More on Marriage

Source

From the article, remarks of Pope Benedict XVI:

* Many children raised by cohabitating, separated, divorced, or remarried parents are deprived of fixed points of reference and can suffer from inner conflict and confusion.

* Families in secularized cultures, especially where divorce is legal, are deeply immersed in uncertainty.

* More and more couples build their unions on the fragility and impermanence of cohabitation, which is based on an "individual's feeling or subjectivity."

* As divorces increase and cohabitation is on the rise, the children in these situations are "deprived of their parents' support and become victims of malaise and abandonment, thus spreading social disorder."

* Children today "feel like they are orphans are not children without parents, but children who have too many parents."

* This situation of a child caught between the different expectations and mixed messages of too many stepparents "cannot help but create inner conflicts and confusion" within the child.

* Pope Benedict reminds us of the clear teaching of Christ that in the case of the "irregular and dangerous situation" of divorced and remarried people, only the first marriage exists. "There is no husband and wife in a second marriage" -- rather they are a man and woman living in adultery.