Marriage, Family: Matters Arising

While inaugurating the 2023 Judicial Year of the Catholic Church in Abuja recently, the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese, His Lordship, Most Reverend, Dr Anselm Umoren, lamented the alarming rate at which Catholic marriages, once thought to be indissoluble, were collapsing. At that event, he suggested that couples ought to be put through some form of psychological therapy to prepare them for marriage.

It is important to note that the Archdiocese of Abuja already has guidelines and recommendations concerning marriage and family life. These enlighten the faithful on matters relating to courtship, dating, registration and pre-nuptial investigation, payment of dowry/bride wealth, publication of banns and mixed marriages.

The purpose of these guidelines, it must be observed, is to continue to promote the family as a domestic church, particularly its role as a training ground for children.

Even with these in place, the Church considers it pertinent to constantly let  everyone that the issue of marriage and family is such that demands reminders from time to time. This must have been part of the reasoning behind the just concluded Abuja Archdiocesan General Assembly that focused on Marriage and Family in Contemporary Society.

Speaking at the occasion, the Archbishop, His Grace, Reverend Dr Ignatius Kaigama, noted that marriage and family was also a topic at the Church’s last Synod at the Vatican presided over by the Holy Father, Pope Francis, himself.

Kaigama pointed out that the issue was receiving renewed and intense attention by the Church because of the threats posed by modern-day gender ideologies and other secular influences. It is also part of the recognition the Church accords the family as a community of life and love, a privileged place of education in faith and Christian practice.

He recalled St. John Paul II’s position in his Apostolic Exhortation in which the late Pope described marriage as love that differs from all kinds of human love and to that extent is a permanent and exclusive union which should serve as a domestic church, a community of faith, hope and charity.

Bemoaning the state of marriages in contemporary society, the Archbishop stressed that marriages and Christian families are today faced with numerous challenges due, mainly, to secularism, influence of the social media, materialism, consumerism and relativism, resulting in an increasing number of broken homes and single parenting.

However, it must be acknowledged that, even under these circumstances, some families are struggling to be stable by remaining faithful to the traditional Christian values just as some others tend to be confused and uncertain of the real meaning of that union to which they are called to share.

In the opinion of this newspaper, the family has always been considered as the first and vital cell of society. Scholars insist that a nation can be strong to the extent that the family is strong. Similarly, a nation can be said to be crumbling if its families are falling apart and riddled with moral decay.

Based on this fact, it becomes incontestable that the ruling elite owes the society a duty to initiate policies that protect and promote the family – the school of social virtues. This should entail that, while national issues of politics, governance, economy and climate change are on the front burner of public discourse, the leaders must not forget that the family, the accepted nucleus of the nation is, unfortunately, seriously in danger of breakdown.

While discussants at the General Assembly commended the government for the allocation of grants and palliatives in the face of grinding poverty occasioned by not-too efficient governance processes, it must not lose sight of the fact that families need to be empowered and supported by government to embark on sustainable economic activities that will make them less dependent on occasional handouts.

It is also important to say that much as the Church expects the government to do what needs to be done to keep marriages and families on an even keel, families, on their part, are called upon to be patriotic and law-abiding.

It is from this perspective that the Church considers the rate of violence, cybercrime, kidnapping and banditry in the society as disturbing. It maybe convenient to dismiss these anti-social tendencies as evidence of young people being exposed to harmful indoctrination by criminal elements and other enemies of the society. Still, these young people belong to families that may have failed in their duties to their children and the society at large. Or, treated such duties with levity.

As a newspaper, we align with the position of the Catholic Church that the family is the natural context for child-bearing and character molding. Also, we share the view that young people must not be rushed into marriages without a proper understanding of its meaning and significance. Bearing in mind the strategic position of the family in the society, it is necessary that all aspect of it must be handled with utmost care.