Nurturing marriage

According to Christa Pongratz-Lippitt (“Mercy, marriage and money”, 2 November), “the pastoral care of Catholics who have divorced and remarried has become an increasingly neuralgic issue over the years in Germany – but not only there.” Few Catholics would disagree. However, of even greater importance is the issue of a 50 per cent Catholic divorce rate mentioned in your article. The pastoral care of Catholics intending to marry or already married is an even greater challenge to which the Church offers no adequate response. It is not a matter of reducing the number of divorces, important though that be. It is a matter of enabling Catholic couples to commit to and sustain happily a lifelong relationship of unconditional love, in the teeth of their own fragility and of society’s negative pressures, for the service of God, their families, the Church and society, i.e. to help them to become living sacraments. Effective programmes of marriage preparation, and post-marriage enrichment and renewal, are essential. Resources and expertise are there – Engaged Encounter, Marriage Encounter, Marriage Care, to mention a few. At diocesan and parish levels, best practice and best practitioners should be identified and given every encouragement and support to provide for the very real needs of couples before and after the wedding.

If the Church is serious in emphasising the importance of marriage, it needs to raise its game significantly.

Peter Simmons, North Berwick, East Lothian