Marriage a common good

On Saturday March 3, Ombudsman and Information Commissioner for the President of the Republic of Ireland, Emily O’Reilly delivered a speech in Belfast on the occasion of celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of Accord, the Irish Catholic marriage care service.Epochal crisis. "The two major institutions that did dominate much of the last century – the Catholic Church, and traditional lifelong marriage – have both undergone radical change in the fifty years. Existential crises face both and in this country, at this time, the State is unsure, as to what extent either should be supported", Commissioner O’Reilly said. "There is no doubt that this State is a colder place for Catholics than it was in 1962 or even in 2002". "The power of the Catholic Church in this country was a political construct as well as a religious one. But times changed. And by the time the clerical and institutional abuse scandals were exposed" government was already discreetly taking the distance. For the Commissioner, "the traditional marriages of the past did much to embed community values and to provide secure foundations for children" but, on the other hand, "anything outside" of that norm "was treated as profoundly abnormal and either rejected or punished". However, there were negative aspects also in long-lasting marriages: "the lack of property rights on the part of married women, her legal indivisibility from her husband, and other measures which served severely to limit the life choices of Irish women". "It seems clear, that marriage is in decline throughout the western world – she added – and that new forms of social units are now being normalised. Having children is decoupled in many instances not just from marriage itself but from other forms of longer terms commitments".Signs of change. Change has been "inevitable, in this globalized world" where the pursuit of personal growth as a dominant value undermine the traditional values of long term commitment and self sacrifice", said O’Reilly, who is married and has five children. If the trends in the US – where married people with children living under one roof now comprise just 20% of households – should continue, Accord might find itself dealing in a niche market. Might marriage become the elite institution of the future, and if it does, who counsels the rest?" "If this Church is to about anything, it has to be about love, meant as to listen, to understand, to tolerate, because the pain that is inflicted when people are not listened to or understood or when their humanity is downgraded is immense and we, of all people, should know that now". "A culture of human rights has enabled an increasingly dominant live and let live". However, the Commissioner pointed out, "while all of this can cue gross selfishness and self absorption to the detriment of the common good, it is also a culture that has as part of its core, a recognition of the humanity of each individual soul. I speak in particular about the gay community". From this perspective, "traditional marriage may continue to decline as new family units continue to be created and the binding twine of law and religion and other social forces continues to unravel. And that may be a reality that no amount of yearning for the old ways can dislodge". And "in the unravelling of traditional units, in the blending of disparate families, in the separation of procreation from the linear narratives, we grow closer to a chaotic state where our connections weaken and where the common good is not ultimately served".Social priorities. "The thread that links my work with yours is the absence of accord that presents in the cases that come to us to resolve, in your case husbands and wives, in my case ordinary men and woman and the public bodies they deal with. And common to both is the absence of real communication that lies at the heart of the most intractable disputes and by that I mean the failure to recognise the humanity of the other". For O’Reilly, "there is another piece of work to be done not just by Accord but society as a whole, and Government in particular, and that is to protect family units by mindfully seeking to remove as many barriers as possible from them". "Financial pressures are immense and do most certainly contribute to family breakdowns. But if we are to foster a healthier society and foster the sense of community and connectedness that can enable people to survive and thrive in the bleakest of times, we have to ensure that the benefits of marriage, of life-long commitment are enabled to be enjoyed not just by the middle class but by people who feel themselves at the margins, whose own lives may have been chaotic and may find it difficult to know how to begin to form and maintain stable bonds that in turn will provide stable structures for their children also to survive and thrive". "If we as society do not get to grips with a culture where nihilism and the annihilation of hope take root, then the very meaning of what society is becomes lost". "Connectedness and community – the twin strands of what everyone here believes in and strives to bring people back to. And it is within that space – the Commissioner concluded – that I believe the Catholic Church, in this country, can find renewal".