Vatican Conference to Examine "Language of the Body" in Marriage
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paperwight66
Guest
And contributions/talks/discussions will be limited to married people, I hope?
Probably not.
Probably not.
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Gaber
Guest
Wow. Did anyone else read the registration requirements? Talk about a filter!!!
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TarkanAttila
Guest
Why should it be? Sex is about more than children and bringing husband and wife together.
Do you know what else it’s about?
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Saul_of_Tarsus
Guest
Strange, only married people know the true union of man and woman? After watching Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen talk about married life and women, he seems to be more in communion with the ideal marriage than most married people I know. I can go on all day long about the substitutes that the initial site talks about. But I feel that the psychologists will do a much better job than I.
I pray that the conference will come to a fuller understanding of the union of man and woman. How the act of bodily creation of man and woman when coupled with the spiritual creation of God will create a new human life. This process called Conception.
I pray that the conference will come to a fuller understanding of the union of man and woman. How the act of bodily creation of man and woman when coupled with the spiritual creation of God will create a new human life. This process called Conception.
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Alan55
Guest
Most of the speakers are european theologians with a smattering of social scientists. There is at least one woman speaking, although it is unclear how many of the speakers, if any, are married.
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
I’ve been to similar-in-nature conferences that belabored the obvious. What do you think they’re going to do? Praise being married and having children - of course.
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TarkanAttila
Guest
Yes, naturally. But the question is “why?”. What makes marriage such a good?I’ve been to similar-in-nature conferences that belabored the obvious. What do you think they’re going to do? Praise being married and having children - of course.
One thing is that, done properly, the marriage is a reflection, a living icon, of the Trinity, and shows us in miniature how God Himself works.
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
I looked for the registration requirements for the conference, but could not find it (broken link?) I could only find the registration requirements to become a student of the program.
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
Is that important?
99.999% of the people who sent men to the moon were not astronauts. It seemed to work out OK.
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Tarpeian_Rock
Guest
On the other hand, marriage is not typically a matter of equations, computer programs, or physics.
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
Sure. Theologian-talk.
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Alan55
Guest
The point is not that priests (particularly priest-theologians) should not be part of such a conference – no one is saying that – but that a conference on marriage and sexuality should include a strong representation of married people, including, for example, married theologians.
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
I’m not sure what you point is. It does not negate my suggestion that one does not need to have first hand experience with something (anything) to become knowledgable, even an expert, on the subject. The world is full of such examples.
For a very pertinent example, I have been married for 27 years, and learned more about true marriage from Pope John Paul II than from any other source.
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
And, what did you learn from him? And, how far into your marriage were you when learned it? It seems to me that one learns the most about marriage from being married and interacting with one’s spouse.
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
I wish I was that good that I could summarize what Pope John Paul II had to teach in just one post!
He wrote volumes on the topic! It has been said (maybe it’s correct?) that he wrote more on marriage than all other Popes combined.The best summary that I can provide is that he taught me that marriage is orders of magnitude more important and more good than what the secular world teaches us. Everything else pretty much follows that.
About 17 years. You know how it is said that if you really want to learn about something, you should teach it? That is true. And it is true about marriage as well. Even after 17 years, I knew little compared with what there was to know. It was only after I studied it in order to assist couples with marriage preparation that I really began to understand it. That is why I KNOW first hand that those who have not been married can still teach volumes about it.
You’d think it would, wouldn’t you?
But, upon further reflection, that obviously can’t be true for many reasons.
- If you can’t find out what marriage is before you actually do it, then who can even know enough about it to rationally decide if it is right for them? You really need to know much about it before actually making the lifelong commitment and doing it, right?
- Experiental wisdom indicates that for a great number of people, the more they get to know their spouses and the more time they spend interacting with them in marriage, the worse they get at marriage, to the point the marriage fails. As a very wise person once said in a conference that I attended: “It is said that practice makes perfect. That’s baloney. It is only perfect practice that makes perfect. Practicing the wrong things only ingrains those wrong habits, techniques and procedures into us.” You can’t figure out marriage by working at being impefect at it. And that is precisely what the secular culture does; it tries to teach us to be imperfect at marriage. Primarily because it beckons us so seductively to be selfish.
- A true understanding of things that are so rooted in emotions and feelings is very difficult when those emotions and feelings are so much a part of us. Emotions and feelings are fickle, and are very bad teachers. To learn the truth about things that have so much other ‘stuff’ wrapped up with them is difficult without raising ourselves above that stuff. There ARE some things that are best understood in the trenches, but there are things that can’t be seen from the trenches at all. In a war, it isn’t the guy in the trenches holding the rifle that is making the most important decisions and calling the shots. It’s a group of guys sitting some distance off, with a much different (and total) perspective that are responsible for directing the big picture.
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
And, I thank you for explaining.
Had this been taught two or three decades ago, perhaps my own marriage of 45 years (to date), even after five children, would not have failed (we’re still married, but haven’t lived together since 1988.)
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TarkanAttila
Guest
It’s a lot simpler than it looks. Check out that video in my signature.Sure. Theologian-talk.
It’s not my own, but it’s a good video.- Status