Letters

Marriage and divorce

Arnold Jago

Contents - Oct 2009 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Anglican Communion's moment of truth - Michael Gilchrist Priestly Identity: Renewing the priesthood in the Year for Priests - Fr Anthony Denton News: The Church Around the World Community Life: 'Progressive' leadership and the demise of religious life - Br Paul Macrossan Youth: RISE: restoring integrity and sexual ethics to Australia's secular culture - Br Barry Coldrey Episcopacy: Bishop Luc Matthys: on being a bishop - Bishop Luc Matthys of Armidale Poetry: A Morning Poem - Bruce Dawe Seminary Life: Spiritual direction at Sydney's Good Shepherd Seminary - Fr Paul Glynn SM FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH: Cutting edge moral issues for the third millennium - Br Barry Coldrey Priesthood: Why the Catholic Church cannot ordain women - Kathleen Wood OAM Letters: Liturgy reform - Paul Martin Letters: Healthy families - John Carty Letters: Marriage and divorce - Arnold Jago Letters: Christian divisions - Jack Blair Letters: Galileo debate - David Walker Letters: Prayer for Priests - John Schmid Letters: Thanks from India - Fr. S. John Joseph Books: THE QUEST FOR SHAKESPEARE, by Joseph Pearce - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: THE CASE FOR CHRISTIANITY: St Justin Martyr on Religious Liberty, Robert Haddad - Br Michael McMurray CCS Books: AFTER THE HEART OF GOD, by Bishop Julian Porteous - Br Michael McMurray CCS (reviewer) Update: The 2009 Fighting Fund Books: This month's selection from AD Books Reflection: The Mass: priest and people offer sacrifice - Bishop Edward Slattery

Last year, 2008, Australia's divorce rate fell to only 2.2 divorces per 1000 population, the lowest in 20 years. Marriages increased 2.1 percent, to a yearly total of 118,756 per year.

Marriages are lasting longer than before. In 1989 the typical time from marriage to divorce was 10.2 years - now it's 12.6 years.

That's the good news.

Not so good news is that the proportion of couples living together before marriage is now 77 percent. If such living-together couples eventually do marry, most are more likely to end up divorcing.

By living together unmarried they've proved that marriage means little to them; so if things get a bit tough, they tend to give up on it.

Whose job is it to warn young people that non-marriage "relationships" ruin both one's own life and that of one's "partner" - and especially that of any poor children who have turned up?

Let's hope Catholic schools are doing this job. Few others are likely to.

ARNOLD JAGO (DR)
Mildura, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 22 No 9 (October 2009), p. 14