Marriage & Family Life

Participants of the Marriage Catechumenate Summit gathered at a retreat center near Houston to unpack the contents of “Catechumenal Pathways for Married Life,” a pastoral tool prepared by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life.

This “marriage catechumenate” model is an effort to return to the early church’s approach to forming adults to be received into the church.

A recent analysis shows 25 percent of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married — a record high — and may indicate “the closing of the American heart,” according to W. Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project.

The forthcoming 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops — otherwise known as the Synod on Synodality, which Pope Francis convenes in Rome this October — will examine ways to accompany divorced and remarried Catholics.

Mark Berchem, a parishioner of St. Joseph in West St. Paul, seeks to help dads recognize their power to affect their children’s lives and pass on faith and values.

Parents in the U.S. are more likely to prioritize passing on their religious views to their children rather than their political views, according to data analysis from the Pew Research Center.