earth, one need not

conclude that this was necessarily a command at all,
much less a universal one. St. Thomas and other theolo-

gians interpret it as a counsel and a blessing.

To bring children into the world and rear them in a
truly Christian home, adorning their impressionable

minds and hearts with the science of the saints, conduct-

ing them by precept and example to the highest reaches of

virtue, to say nothing of the self-evident duty of educating

them for some honorable worldly career, if not unto a

religious vocation, should they be so inclined and adapted,

is indeed a privilege and an honor.

Around the hearth-fire of love glows the innate and

almost divine love for children. Children complete, per-

fect and bless a home. Little bundles of love, little

packages of sunshine, dropping from heaven into the self-

sacrificing lap of motherhood:

A partnership with God is motherhood;
What strength, what purity, what self-control.

What love, what wisdom should belong to her
Who helps God fashion an immortal soul.

Fathers and mothers, as it were, help God in creating

new life and in sanctifying that life by their guidance

of the child to the Church and Christ’s sacraments. To

educate and train children for heaven is an occupation

worthy of the highest angels. What else are parents but

God’s intermediaries in a physical way as the ordained

priest is in a spiritual way!

This wonderful privilege, entailing as it does many

burdens—which true love makes a joy—may be used only
by men and women who are joined in wedlock according

to the divine law and ecclesiastical form. Catholics, to

enjoy this honor, must be married by the Church’s official

witness, the priest.

Only those are truly married in the sight of God, who

like Tobias and Sarah, wed for the sake of offspring, not

merely for self-indulgence. Self-sacrifice, sell-forgetful-

ness, the power to do without—these and similar Christian
virtues must be reinstated, before smiling, fair-eyed,



Blessings of Marriage 41

happy children, like morning sunshine, find a welcome in

the modern home.

Selfishness with much can do little, but love with little

can do much. We never learn the sweetness and richness
of life until we realize what it means to live for others

—

to pray, to labor, to sacrifice for others—yea, for our own
flesh and blood, our own dear little ones, our own types

and representatives for the future. Nothing is eternal

but love—the love of God which inspires self-devotion
to others.



Preserving the Integrity

of Married Life

By Mabel H. Mattingly

THE fullness of the efficacy of any sacrament dependson our cooperation, on our entering into the spirit
of the sacrament, which is ultimately the spirit of Christ

Himself. This spirit, naturally, we find only in the

Church which is the continuation of the living Christ.

If we are Catholic not only in word but in the interpreta-

tion of all knowledge, there is special appeal in the beauti-

ful and inspiring words of our Holy Father in reference

to the spiritual remedies for the abuses of marriage.

With simple clarity he lays down the firmly established

principle that “whatever things have deviated from their

right order can not be brought back to that original state

which is in harmony with their nature except by a return

to the divine plan.” Man must subject himself to God
and by the aid of divine grace overcome the power of

unbridled lust. “Due preparation remote and proximate”

is suggested as an essential requisite for the continuing

and beneficial effects of the sacrament.

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, a well-known priest

addressing the graduates of a Catholic college for women,

closed his inspiring baccalaureate sermon with these words

:

“Be women of prayer and I will answer for you." No one
who was privileged to hear his voice on that occasion

could have failed to be impressed with the challenge of

this spiritual preparation for a life of activity in the world.

It is doubtful, however, how far such an appeal can be

effective with adults if the habit of prayer has not been

established in early childhood. Peace of soul is necessary

as a foundation of fruitful activity. Not only in the case

of the great saints whose lives have been recorded, but

many of the most successful married couples, whose

heroic histories wifi never be written, know full well the



Preserving the Integrity of Married Life 43

mainspring of their accomplishments. They attribute

whatever success they have attained to the fact that God

is acting through them. By prayer and mortification

they have achieved that intimate union with God which

gives balance not only to their thoughts but to their

actions. The spiritual influence which radiates from the

sacramental life of the Church is a true source of strength.

Unless man can discern with certainty what are the laws

of the Church, the restoration of these laws in the divine

harmony can not be brought about.

“For this reason, Christ Himself made the Church the

teacher of truth in those things which concern the right

regulation of moral conduct ... a filial and humble obedi-

ence towards the Church should be combined with de-

votedness in God.”

It may not be amiss to mention in passing that when
our Holy Father speaks of the Church as teacher, he is

likewise mindful that the interpretation of knowledge

must rest with those who may have all the attributes of
holiness, but who may fail as teachers. There is a grave
danger of routinization which must be constantly guarded

against. Who, indeed, could understand the full inter-

pretation of the words of Cardinal Bellarmine, quoted in

the encyclical and fail to exemplify in his life all of its

beautiful implication. “For it is a sacrament like to that

of the Eucharist, which not only when it is being conferred

but also while it remains, is a sacrament; for as long as the

marriage parties are alive, so long is their union a sacra-

ment of Christ and the Church.”

Just as the crystallized thought and prayer of the

saints and martyrs of the centuries have served in that

great prayer of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to provoke

that sublime entreaty “Sursum Corda,” so the meditations

of the laity will, under the guidance of those imbued with

a true teaching spirit, with equal fervor make the joyful

response
—

“ Habemus ad Dominum.”

One of the most beautiful passages in the encyclical

concerns itself with the necessity of guarding against

“exaggerated private judgment and the false autonomy

of human reason.” This is all the more true of the ob-
servance of the divine law which demands sometimes



44 Preserving the Integrity of Married Life

hard and repeated sacrifices, for which, as experience points

out, a weak man can find so many excuses for avoiding
the fulfillment of the divine law.”

Our Holy Father explicitly differentiates between re-

ligious training in regard to Christian marriage and “ex-

aggerated physiological education by means of which . . .

is learned the art of sinning in a subtle way rather than
the virtue of living chastely.”

The necessity of using wisely the rights of marriage

in the early years of wedlock makes easier the virtue of

contin|ence, which may need to be practiced later.
Discipline is something interior and involves not only the

intellectual but the volitional element as well. Through-

out the encyclical, stress is laid on the fact that the bene-

ficent effect of the other sacraments can be utilized to

assist us over the difficult places.

The priest prays daily in his preparation before Com-

munion: “Let the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord Jesus
Christ ... be to me as a safeguard and a remedy both to
mind and body." If one who lives within the sanctuary

and in such intimate union with our Divine Lord needs

the spiritual strengths for “mind and body,” how much

more necessary are these strengths for those who by force

of circumstances may not be able to partake daily of the

Eucharist but are suffering all of the family tensions

which the present economic situation has created.

It is incumbent then on those contemplating marriage

to make due preparation in a material as well as a spiritual

way, to understand the nature of the sacrament and, in

order to attain its fullest benefits, to cooperate actively

through constant prayer and frequent reception of the

sacraments. Subjecting oneself to Our Divine Lord, who

speaks through His Church as His teacher, involves true

humility. Divine grace must flow constantly into us

from its Source, if the divine harmony of Revelation is to

echo effectively in the temples of our souls.

It is also incumbent on those united in marriage to

serve “the noble purposes of wedlock for their own wel-

fare, for that of their children, of the community, and

for that of human relationship.” Knowledge that comes



Preserving the Integrity of Married Life 45

through understanding and appreciation of the nature of

the sacrament, action and conduct that emerge with the

aid of divine grace, constitute the spiritual remedies for

the abuse of marriage.

The obligations of the individual connote a correspond-

ing obligation on the part of the State. There are civil

remedies that can and should be utilized to prevent the

abuses of marriage.

Wherever “conjugal integrity encounters difficulties by

reason of straitened circumstances, their necessities must

be relieved as far as possible.” The injustices brought

about in the social and economic order by the lack of

suitable dwellings, by unemployment, inadequate wages

and exhorbitant prices of commodities make it incumbent

on the rich to help the poor and also for public authority

to supplement private resources wherever necessary.

There is a clarion call to look on poverty as a spiritual

phenomenon rather than a “social process” and to deal

with it as a significant phase of the failure of the Christian

scheme of life.

There is a note of the practical however in the admoni-

tion: “Care, however, must be taken that the parties

themselves, for a considerable time before entering upon

married life, should strive to dispose of, or at least to

diminish, the material obstacles in their way. The man-

ner in which this may be done effectively and honestly
must be pointed out by those who are experienced.”

With fatherly solicitude and rare understanding, our

Holy Father deplores the necessity of “working mothers”

and also points out how easy it is for the married couple

to lose heart when oppressed by poverty and confronted

with the extraordinary expenses of child birth. Grave

harm can result to the State if these needs of families are

neglected. The possibilities of social upheaval as a re-

sult of social injustices should not be entirely disregarded.

A cardinal principle in the guidance of a happy and well
integrated life implies a certain amount of faith in the

existing social and economic structure.

If we accept in principle that the foundations of the

State rest on the moral order, it follows naturally that

the State draws its life from the family. It is well to



46 Preserving the Integrity of Married Life

remember in this connection that, notwithstanding some

of the current sociological doctrines, human society both

in its primitive and organized form originated by mar-

riage and not, as some would have us believe, marriage

by society. In a day when well-intentioned but misguid-

ed reformers are seeking to subvert the ends of marriage

through propaganda of various kinds, it is like a breath

of fresh air to find our Holy Father advocating that the

State protect the chastity of the marriage bond by elim-

inating the causes that lie in the social and economic

structure, rather than devising means which are repulsive

and contrary to the natural law. The recent experience

of the Holy See in concluding the pact with the King-

dom of Italy is an illustration of the possibilities of work-

ing out associations with the State which will be of mutual

benefit; because both Church and State, built on the same

moral foundations have similar objectives in the welfare

of the souls who constitute the State.

“For the preservation of the moral order neither the

laws and sanctions of the temporal power are sufficient

. . . Religious authority must enter in to enlighten the

mind, to direct the will, and to strengthen human frailty

by the assistance of divine grace. Such an authority

is found nowhere save in the Church instituted by Christ

the Lord.”

May these inspiring words serve to quicken and re-
vivify the Christian mind throughout the world; to bring

back all of the remembered benedictions and the revered

sanctities which characterized that Holy Family at Naza-

reth. May there be made possible for parents and
children everywhere something of that glorious vision that

the prophet Zacarias saw in the New Jerusalem.



N.C.C.W. Committee on

Family and Parent

Education Mary G. Hawks

NATURE and grace accord to the family a place ofparamount importance. Destined by God, in the
order of nature, to perpetuate the race, the family was

endowed by Christ with special grace to mirror the life

and the love of God Himself. Such has been the un-

changing ideal of the Church through the ages, an ideal

she has fortified by her sacraments and fostered by her

education. Inevitably, therefore, from its very creation,

the National Council of Catholic Women has had, as a
central theme and a major preoccupation, the protection

and the preservation of the Christian family.

One of the earliest study outlines of the National

Catholic Welfare Conference, circulated by the national

council, was on “The Christian Family.” By pamphlet

and address it has constantly given information and

inspiration to mothers. And its member groups have

consistently offered a solid phalanx of opposition to any

and all attempts to break down those safeguards of the

family ideal provided by state and federal laws. While

believing that opposition to such destructive forces as

divorce and artificial birth control must be continued as

an essential expression of Catholic Action, it was the mind

of the convention of 1929 that “the National Council of

Catholic Women should appoint a committee to study
the situation and formulate a more positive program to

offset this insidious propaganda.” This was the first step

taken towards the formation of a definite Committee on

Family and Parent Education, although the committee

did not emerge under this title until the convention

of 1931.

The committee appointed to study the situation re-



48 N.C.C.W. Committee on Family and Parent Education

ported to this convention of 1931 some very definite

recommendations based on the resolutions of the Fourth

International Congress on Home Education, held at Liege
in 1930, and on certain obvious trends. Notable among

these latter was a sharp swing of the pendulum from re-

garding the woman in the home as “a woman without a
career” to granting her professional status with a recog-

nized need for training in this, her most important pro-

fession—parenthood and homemaking. As a recent writer
expressed it in the N. Y. Times Magazine of May 1

:

“After a half century of ignoring the home as beneath

academic contempt in the days when it was woman’s sole

sphere, the liberal arts college has begun its attempt to orient

her in the modern world by helping her find her bearings within

her own four walls .... The family, in short, emerges in aca-

demic consciousness as a potential sphere of respectable pro-

fessional endeavor.”

This back to the family movement, with its implica-

tion of necessary training was no new thought in Catholic

consciousness. The “half century of ignoring the home”

had, however, through contact with Protestant culture,

had its effect upon Catholic living, as is evidenced by the

stress laid by our Holy Father, Pius XI, in his Encyclical

on “Christian Education,” on the parent as educator.

Evident, therefore, was the obligation for organized

Catholic womanhood to assume its share of the labor of

building and rebuilding the Catholic ideal of family life

from the child up and of providing to this end the best

material available in economics, hygiene, psychology, that

was in harmony with Catholic doctrine and Catholic

moral teaching.

That the National Council of Catholic Women might
meet this obligation, a vast field of endeavor was visioned

by its Committee on Family and Parent Education.

Its program includes:

1. Outlines for study clubs of varied elements and organ-

ization;

2. Assembing simple and suggestive material for religious

and character training in the home;

3. Aids to mothers in selecting literature for children;

4. Aids for mothers of handicapped children, developed by

specialists in the care of such children;



N.C.C.W. Committee on Family and Parent Education 49

5. Analysis of expert works with view to popularizing their

content for the average busy parent;

6. Making available what is being done in the field of

education for the instruction of adolescents in the duties of

parenthood;

7. Introduction in Catholic P. T. A. of study of family

and parent education;

8. Compilation of supplementary literature for Catholic

P. T. A.;

9. Preparation by older mothers of heart to heart talks

with younger and less experienced mothers;

10.

Planning with Americanization experts as to ways and

means of extending to foreign-born mothers help in family life

and child care and training.

As the first requisite for the achievement of its pro-

gram, the committee set out to invite and mobilize the

services of as many women competent in the fields of

economics, hygiene, psychology, pedagogy, etc., as poss-

ible, and especially those who had shown ability in their

high profession as Catholic mothers. To date the com-

mittee has secured a number of such co-laborers and a

high type of cooperation. What further accomplishment

can be noted?

In cooperation with the Catholic Rural Life Confer-

ence the N. C. C. W. has furthered the publication of

the Parent Educator symposium of 1930 and 1931 and

has promoted its distribution for study club material.

It can also report, through its efforts, the success, as study

club material, of a pamphlet, Parent and Child
,
by Rev.

Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., Ph.D. The Monthly Mes-

sage, N. C. C. W., has carried continuously a study out-

line on “The Family” based on An Introductory Study
of the Family and Readings on the Family, also by Dr.

Schmiedeler. Study club outlines are now in preparation

on Allers Psychology of Character and in the field of eco-

nomics, on “Family Budgeting” and “Nutrition.”

Book lists of juvenile literature are available and a

program of helps for the foreign-born mother is well

under way. A special committee interested in youth is
preparing a report on how pre-marital education might be

given advisedly to young women in the extra-home agen-
cies, in the settlement, the sodality, the fraternity, and

the Newman club. A special plan for the pre-school



50 N.C.C.W, Committee on Family and Parent Education

child is being developed by an expert in that field. These

small beginnings will, it is hoped, develop slowly but surely,

a program and materials that will serve the Catholic

mother and homemaker, both present and prospective,

to fulfill to the utmost her high calling in this difficult age.

Allied to the work of the Committee on Family and

Parent Education is the cooperation of the National Coun-

cil of Catholic Women in the study commissions of the
International Union of Catholic Women’s Leagues. The

report of these commissions, published in 1930, sum-

marized facts gleaned from 16 countries, enumerating and

evaluating the forces destructive of the moral, religious

and economic welfare of the family. The study, now

under way, in which the N. C. C. W., through chosen ex-

perts, is likewise participant, will report on the construc-

tive forces, in each of these countries, laboring for the

moral, religious and economic welfare of the family.

The questionnaires cover: Religion: family education,

psychology, pedagogy: intellectual life: industrial life:

agricultural life : delinquents
:

preventive work for children

:

sex education, its methods and results: education for

public and civic life.

In the modern world where social changes have their

bewildering effect on family life, the religion of Christ

alone offers a permanent ideal and moral support. To
assist the individuals and groups united in the N. C. C. W.

to adjust to world changes, to avail themselves of true

knowledge and to build securely on the sure support of

Catholic teaching for the welfare of family life is, in its

modest way, the far-distant goal towards which the work

of the Committee on Family and Parent Education, N.

C. C. W., directs its effort.



Catholic Action

and the FAMILY

By Rev. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., S.T.L., Ph.D.

I
N his Encyclical on “Christian Marriage,” Pius XI
points unerringly to the fundamentals of our primary

social institution, the family, and condemns the errors

of the day that run counter to it. But he does not rest

satisfied with that. He points the way to action. He
indicates the remedies that must be applied if Christian

marriage is to blossom forth again into the full bloom of an

earlier day.

Some months earlier, in his Encyclical on “Christian

Education,” His Holiness also called attention to the

fundamental part the family must play in the scheme of

Christian education. Here also he called for action. He
followed up his statement of principle with an urgent ap-

peal to parents for active interest in the cause of parent

education in order that they might the more effectively

fill their high positions as educators within their own

domestic realms. He called for preparation for the tasks
of parenthood in this encyclical as he called for preparation

for family life generally in the one on marriage.

In the entire field of the Christian family, therefore

—

in upholding its fundamentals, in combating the evils that

assail it, in preparing for a useful and successful married

life and for the specific duties of parenthood—Pius has
shown the way and issued his call for action. His unex-
celled authority and exalted position and the gravity of

the subject in question join in demanding our most respect-

ful attention and our unhesitating compliance with his

wishes.

A complete program of action in behalf of the family
would embrace almost an infinite variety of possible acti-

vities. There is much that the serious student of the
family can do. There are a multiplicity of tasks for the



52 Catholic Action and the Family

masses to accomplish. There are opportunities almost

without number for individual and for organized efforts in

behalf of the home. At best, however, only a broad,

sketchy program can be outlined here.

Perhaps one of the most promising first steps towards

the promotion of sound family life would be the formation

of a conference group on marriage and the family, made

up of the more capable students of this fundamental

social institution. Indeed, such a conference seems

essential if suitable guidance and leadership in this work

are to be furnished, if thoroughgoing study of the entire

field is to be undertaken, if a fitting literature is to be

developed and the necessary inspiration and enthusiasm

for a determined and progressive movement are to be

engendered. It is, in fact, very surprising that with so

many national Catholic organizations in existence, there

is not one whose prime purpose is the promotion of the

welfare of our domestic life. After all, but little can be

expected from the efforts of even the most zealous and

efficient organizations unless there is to begin with a sound

family basis to work on. There are not a few scholarly

leaders in this country who are fighting a valiant battle in

behalf of Christian marriage and the family. But how

much more effective and far reaching their efforts would

be if they would band themselves together into a conference

for mutual counsel, for united effort, for inspiration and

concerted action!

The formation of such a conference of specialists or

students of the family, however, represents but one

avenue of approach to this important subject, but one

step towards the promotion of the welfare of our family

life. There are many others that should lead to most

beneficial and far-reaching results. For example, there

is our school system. Particularly does it offer an in-

viting opportunity for the preparation for marriage and

parenthood that is so fundamental and that Pius XI

recommends so urgently. Much could be done in this re-
gard in both the lower and the higher reaches of our edu-

cational system. The child in the grades is capable of

grasping the correct principles of marriage and the family

if properly presented to him. He could develop the deep-



Catholic Action and the Family 53

est respect for wholesome and happy home life under in-

telligent and constructive guidance. Even in the grade

school, therefore, should it be considered the privilege,

if not the duty, of every teacher to emphasize the im-

portance of the family as the richest field ever given for

the development of human life and to stress, in season

and out of season, the fundamentals and the genuine

values of marriage and the home. In its higher reaches

the school should be able to prepare the individual not

only for success in his own marriage career, but also for

leadership in activities that aim at the promotion of a

sound and satisfying family life generally.

As a matter of fact, not a little is being done along

these lines. Indeed, one of the most promising develop-

ments in the entire field of endeavor in behalf of the

family is the present rapid growth in Catholic colleges,

both for men and for women, of special courses on marriage

and the family and on parent education. The intense

interest universally elicited by these courses is indicative

of their practical value and of their promise for much
further growth. Typical of many commendatory remarks
of students who have had the advantage of such study

is the following: “I consider the course on ‘The Family’

one of the most valuable I have taken in school. It has

given me a higher appreciation of the married state than
I had before. It has led me to a greater realization of
the social importance of marriage and of the opportuni-

ties it affords for useful and happy living. Strange as it

may seem, the thought of marriage as a career had never
occurred to me before attending this class.” A teacher
in one of the largest Catholic colleges in the country, who

but recently completed a course on “The Family” with

a class of over a hundred students, makes the following

remark : “I have never been more gratified with the results

of any class that I have taught.” Catholic students who
have been shown the genuine social, as well as the religious

values of Christian marriage will give little heed to doc-

trines subversive of the family or to the lurid filth so

commonly emblazoned on our printed page today. And
after all, the vast majority of students marry. It should

be but the logical and expected thing, therefore, that the



54 Catholic Action and the Family

schools help to give them due preparation for this career

of careers.

A copy of a school publication that recently came to
the writer’s attention suggests one very promising pos-

sibility for the development of leadership among students

in this inviting field of Catholic action. The particular

issue in question contained two forceful articles by stu-

dents on the marriage encyclical of Pius XI. The articles

were written after a thorough study of the encyclical in

conjunction with a course on the family and compared

very favorably with many on the subject that have ap-
peared in the better Catholic publications. The staffs

of other college publications might well emulate this

example and devote a generous amount of attention and

space to such worthy projects.

There are also a great number of Catholic organiza-

tions that might well show a definite interest in this sub-

ject of the family. Sodality groups, local units of larger

organizations, even special circles or clubs organized for

the purpose, might fittingly encourage among their mem-

bers the study of the fundamentals of Christian marriage,

the principles of successful parenthood, and the elements

of a satisfying and happy home life. The N. C. W. C.
Family Life Section and Study Club Committee and the

National Council of Catholic Women are making special
effort to arouse interest in this particular work on the

part of various organizations, and not without appreciable

results.

There is, however, still much room for further devel-

opment. Ours is the day of adult education. In various

ways is our unprecedented amount of leisure time being

used for self-improvement through study. Catholics in

ever-increasing numbers are falling in fine with this

praiseworthy movement. It is to be hoped that much of

their time will be centered in the study of the family and

kindred subjects.

Study alone, however, is insufficient. The knowledge

acquired must be carried over into action. It must make

its influence actively felt within the individual home

circle. Ultimately, effective Catholic action in behalf of

Christian marriage and the family must come from the



Catholic Action and the Family 55

masses of individuals within their own domestic worlds.

Some of the ways and means of promoting such action

within the home are indicated in the first article of this

booklet, but there is one specific suggestion that may very
fittingly be added here, one that deals directly with the

religious life of the family. It would undoubtedly prove

of the highest benefit to the family life of our day if

Catholic families generally would enroll themselves again

in the Association of the Holy Family and faithfully ful-

fill the simple conditions that membership therein implies.

This association, launched by Leo XIII some time after

he gave to the world his Encyclical on “Christian Mar-

riage,” still enjoys the selfsame privileges that were at-

tached to it when he first called it into being. These

very privileges, not to mention the many indulgences

attached to membership in the association, should serve

as a powerful inducement to make it flourish again today.

Pastors, for example, in whose parishes the association is

organized enjoy the benefits of a privileged altar on any

three days of the week they choose, provided they have

not the benefits of a privileged altar for some other reason.

Then, too, the Mass for a deceased member at any altar

whatever has all the benefits of a privileged one.

Another consideration that gives this association par-

ticular appeal is its extreme simplicity. It can hardly

be called an “organization,” the only indispensable con-

ditions to membership being the following: (i) the head

of the family must be enrolled in the association by the

pastor; (2 ) a picture of the Holy Family must find a place

in the home
; (3 ) a prayer must daily be recited before the

picture.

There is even greater need of this association today

than there was in the days of Pope Leo. Irreligion has

made greater inroads. Fewer families are grounded on a

religious foundation. Even many Catholic families are
feeling the impact of the pagan ideals of the day and of our

disturbed social conditions. As a result, there is lacking

on the part of many that sense of responsiblity that only
a spirit of religion can give. The Association of the Holy

Family provides a simple and effective means for making

religion again a more vital and active force within the



56 Catholic Action and the Family

generality of Christian homes. Organized on a diocesan

basis it offers a most promising medium for Catholic

action in the sense in which Pius XI defines it—the organ-
ization of the laity working under the hierarchy.

Such, then, are a few possible lines of action in behalf

of our home life: the launching of a special Catholic

conference on the family, greater emphasis in our schools

upon preparation for marriage, more interest on the part

of adult education groups in the study of successful family

life and parenthood, and a renewal of the religious life of

individual families by enrollment in the Association of the

Holy Family. A program of action along these lines,
initiated and carried forward with the zeal and enthusiasm

worthy of the cause in question, should result in a vast

crusade that would eventually bring into its own again

the flourishing Christian family life of the past. And no

less a consummation than that is to be hoped for.