Marriage as a Vocation: A Conversation with Mary Ellen Konieczny

By: Mary Ellen Konieczny Elizabeth Tenety

November 24, 2014

University of Notre Dame Professor Mary Ellen Konieczny says the biggest challenge faced by the Catholic Church is that many Catholics feel that the Church does not understand the difficulties of marriage in today's world. She argues that it makes sense to expand our vision of Christian marriage to explicitly include a mission that is both about raising a family and as a calling to witness and service to the broader Church.


Is there a marriage crisis in the United States? How would you characterize it?   

Scholars of the family have noted significant changes in marriage in the last half century, including the prevalence of divorce (which has risen throughout the twentieth century and has now more or less leveled off), blended families, the recent growing acceptance of gay marriage, and an increase in cohabitation. Some scholars describe these changes as "family decline," while others characterize them as a growing "plurality of family forms," and a time of transition from the normative standard of the nuclear family in ways that are not yet clear. It is the case that many of the previous social and cultural supports for marriage have weakened over time. Also, changes in the economy that require a dual-earner income, together with perceptions of the need for a certain level of income before marriage, seem to be leading to an increase in the average age at first marriage. All that being said, I hesitate calling this changed social situation a crisis; marriage in societies across the globe often change with major social and economic changes. But I do think that institutions that have historically supported and strengthened marriage, which include churches, have particularly important roles to play today in supporting married couples—and perhaps create new supports—as they navigate the challenges and problems they encounter. 

What are the particular challenges that you see facing the Catholic Church?
 

As Pope Francis has observed, I think that the biggest challenge faced by the Catholic Church is that many Catholics and former Catholics, especially those who have had troubled marriages, or who are divorced and remarried, feel that the Church does not understand the difficulties of marriage in today's world. They haven't felt or experienced compassion from the Church, or they feel judged for the failure of a marriage, or they are frustrated or feel punished, or "second class," at not being able to receive communion. Many are hurt, or angry, and many have become indifferent. In all of this, the Church is challenged to achieve a better balance of what the Church teaches and an ethic of care and compassion.  

Is there anything that you think the Catholic Church's hierarchy does not understand about the lived reality of sexual and family life?
 

I think that there may be a good deal of intellectual knowledge of sexual and family life today among the Church's hierarchy, but among some, at least, there seems to be less of a felt understanding of the lived reality and the real problems experienced by family and surrounding sexuality in today's world. The Australian couple who spoke at the synod talked about how families, especially parents, must balance Church teaching and compassion all the time, with children and others—the very thing that the Church is called to do—and so, might have something to teach the Church at large about how to balance these two values that the Church is called to enact.  

How is the evolving role of women in our world changing marriage—and how should the Church respond?
 

 I think that when many of us think of the evolving role of women today, we think of how women have entered the work force in increasing numbers, and how an older father-breadwinner/mother-homemaker ideal of marriage is less prevalent, either because of women's participation in the professions or because their income is necessary for their family's well being. It is this change that I think of as especially having an impact on marriage in the United States. And while mothering is challenging and rewarding whether one works outside the home or not, combining work in the world and motherhood can be particularly challenging today.  

In my ethnographic research on marriage and family in parishes (in my book, The Spirit's Tether: Family, Work, and Religion among American Catholics), I found that mothers trying to achieve work-family balance often didn't have a lot of religious or spiritual resources for helping them to see both their motherhood and their work in the world in vocational terms—which they wanted to do. Catholicism provides a model for mothers in the Blessed Virgin Mary, but the women I spoke with who were both mothers and working professionals talked about their work (as a vocation) but not about motherhood in religious terms. I think the Church needs to find language and models for women like these, who find it difficult to see their experience reflected in how the Church talks about women, work, and motherhood.
 

Why do you think so many Catholics reject Church teaching on sex before marriage, contraception and even divorce/remarriage?
 

These teachings are countercultural and have limited social support in American culture more broadly, so I suspect that the lack of societal support for these teachings is involved in how they are received by Catholics. But at the same time, in speaking with many American Catholics about these issues, I hear repeatedly from those that reject them that these teachings do not fit with their experience of life. Opinions range from thinking that they are just too difficult to observe in the practical negotiation of their lives, although they may represent ideals, to outright rejection of them, often as impractical or as not acknowledging sufficiently human weakness and failure.  

Can you describe a new vision for Christian marriage in the modern world that addresses many of the concerns now facing the Vatican? What is Christian marriage in 2014?
 

I was captured by what the Australian couple who spoke at the beginning of the synod said about how the relationship of spouses in marriage, a "nuptial paradigm," in which marriage as a vocation is the beginning of Christian mission, could enliven the Church and its project of evangelization. They made the point that in virtue of the sacramental nature of marriage, married couples should not just be cooperators with clergy and religious, but "co-responsible" in the Church's mission. It is true that inculcating such an understanding of marriage would require catechesis, and perhaps pastoral support as well, at least until it has taken hold. But I think expanding our vision of Christian marriage to explicitly include a mission that is both about raising a family and as a calling to witness and service to the broader Church is attractive and makes sense at this historical time. 
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