by Christopher West

“When questioned about divorce, Christ [answered], ‘For your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.’ {Mt 19:8}”

“the paradox of the Gospel [is that] . . . by giving ourselves away, wee find ourselves {Mt 16:25}”

“the Church’s official teachings have always upheld the inherent goodness of the body and sexuality.”

“There are people who try to ridicule . . . the idea of a bond which lasts a lifetime. These people . . . do not know what love is. – Pope St. John Paul II”

“. . . divorce – in the sense of ending a valid marriage – is impossible (regardless of the civil status of a marriage)”

“Death alone ends marriage.”

So-called same-sex marriage . . . is impossible” – by the very nature of marriage

“Intentional exclusion of children . . . contradicts the very nature and purpose of marriage.”

“the bride and groom are the ministers of the sacrament of marriage. . . . . The priest (or deacon) . . . serves as an official witness for the Church.”

“In order for the marriage of Catholics to be validly established, spouses must:

not have any impediments to marriage ;

follow the proper form of the sacrament ;

have the proper capacity to exchange consent and do so freely and unconditionally ; and

consent to what the Church intends by marriage, that is:

fidelity

indissolubility

openness to children

Everyone is called to practice chastity (the proper use of sex, given one’s status in life) “because everyone is called to love.” – “Chastity is not the same . . . as abstinence.” –

“Studies indicate a 50% higher risk of divorce for those who live together before marriage as compared with those who do not.”

“. . . marriages that began with premarital sex [even during the engagement period] are 3x more likely to end in divorce than those in which sex was saved until after the wedding.”

“The more we invite Christ into our passions and desires, and allow him to purify them, the more . . . we’re able to . . . control . . them.”

“If you really want “good sex”, start by inviting God – who is love – to be with you. (Don’t worry, God won’t blush. [After all,] he created sex.)”

[In] the Church’s teaching against contraception, . . . we [find] a dramatic, though often undetected, clash between the forces of good and evil, between the fundamental human decision to love or not to love, to choose life or to oppose it. . . . . This is where spouses choose to communicate either God’s life and love to each other and the world, or choose to communicate, well, something else. . . . The Catholic Church stands as the lone voice saying that contraception is always wrong and terribly damaging to marriage and to society.”

“Husbands and wives are called to be procreative” – in fact, the 2 purposes of marital sexual intercourse are love and procreation.

“A contracepting culture . . . sees children as a burden to be resisted, rather than a gift to be welcomed ; an obstacle to material wealth, rather than a contribution to family health ; a drain on the world’s resources, rather than a benefit to society.”