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On the substance and history of the Church’s marital doctrine, you can do no better than Clark’s book.
Betrayed Without a Kiss: Defending Marriage after Years of Failed Leadership in the Church
By John Clark
(TAN Books, 304 pages, $30)
Marriage is falling apart in the West, even among so-called professing conservative Christians across the denominational spectrum. So, how are Roman Catholics doing? And how well is their Church — its hierarchy, tribunals, pre-marital preparation programs, and so on — supporting its historic matrimonial teaching and practice? According to John Clark, a “columnist, political speechwriter, and ghostwriter” with “two books on fatherhood” and “approximately five hundred articles and blogs about Catholic family life and apologetics” under his belt, the answers are “not well at all” and “abysmally.”
Clark opens this readable and thoroughly researched book with a Catholic vision of marriage as originally created by God and as it may have been lived out in Eden. He introduces readers to the roots of historical Catholic teaching on matrimony as an indissoluble sacrament with a distinct design and purposes focused on the procreation and nurture of children. This explication of Catholic marital doctrine is also fleshed out in Clark’s treatments of what he regards as various heresies and errors, most notably in discussions of heroic figures such as John Fisher, the Council of Trent, various papal encyclicals, and more. (READ MORE from David Ayers: Sociology Professors Defend Hamas Butchery)
As one might expect of a very conservative Roman Catholic educated at Christendom College, after acknowledging the many excesses and compromises of Catholicism related to marriage around the time Protestantism emerged, he attacks in the strongest possible terms, and in turn, Henry VIII and his obsessive quest to keep marrying until he could get a son whether or not it wrecked the Church, Martin Luther, and Protestantism in general. Core to these are debates about the sacraments, divorce, the marital roles of Church versus civil authorities, the Apocrypha, and even polygamy.
Continued below.
spectator.org
Betrayed Without a Kiss: Defending Marriage after Years of Failed Leadership in the Church
By John Clark
(TAN Books, 304 pages, $30)
Marriage is falling apart in the West, even among so-called professing conservative Christians across the denominational spectrum. So, how are Roman Catholics doing? And how well is their Church — its hierarchy, tribunals, pre-marital preparation programs, and so on — supporting its historic matrimonial teaching and practice? According to John Clark, a “columnist, political speechwriter, and ghostwriter” with “two books on fatherhood” and “approximately five hundred articles and blogs about Catholic family life and apologetics” under his belt, the answers are “not well at all” and “abysmally.”
Clark opens this readable and thoroughly researched book with a Catholic vision of marriage as originally created by God and as it may have been lived out in Eden. He introduces readers to the roots of historical Catholic teaching on matrimony as an indissoluble sacrament with a distinct design and purposes focused on the procreation and nurture of children. This explication of Catholic marital doctrine is also fleshed out in Clark’s treatments of what he regards as various heresies and errors, most notably in discussions of heroic figures such as John Fisher, the Council of Trent, various papal encyclicals, and more. (READ MORE from David Ayers: Sociology Professors Defend Hamas Butchery)
As one might expect of a very conservative Roman Catholic educated at Christendom College, after acknowledging the many excesses and compromises of Catholicism related to marriage around the time Protestantism emerged, he attacks in the strongest possible terms, and in turn, Henry VIII and his obsessive quest to keep marrying until he could get a son whether or not it wrecked the Church, Martin Luther, and Protestantism in general. Core to these are debates about the sacraments, divorce, the marital roles of Church versus civil authorities, the Apocrypha, and even polygamy.
Continued below.
Marriage, the Catholic Way - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics
At the end of the day, Clark is a belligerent in a culture war in which marriage and our civilization hang in the balance.
