Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

— Romans 12:2

Either before you arrive or as you wait for class to begin, find this short passage from Sacred Scripture in your Bible or through an online search. Reading it will prepare you for this week’s material.

— Ephesians 4:11–15, 17–19, 22–25

Pour your grace into our hearts, we pray, O Lord, that we may be constantly drawn away from unruly desires and obey by your own gift the heavenly teaching you give us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

As you watch the video lesson, refer to these key highlights. Feel free to use the space provided to take notes.

• To be a Christian means to be consecrated in the truth, and the truth of Christ really is a saving message.

• Jesus quotes the book of Genesis on marriage: “A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

• Christ elevated marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, and it signifies his spousal love and his unbreakable fidelity to the Church.

• The question of homosexuality and the new phenomenon of same-sex civil unions might mean you will face challenges to bear witness to the truth of human sexuality and to the Church’s teaching.

• The Catholic Church does not condemn persons who experience homosexual inclinations or desires, but it does say that homosexual acts are wrong.

Wisdom of the Saints

O you who are married, … it was God … who with an unseen hand tied your holy marriage bond and gave you to one another. Why then do you not cherish each other with a completely holy, completely sacred, and completely divine love? … God joins husband to wife with his own blood and for this reason the union is so strong that the soul must sooner break away from the body of one of them than the husband from the wife.

— St. Francis de Sales

Take a moment to go through these questions with the group. For larger classes, divide them up into partners. Answers are provided to assist you in leading discussion.

1. What deep truths about human life and marriage does Jesus point us to?

Jesus points us back to God’s first creation of man and woman as made for communion with each other. A man “leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife” (Gn 2:24). Each of us is meant to be born into the communion of a family. Human sexuality was not given to us only for the sake of pleasure; it touches something deep in us and is only meant to be used in the permanent communion of life and love of a committed marriage.

1. What are the main features of the Catholic teaching on the permanence of the marriage bond?

Jesus raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament that signifies his spousal love and unbreakable fidelity to the Church. Just as he remains faithful to his Church even unto death, so also spouses are called to remain faithful until death. Where a true sacramental bond exists, it can never be dissolved, and so no second marriage is possible during the life of the first spouse.

An annulment is the recognition by a Church tribunal that a true and valid marriage bond never existed, even though there may have been the outward appearance of a marriage.

1. What are the main elements of the Catechism’s teaching on homosexuality?

The Catechism distinguishes carefully between (1) homosexual acts, which Scripture very clearly teaches are grave sins, (2) homosexual inclinations or desires, and finally (3) the dignity of persons who experience such inclinations or desires.
Homosexual acts are always wrong. To experience homosexual inclinations or desires, however, of itself is not a sin. It might be experienced as something unwanted. Because it is an inclination to do something that is not rightly ordered—an inclination toward a misuse of our sexual powers—the inclination itself is called “objectively disordered.” Persons who experience these desires must be treated “with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.” They are called to live the Christian life in chastity (see CCC 2357–59).

1. What is the relation between the Church’s understanding of marriage and the procreation and raising of children?

Marriage is the only human relationship that can both produce the next generation of children and connect those children to both their mother and father. It is ordered both to the good of the spouses and also to the transmission of life and the raising of children.

Divorce harms children, who are deprived of their right to be raised in an intact home with a father and a mother. Divorce (and same-sex civil unions) also undermines civil society’s interest in ensuring a good environment for the raising and education of the next generation of citizens.

Catechism Connection

It can seem difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself for life to another human being. This makes it all the more important to proclaim the Good News that God loves us with a definitive and irrevocable love, that married couples share in this love, that it supports and sustains them, and that by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God’s faithful love.

— CCC 1648

Discuss these questions with the group, pair them with a partner, or ask them to meditate on their own.

1. What challenges do you anticipate facing in speaking with family or friends about Catholic teaching?

2. What aspects of Catholic moral teaching do you find attractive? Do you find some elements challenging?

3. What are some concrete steps you might take to witness more effectively to Catholic teaching?

After concluding your group discussion, return to watch the second video where converts to the Catholic faith discuss their conversion and how they live today as Catholics.

Rome to Home

Married love particularly reveals its true nature and nobility when we realize that it takes its origin from God, who “is love,” the Father “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” Marriage, then, … is in reality the wise and provident institution of God the Creator, whose purpose was to effect in man His loving design. As a consequence, husband and wife, through that mutual gift of themselves, which is specific and exclusive to them alone, develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one another, cooperating with God in the generation and rearing of new lives.

— Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, no. 8

Annulment: A decree of nullity; that is, a formal recognition by a Church tribunal, after an investigation, that determines a true and valid marriage bond never existed, even though there may have been the outward appearance of a marriage.

Marriage: A covenant or partnership of life between a man and woman, which is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children. When validly contracted between two baptized persons, marriage is a sacrament. A valid and consummated sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved by any human authority.

Homosexuality: Sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex and/or sexual acts between persons of the same sex. Homosexual acts are morally wrong because they violate God’s purpose of human sexual activity. Homosexual inclinations or desires of themselves may not be sinful, however, especially when they are not deliberately chosen or willed.

God’s Word

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church.

— Ephesians 5:31–32

Leader: Our help is in the name of the Lord.

Response: Who made heaven and earth.

All make the sign of the cross.

This serves as a review of the material that your students can read after each class, but it may be helpful for you to read as well. Consider reading it before each class to better prepare you for group discussion.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus draws a very strong contrast between the world and the saving message that he brings. On the one hand, he tells us that he was sent into the world not that the world would be condemned but that it would be saved through him and would come to have life in his name (see Jn 3:16). On the other hand, he says that the world—meaning what is not of God—rejects him and his message of salvation, and also the disciples he sends to proclaim that message: “I have given them your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. . . . Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth” (Jn 17:14, 17–19).

To be a Christian means to be consecrated in the truth. And this truth, the truth of Christ, really is a saving message—it is good news. “You will…know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32). It is the path towards genuine freedom and towards true happiness.

Still, it can be hard to proclaim this truth today. It’s also possible that, because you’ve decided to become Catholic, you could face real opposition, perhaps even from those who are closest to you. But remember, Jesus himself experienced this, and he foretold that his disciples would too.

What are the points of Catholic teaching that are most difficult to proclaim in our contemporary culture? They tend to focus on marriage, the family, and human sexuality. This chapter will focus specifically on the Church’s teaching about marriage.

Before going any further, we should reiterate the mercy of Christ and the power of the Gospels. The Church’s teaching does not exist to condemn anyone but to set them free with the truth. And God is always willing to forgive anyone who repents, no matter how great the sin is. God promises the help of his grace to be transformed from within and to live according to his call.
When speaking about marriage, we should go back to the beginning, just as Jesus does. When he is asked about divorce in the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, he answers the question by speaking about how God created human beings as male and female, as complementary to each other. Divorce and remarriage is always wrong, he teaches, and it goes against the original meaning of human sexuality: “A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Eph 5:31).

Jesus is pointing to a deep secret about the meaning of human life and of marriage: human beings are made for communion with each other. Each of us is meant to be born into the communion of a family. A new marriage means that a son or daughter now goes from one communion to another, to a new family. A son “leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife” (Gn 2:24). And the very first command that God gives to man in the Bible, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gn 1:28), builds on this deep truth that procreation and the communion of a family are intertwined in God’s plan. In other words, the power of human sexuality is a great gift from God, and it has to do with both the communion of love between two people and the generation of new human life from that concrete act of love. The use we make of this gift of human sexuality must always be in harmony with its place in God’s plan: that it would be an act of love between two people vowed to each other, and that it be open to the generation of new life. A complete and life-long commitment between a man and a woman is the only context in which God intends to bring new life into the world.

This brings us to Jesus’s forceful words about divorce. “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mk 10:11–12). This is a sensitive subject for many, since in our time, divorce has touched a great many of us, whether directly or indirectly.

There are many whose marriages have encountered grave hardships, sometimes for reasons that seem undeserved and sometimes through the fault of one or both persons. Of course, sometimes one party has no choice but to separate from the other—particularly in cases of spousal abuse—and the Church recognizes that sometimes this is a necessary response to a marriage that has developed grave problems and it is not itself a sin. Still,we must say that every failed marriage is a terrible human tragedy.

The Catholic teaching is clear: Christ elevated marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, and it signifies his spousal love and his unbreakable fidelity to the Church (see Eph 5:32). Where a true sacramental bond exists, it can never be dissolved, and so no second marriage is possible during the life of the first spouse.

You may have heard of an annulment. Some people think this is a Catholic form of divorce. That’s a misunderstanding. More properly, it is called a declaration of nullity, and it is the recognition by a Church tribunal that a true and valid marriage bond never existed, even though there may have been the outward appearance of a marriage.

In our age, grounds for an annulment are not uncommon, especially when there is good reason to believe that the persons did not intend to enter into a permanent and faithful marriage union for the whole of life, or where the couple intended not to have children. But we should add that annulments are not simply automatic, nor are they an entitlement. The inquiry should always be guided by the truth of the situation: did a valid marriage exist?

Speaking of marriage today raises another difficult subject: the question of homosexuality and the new phenomenon of same-sex unions, which the civil law in some places calls “gay marriage.” Great sensitivity is necessary here again, especially since the Church’s teaching is often misunderstood and wrongly thought to condemn individuals for things they cannot control.

To understand the Catholic position, we have to go back to the meaning of human sexuality: it is a gift ordered to the union of a man and a woman, open to the generation of new life. Every use of our sexuality that doesn’t respect that original meaning is a misuse of something very great that touches something deep within us. That is why Scripture and the Church teach that all sins against chastity, including homosexual acts, are gravely wrong.

Here, we need to add an important distinction. The Catechism of the Catholic Church distinguishes carefully between (1) homosexual acts, which Scripture very clearly teaches are grave sins, (2) homosexual inclinationsor desires, and finally (3) the dignity of persons who experience such inclinations or desires (see CCC 2357–59).

Homosexual acts are always wrong. To experience homosexual inclinations or desires, however, of itself is not a sin. It might even be experienced as something unwanted. Because it is an inclination to do something that is not rightly ordered—an inclination toward a misuse of our sexual powers—the inclination is called “objectively disordered” by the Catechism. But—and this is important—it does not teach that persons who experience that disordered inclination have any less dignity or value. Rather, such persons must be treated “with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.” They are called to live the Christian life in chastity (see CCC 2358).

In other words, the Church’s teaching is not about the value or dignity of persons—all persons are loved by God and have an intrinsic dignity as made in his image—but rather about the nature of human sexuality, which can only be rightly used in a marriage between a man and a woman that is open to life.

What about so-called “gay marriage”? Even if we grant that this is not God’s plan (and this is quite clear from the teachings of Jesus himself), is there anything wrong with the state recognizing such unions in civil law? The Catholic Church thinks there is.

This is because civil society has an important interest as marriage as an institution. Historically speaking, the reason that we have civil laws that govern marriage is very straightforward and clear: marriage exists to encourage men and women to create the next generation in the right context and simultaneously to discourage the creation of children in other contexts (namely, out of wedlock and in fatherless homes, which statistics clearly show is detrimental to the child and to society).

Marriage is the only human relationship that can both produce the next generation of children, and connect those children to both their mother and father. And the next generation is much more likely to be composed of healthy, productive, and good citizens if children are raised in a stable home by a mother and a father living together, since mothers and fathers play a complementary role in the family, and a child has a natural right to bothEven if we were to set aside the very important religious aspects of this debate, the question of same-sex civil unions is not simply about individual choices and individual rights. It is a question that concerns civil society as a whole, and so touches everyone.

In fact, a momentous shift has taken place when the law says that marriage is not a relationship between a man and a woman committed to each other for the whole of life but that two men or two women can “marry.” In this case, marriage ceases to be a shared public institution that is designed to guide the raising of the next generation and becomes a private benefit for individuals. It loses any necessary reference to children. And it changes the very meaning of the words we use; husband no longer implies wife; mother no longer implies father.

And this shift changes (in a deep way) how we encourage the next generation to come together in marriages to raise children with a biological mother and father, and so forth. We will cease to be able to communicate to others in a shared public context something that is vitally important for the future of our society: the need for society to have stable male-female relationships that produce stable and healthy children.

These issues can be very challenging ones, especially in our contemporary culture, but Jesus gives us the promise of the aid of the Holy Spirit so that we can be able to bear witness to them with courage and love.

Eberstadt, Mary. Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2013.