Addresses and Statements

The Challenges of the Times, St. Bernadette’s Parish, Carlton

15 Feb 2018

THE CHALLENGES OF THE TIMES
St. Bernadette’s Parish, Carlton

When my predecessor Sir Norman Thomas Cardinal Gilroy returned from one of the sessions of the Second Vatican Council, he was asked by a breathless reporter what he thought was the greatest challenged faced by the Church and society today. No doubt he was expected to answer ‘the bomb’, ‘the ecological crisis’ or ‘communism’. But instead he said ‘Mortal Sin’. The answer met with incomprehension and no doubt was deliberately provocative. But it highlighted the important truth that the greatest challenges of our time have a moral-spiritual dimension. And so tonight I’d like to examine ‘seven deadly sins’ of the contemporary world and offer three possible remedies.

1. Pride: The Decline and fall of the Three Estates
The idea of three estates goes back to ancien régime France before 1789 and Britain before and after that, where the ‘First Estate’ was said to be the Church, represented by ‘the Lords Spiritual’ or bishops; the ‘Second Estate’ was the aristocracy or ‘Lords Temporal’; and the ‘Third Estate’ was the people, eventually represented in government by ‘the Commons’. For a long time these were regarded as the three sources of all authority, government, culture and influence in any community. But in the words of the King James Bible “pride goeth before a fall” (Prov 16:18) and all three of these haughty powers have seriously declined in influence in recent years.

The credibility of religion, especially Christianity and most especially Catholicism, has taken a serious battering through the child sexual abuse crisis. That those purporting to represent God could do such harm to the children in their care or neglect to intervene when they knew this was happening has understandably disillusioned and angered many of the faithful, let alone in the surrounding community. The task of deserving and regaining people’s trust may take generations. All this has occurred against a backdrop of incremental secularisation and the rise of a more militant secularism to which I will return later.

Meanwhile the authority of our civil leaders has also been deeply compromised by years of unstable leadership, inability of governments to progress their platforms into legislation and policy, the scandals and criticisms of politicians whether just or unjust.

The rise of populist movements across the West and of smaller parties in our own country are amongst the many signals of the declining credibility and influence of mainstream political power. But this does not necessarily represent the Third Estate – the People – reasserting its proper place in our democracy. For many reasons populist disillusionment, cynicism and self-interest are insufficient to ground the democratic experiment.

2. Gluttony: The Rise of the Fourth Estate
Edmund Burke and Thomas Carlyle first suggested that the press had become the unofficial Fourth Estate, with a voracious (one might say deadly gluttonous) appetite for information and influence, not merely holding to account but often dictating to the other three estates what they should do. The media is arguably more powerful than ever today, though the media landscape is changing rapidly, above all because of the advent of the social media. Newspapers and TV, cinema and the radio have long influenced our politics and culture and we could all think of examples of how they can be used for good or ill. We know that many politicians are now beholden to the latest polls and opinion leaders far more than they are to party platform, let alone sound principle and policy.

The current campaign in the Fairfax Press regarding the wealth and privileges of the Catholic Church is one I presently have to face; for the past generation the Church has had a barrage of both just and unjust criticism regarding the child sexual abuse crisis; and Cardinal Pell has already been tried by media before he has even been committed for trial. Beyond the Church we’ve seen Facebook campaigns bring down Middle Eastern dictators in the so-called ‘Arab Spring’, only to be replaced, more often than not, by something worse; or contrive a riot at Cronulla beach; or force the resignation of politicians and media personalities damned by the hash-tag “Me Too”. The insatiable appetite and current power of the media is undoubted: what is less clear is how the media might be harnessed for the good, critiqued or regulated appropriately, and how ordinary consumers will differentiate between truth and ‘fake news’..1

There are many sides to the media, some of them very good – for example, I’d be lost without the research capacity of the internet, bored without the entertainment of cinema, and less able to convey the Church’s perspective to the public without the old and new media. On the other hand, the current social media revolution has come at a cost in serious reporting and opinion writing, and leaves us with sources more derivative, more narrowly selective, and less reliable. And the alarming concentration of media power continues apace: it’s estimated that of every dollar spent on advertising in the Western world today, 90 cents ends up in the pockets of Google and Facebook.

3. Greed: The emergence of a Fifth Estate
Gordon Gekko, in the 1987 movie Wall Street, famously said that “greed is good”. Yesterday it was revealed that one in five of our biggest companies – Qantas included – have contrived to pay no corporate tax at all for some years. Firms with such financial power brook little opposition in the pursuit of the deadly sin of greed. Senior management has made little or no allowance for staff wage increases in recent years, while often taking obscene salaries and bonuses themselves. Some would respond: big business has always behaved in this way. But over the last twelve months or so, many major corporations, often without consulting shareholders or even board members, have used their financial clout to advance not just corporate profits but various social causes. In the ‘marriage debate’, for instance, big business conscripted staff, took out full-page advertisements in national papers, and lent their corporate names, logos and funds to one side of the campaign. There was more than a bit of corporate bullying, dissenters were tagged ‘haters’ and ‘homophobes’, and with the fourth and fifth estates allied against them the No side had little chance. 2

Whether this presages corporate CEOs becoming more regular arbiters of Australia’s moral and social life is yet to be seen. But the right and left hooks of financial clout and media smear often clobbers the first three estates of government, churches (and other voluntary organisations) and ordinary citizens.

4. Envy: The Campaign against Religious Freedom
For all its putative open-mindedness and despite its profound debt to Judeo-Christianity for its laws and customs, our culture’s tolerance for ‘old style religion’ is declining. The recent change to the legal definition of marriage raised concerns about the freedoms of religious institutions and individuals, and occasioned the appointment of an Expert Panel led by Hon. Phillip Ruddock to examine whether Australian law adequately protects those freedoms. Recent experience in Australia and overseas suggests that institutions that maintain a traditional view of marriage may well face challenges regarding their ceremonies and facilities, their employment, enrolment and accommodation policies, the message they preach or curriculum they teach, their charitable status, eligibility for government grants and contracts etc. Those who opposition to the churches is driven by the deadly sin of envy of privilege or anger for supposed oppression in the past, are determined to brook no freedom for religion in the future.

People of faith may also find themselves the victims of vilification, ‘lawfare’ or disadvantage in employment, commerce, academic or professional admission, parenting or otherwise, if they are known to hold or dare to voice old-fashioned views on marriage or other matters. Nor is this concern unique to Australia or to Christianity. Last June a north London Jewish school faced closure after failing three Education Department inspections. The reason given was that while the school’s culture is “clearly focused on teaching pupils to respect everybody, regardless of beliefs and lifestyle”, it failed to teach their students about homosexuality and this was said to breach the Equality Act 2010. 3

5. Wrath: Militant Secularism
The ‘secular’ is a Christian idea, one we might date back to Jesus’ teaching about rendering unto Caesar what is rightly Caesar’s and to God what is rightly His (Mt 22:21). The idea of distinct spiritual and secular realms, with different objects, principles, leaders and methods, each making a generous space for the other, is something Christianity taught a world where priests often dictated the terms to kings, or vice versa, and the two too often vied for absolute authority. A healthy secularity meant treating both realms and their principal actors with respect, with neither claiming complete control or interfering too much in the other’s affairs. Secure in their independent spheres, church and state were each free to pursue their own goals, to back each other up in various ways, to partner in projects that serve the common good, but also to criticize and be proper checks upon each other. A healthy secularity recognizes, tolerates, indeed values different views and interests, rights and responsibilities.

Militant secularism, on the other hand, tries to minimise the role of faith in every person’s private life and to exclude it altogether from the public square of government, law, the media, schools, universities, workplaces, social institutions and customs… At times this can be almost comical, as when secularists oppose Christmas decorations in public places. At other times it’s more serious, as when they seek to erase the ‘sanctity of life’ idea from our laws and require all health professionals to participate in or refer for abortion. Sometimes dogmatic secularism turns violent – as in the French, Mexican, Russian, Spanish and Chinese Revolutions that sought to wipe out faith by wiping out priests, nuns, churches and faithful. This deadly sin of wrath can at other times be committed more subtly, as when efforts are made to inoculate people to faith or make them embarrassed about being religious. Militant secularism thus promotes a kind of practical agnosticism whereby people may privately identify as believers, but live day-to-day as if God and Gospel have no purchase on their lives. Drip by drip, almost without knowing it, faithful Christians are drawn away into some ideology.

6. Sloth: Implications for ‘Australian Values’
This more subtle, more seditious form of secularism is particularly dangerous not just because it can go unnoticed for so long, and be so corrupting of the Christian soul, but also because it corrodes what many scholars have identified as the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of modern democracy.4 Contemporary democracy and civil conversation are heir to beliefs – about the dignity of the human person, the rule of law, human rights, separation of church and state, respect for individual conscience, government for the common good – which are founded in Christian Scripture and tradition. The jury is still out on whether new agnostic liberal underpinnings can be found for the democratic experiment as secularists desire. But I think it would be naïve to think a thin conception of the human good and a ‘live and let live’ attitude will be sufficient for uniting and directing the diverse Australian community going forward.5

Australian culture valorises certain conceptions of the good life over others, such as the tinnie from the eski at the barbie! Our peculiarities are perhaps most evident to newcomers to our country or to ourselves when we travel overseas. Many people love the Australian difference; others are less impressed. It is commonly asserted that ‘Aussie values’ include:

The good life: a long life lived in good health, a comfortable home (house, marriage, family), work and play, surf and sand, sport and friends, freedom to ‘do our own thing’
Having a go: standing on our own two feet, taking responsibility, seeking to do something worthwhile even if it is difficult; not expecting others to do everything for us or blaming others when we fail; a certain individuality and independence
A fair go for all: freedom, justice and opportunities for all; a level playing field; cutting down the tall poppies and resisting authority; looking after one’s ‘mates’
Being fair dinkum: plain speaking, honest, sincere, down-to-earth, trustworthy; no pomposity or sham and
She’ll be right: tolerance, acceptance, not holding grudges or getting hot under the collar about ideologies; being optimistic about the future.
Without sound and objective underpinnings, however, such prima facie admirable ‘Aussie values’ can be subverted or hollowed out: love of the good life can degenerate into selfish consumerism and unconcern for others; the ‘have-a-go’ ideal can demean those who are uncompetitive and marginalise those whose ability to participate is compromised; the levelling tendency can diminish the pursuit of excellence in art, culture, intellectual and spiritual life; plain speaking can be plain discourtesy; and ‘she’ll be right’ can mask disengagement, indeed the deadly sin of sloth.

This is not the place to critique these supposed ‘Australian values’. Suffice it to say, when people talk about ‘shared values’ and what is ‘un-Australian’ this can reflect anxiety about the lack of such common beliefs or the fear that they are being eroded. The search can be for a kind of faith-lite or morality-lite that will do for now as a basis for dialogue and democracy. Such ‘values’ can then be more easily coopted for political purposes or used to browbeat the benighted and ‘bogan’.6 But serious thought needs to be given to whether a thin and elitist conception of the good can as effectively underpin Australian democracy, as the more ‘commonsense’ and ultimately Judeo-Christian values have done till now.

7. Lust: Values Disorientation
All these challenges I have identified so far feed the confusion that pervades contemporary views on sex and gender, marriage and family, friendship and society, justice and politics, and the rest. The last few decades have witnessed real advances in respect for the dignity of women, children and people of diverse sexualities, appreciation of the importance of intimacy, greater sharing of lives and responsibilities between spouses, in the philosophy, psychology and pastoral care of families. Yet our marital culture has been subject to a series of shock-waves which have left it shaken and unsteady.

These included the sex-on-demand, divorce-on-demand and babies-on-demand waves of the last few decades and the most recent surge of gender-on-demand ideology. In post-modernity everything about us, including our male and female identity, our sexual relating and our friendships are matters of taste and negotiation. Human nature and institutions are no longer seen as given but rather as socially created or personally chosen. People try a sexuality or gender from amongst the smorgasbord on offer; they can change gender psychologically, anatomically or behaviourally as they please; they may engage sexually with one or more persons, of one or more sexualities, contemporaneously or sequentially; and they are free to celebrate that publicly through one or more wedding ceremonies.

The question of gender or sexual difference is, according to the French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, “the issue” of our age, the prism by which we understand ourselves, the politics by which we decide our future, the arena of our ‘salvation’ or ‘damnation’.78

Thus healthcare is now regularly used not only to heal but also to harm: to kill unwanted children, sterilise unwanted fertility, shorten unwanted living and dying, seek out and destroy those with the unwanted genes, dispose of the unwanted sick and elderly.910

8. What Can We Do about these Contemporary Deadly Sins?
All in all, we face many challenges today as a Church and society, and I have identified only seven, regarding the rise and fall of various ‘authorities’ in contemporary culture, the advance of a dogmatic secularism often promoted by the media and big business, the consequent threats to religious liberty and confusion about values and virtues. All of which could incline us to doom and gloom. But I don’t think it should. After all, challenges like these, or worse, have confronted every generation, and the family, Church and democracy have shown themselves to be remarkably resilient. We should not underestimate the combined effect of human nature and divine grace in regenerating these basic building blocks of society and restoring our balance.

But what might we do to bring about that regeneration and rebalancing? I was asked by the organisers of tonight’s lecture to suggest three things. My first is this: we should remember that what are at heart moral-spiritual problems require moral-spiritual remedies and we do, in fact, have these at hand: prayer, sacraments, scripture, Church teaching, adoration, the lives of the saints, the support of the Christian community, evangelisation and formation.

Secondly, as Aldous Huxley once pointed out, ‘the only corner of the universe you can be sure of changing is yourself’, so we should start there. If we are being swayed by powers such as the media and big business, we need to cultivate a certain scepticism; if we are being secularised by our culture and disoriented by its confusion about the human person and relationships, we should return to the sources of Christian beliefs in such matters and better inform ourselves. In other words, we need to engage in a sort of examination of conscience with respect to the challenges of the age. We may well find that the problems aren’t all “out there”, but in fact begin much closer to home. If we are to do our bit to address big challenges like authority, secularism, religious freedom and values disorientation, we need to be well informed and formed ourselves. At an individual and parish level that requires lectures and discussions such as the present series for which I commend the Carlton Parish. It means reading widely and deeply, and not just people who think like us. It means knowing our own tradition and so thoroughly acquainting ourselves with resources such as the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Thirdly, in societies that are fast forgetting how to listen, to reason something out, to have real dialogue and debate, we should do what we can to improve the quality of our own conversations – in our homes, workplaces, parish communities, polity. We might examine how we relate to others verbally and through the wordless conversation of our actions. Of course, conversation is a risky business, since there’s no telling exactly where it might go. Try as we may to tame it, if it is more than mere propaganda, sloganeering or brow-beating, it has the potential to explore, share, teach, inspire and change us. But if two (or more) parties agree to walk and talk together for a while, with receptive minds and hearts, who knows what they might discover? On a recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land I was deeply moved by meeting a group of Israeli and Palestinian women who have in common the grief of having lost husbands or sons, often to violence. They build on that shared grief by, first of all, listening compassionately to each other. We might ask ourselves how well we do this in our own lives and relationships, as individuals and as a parish, and look for ways to improve our conversation.

9. Conclusion
In summary, then, I suggest we attend first to ourselves, feeding our hearts and minds well, before judging or trying to convert the world. We must listen and dialogue before we can refute or persuade. Though we enter such conversations with humility and even some uncertainty, we should do so with great confidence also, that we do have a wisdom to share and that the challenges of our age need people like us operating under divine grace.

Big challenges lie ahead for us all, as faith leaders or as citizens of faith wanting a society that is tolerant of diverse beliefs and able to live well together. But if we remember our mutual goal – a society of fellows, each endowed with dignity and striving to live together in peace and justice – then I am confident there are solutions yet to be found to our many challenges. And so I would like to end my little talk with a prayer from Pope Francis that I quoted at the recent Red Mass: “May this be the path we take: rejecting aimless disagreements and closed-mindedness… Fostering everywhere the peaceful encounter of believers and genuine religious freedom. This challenging call is one we can answer together, for the good of all, and with hope. May our religions be wombs of life, bearing the merciful love of God to a wounded and needy humanity; may they be doors of hope, helping to penetrate the walls erected by pride and fear.”11

 

 

1 Margaret Simons, ‘Journalism faces a crisis worldwide – we might be entering a new dark age’, The Guardian 15 April 2017.

2 Nathan Hondros & Tom McIlros, “Coopers brewery gay marriage back-down a ‘craven capitulation’: MP Andrew Hastie”, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 2017; Paige Cockburn, “Coopers Brewery distances itself from Bible Society’s same-sex marriage video, faces backlash”, ABC News, 15 March 2017; Frank Chung & Rohan Smith, “Coopers boycott over Bible Society video ‘absurd'”, News.com.au, 15 March 2017; Rachel Olding, “Pubs boycott Coopers beer following Bible Society marriage equality marketing campaign”, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 March 2017; “Was Coopers bullied in the marriage equality debate?”, ABC Religion and Ethics Report, 15 March 2017; Dennis Shanahan, “Freedom of speech exits the churches for new life in pubs” Weekend Australian, 18 March 2017; “The culture war of marriage equality in Australia”, ABC Religion and Ethics Report, 22 March 2017; Miranda Devine, “The pink mafia silences dissent”, Daily Telegraph, 22 March 2017; Andrew Bolt, “Attack on church a cultural assault”, Herald Sun, 30 March 2017.

3 Rachael Pels, “Private Jewish school fails third Ofsted inspection for not teaching LGBT issues”, Idependent, 26 June 2017 ; Richard Price, “Intolerance!”, Daily Mail, 14 July 2017, https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20170714/282132111487570.

4 Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds.), Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997); Benedict XVI, “Faith, Reason and the University,” Lecture at the University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006 (see Schall); Peter Berkowitz, Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 1999); Michael Burleigh, Earthly Powers: Religion and Politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the Great War (HarperCollins, 2005) and Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics from the Great War to the War on Terror (HarperCollins, 2007); Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer & Jonathan Vanantwerpen (eds), Rethinking Secularism (OUP, 2011); Grace Davie, Religion in Modern Europe: A Memory Mutates (OUP, 2000); Christpher Dawson, Christianity and European Culture (Catholic University of America Press, 1998); John DeGruchy, Christianity and Democracy: A Theology for a Just World Order (CUP, 1995); Henri DeLubac, The Drama of Atheist Humanism (Ignatius Press, 1995); Charles-Alexis deTocqueville, Democracy in America (New York, Bantam Classic, 2004); Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay (Profile Books, 2014); Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation (Harvard University Press, 2012); Jürgen Habermas, The Divided West (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006); Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger, The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion (Ignatius, 2006); Hugh Heclo, Christianity and American Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2007); James Hutson (ed.), Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (Library of Congress, 1998); Jacques Maritain, “Christianity and democracy”, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 21 (1-2) (2009), 143-52; Philip Jenkins, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis (OUP, 2007); Frank Lambert, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America (Princeton University Press, 2003); John Millbank, Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People (Wiley, 2013); Philip Rieff, Sacred Order / Social Order: My Life among the Deathworks (University of Virginia Press, 2006); Philippe Nemo, What is the West? (Duquesne University Press, 2006); Joseph Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures (Ignatius Press, 2005); Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera, Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam (New York: Basic Books, 2006); Mordecai Roshwald, “The Biblical roots of democracy,” Diogenes, 53(4) (2006), 139-151; George Rutler, Beyond Modernity (Ignatius Press, 1987); Marcelllo Pera, Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies (Encounter Books, 2008); James Schall, The Regensburg Lecture (St Augustine’s Press, 2007); Larry Siedentop, Democracy in Europe (Penguin Books, 2000) and Inventing the Individual (Harvard University Press, 2014); Graeme Smith, A Short History of Secularism (I. B. Taurus, 2008); Rodney Stark, One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism (Princeton University Press, 2001) and The Victory of Reason (New York: Random House, 2005); William Swatos & Daniel Olson, The Secularization Debate (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); John Thornhill, Modernity: Christianity’s Estranged Child Reconstructed (Eerdmans, 2000); Michael Warner, Jonathan Vanantwerpen & Craig Calhoun (eds.), Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age (Harvard University Press, 2010); George Weigel, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics without God (New York: Basic Books, 2005); Felix Wilfrid & Luiz Carlos Susin (eds.), Christianity and Democracy (SCM Press, 2007); Robert Woodberry, “The missionary roots of liberal democracy,” American Political Science Review, 106(2) (2012), 244-74.

5 In response to the challenges of diversity, the Turnbull Government recently announced revisions to Australia’s Multicultural Statement insisting on certain essential “Australian values” that we hold in common whatever our differences of culture, ethnicity or beliefs. Our leaders periodically categorize contrary ideas or behaviour as “un-Australian”. Some see such talk as necessary in an increasingly disparate society, if newcomers and even long-timers are to understand what unites us, forms the basis for our national customs and conversations, law and policy-making, and represents our social ‘bottom-line’. Others fear such talk represents the straitjacketing of people into some narrow conception of the requirements of community membership.

6 ‘Values’ talk is often little more than an expression of hooray or boo to certain ideas or behaviours – or in Australian parlance ‘yeah, sure thing’ versus ‘no way mate’; whatever the individual or community judges valuable at the moment becomes the basis of morality and there is nothing more objective or substantial by which to critique ideas and policies, institutions and behaviour. What makes certain values ‘Australian values’, on this account, is not so much that they have endured over time and sustained the worldviews, institutions and behaviours of ordinary Australians, but rather that they are currently fashionable in the free market or favoured by power elites and opinion-makers. An interesting analysis is Christopher Hayes, Twilight of the Elites: America after Democracy (Crown, 2012).

7 An Ethic of Sexual Difference (Ithaca NY, Cornell UP, 1993,) 5.

8 Cf. Dan Cere, “Justice, gender, and love: liberal and communitarian perspectives on the domestic church”, http://www.marriageinstitute.ca/pages/articles.htm; a revision of an article originally published in Église et Théologie, 26 (1995), 225-252

9 See for example Wesley Smith, Culture of Death: The Age of ‘Do Harm’ Medicine (New York: Encounter, 2016).

10 See the following surveys and the sources therein: Paul Amato & Alan Booth, A Generation at Risk: Growing Up in an Era of Family Upheaval (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1997); David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (New York: Basic Books, 1995); Bryce Christensen (ed), When Families Fail… The Social Costs (University Press of America, 1991); Nicholas Davidson, “Life without father: America’s greatest social catastrophe,” Policy Review (Winter 1990); David Demo & Alan Acock, “The impact of divorce on children,” Journal of Marriage & the Family 50 (August 1988); Norman Dennis & George Erdos, Families Without Fatherhood (Institute of Economic Affairs, 1992); Mary Eberstadt; “Home-alone America,” Policy Review 107 (June 2001); Maggie Gallagher, The Age of Unwed Mothers (Institute for American Values, 1999); House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (Australia), To Have and to Hold: A Report of the Inquiry into Aspects of Family Services (June 1998); Francis Ianni, The Search For Structure: A Report on American Youth Today (New York: Free Press, 1989); Gay Kitson & Leslie Morgan, “The multiple consequences of divorce: a decade review,” Journal of Marriage & the Family 52 (November 1990); Sara McLanahan & Gary Sandefur, Growing up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1994); Bill Muehlenberg, The Case for the Two-Parent Family (Melbourne: Australian Family Association, 2004); Bryan Rodgers, “Social and psychological wellbeing of children from divorced families: Australian research findings,” Australian Psychologist, 31(3) (November 1995),174-182; Alice & Peter Rossi, Of Human Bonding: Parent-Child Relations Across the Life Course (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1990); Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis & Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce (Hyperion Books, 2000); Lenore Weitzman & Mavis Maclean (eds), Economic Consequences of Divorce (OUP, 1992).

11 Pope Francis, http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/11/03/pope_calls_for_peaceful_encounter_of_religions_and_true_reli/1269704.