'Catholic' Marriage Care?

The Chief Executive of 'Marriage Care', also known as 'Catholic Marriage Care' and formerly known as 'The Catholic Marriage Advisory Council', has made some extraordinary statements concerning marriage and the family, in a speech he gave at a Quest conference. Quest is an organization which describes itself as being a group for lesbian and gay Catholics and whose first purpose is:

"associating lay men and women who are seeking ways of reconciling the full practice of their Catholic faith with the full expression of their homosexual natures in loving Christian relationships, and providing opportunities for them to meet together for worship, discussion and study;"

Terry Prendergast has apparently claimed that:

"Statistically, children do best in a family where the adult relationship is steady, stable and loving.....Note that I stress adult, not married, since there is no evidence that suggests that children do best with heterosexual couples."

"many families, and the individuals that make up these groups, other than married man, woman, and added child, find themselves discriminated against or denigrated... all these attempt to live out good, Catholic lives whilst being judged and bracketed by those in authority, or those who appear to have reached the Kingdom already."

"It is ironic that the state appears to be much more pastoral and compassionate in its acceptance of what family is. The fact that there are all kinds of benefits available for different family forms, and legal imperatives to support families suggests that the state is even more concerned for families than Church."

He said that many families who pray together "then prey on other people through their self-righteousness", and said that abuse is "rampant" in the traditional family, citing the cases of Josef Friztl, who raped his prisoner daughter over a period of years, and Fred and Rosemary West, the serial killers.

'Catholic' Marriage Care is listed in the Catholic directory and partly funded by the Catholic Dioceses in England and Wales.

'Catholic' Marriage Care is a registered charity (no. 218159); a quick look at its latest Annual Report and Financial Statement (March 08) on the Charity Commission website, reveals the following:

Under the heading 'Voluntary Income' the charity received:

Infrastructure grant from the Department for Children ,Schools and Families (DCSF).......................................................................£42.500.00

Strategic grant from DCSF....................................£380.000.00

Council grants............................................................£81.982.00

Other Grants..............................................................£11.515.00

Donations.....................................................................£30.289.08

Church Grants.............................................................£81.982.00

Listed also is a grant from the 'Every Child Matters' grant programme, amounting to £101.900.00, made in 2006/7

The 'big money' to finance 'Catholic' Marriage Care comes therefore from one of the biggest UK Government departments, and as the Chief Executive comments in the Annual Report and Financial Statement:

"The current concern in relation to parenting has caused us to work more closely with
the adult couple as parent, both in our own work and in partnership with other agencies.
In this, we have worked closely, and have been supported by, our Government partner,
the Department for Children, Schools and Families."

"In all of this work, we have been indebted to our Government
partner, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), for its financial backing
and also strategic direction in relation to the support for families."

If 'Catholic' Marriage Care wishes to become a sub-department within the DCFS, perhaps it should do so, and cease any pretence of being a Catholic charity.

From the Catholic Herald :

"A spokesman for the bishops' conference rejected Mr Prendergast's arguments.

He said: "Defining 'family' is a notoriously difficult task. Yet the views expressed by Terry Prendergast about the definition of family and marriage are clearly not a reflection of the Church's teaching, nor those of the Bishops' Conference."


I don't think that the remarks made by Terry Prendergast (which I quoted at the top of this post) would cause any ripples at the DCSF but they may well disgust faithful Catholics who always believed that Catholic Marriage Care was about helping to prepare couples to live out the Sacrament and vocation of marriage according to the teaching of the Church, and supporting couples in marriage difficulties to continue their sacramental vocation.

So, what will the Bishops' Conference do about this scandalous situation?