The Irony and the Ecstasy: Church Losing Grip on Marriage
—By Fenton Johnson, Pacific News Service
February 26, 2004 Issue
Neither the state nor the church seems qualified to define marriage these days, much less assert moral authority over the act. But commentator Fenton Johnson points out that even when marriage was clearly the church's domain, it was defined in a way that led to some major ambiguities. The Roman Catholic Church declared -- and still does -- that two individuals establish the sacrament of marriage when they have sex. More simply put: no sex, no marriage. But just as in the days when commitment-shy kings and princes used the impossibility of proving consummation as a way to escape undesirable unions, the definition has proven to be inadequate.....(more)