Martin Earley (Letters, 30 November) speaks for many of us. If we are finding the teaching of the institutional Church on the family too restrictive and prescriptive, is it not because we have allowed those with the least experience of marriage and the family to define them for us and tell us what to think? Rather than limit ourselves to the Old Testament view of the God of Creation and procreation, should we not claim the inheritance brought to us by the New Testament? It shows us that Christ came to live among us to heal our wounds. It is in the messy crucible of the family that God’s faithful love manifests itself most powerfully. We should therefore move on from the romantic “we-are-one-flesh/happy-ever-after” notion of marriage that we are currently expected to
05 December 2013, The Tablet
Marriage for real
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