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A former judge of the Roman Rota has called for Catholics to play a bigger role in counter-acting divorce among friends and family members.

Monsignor Cormac Burke visited Australia this week to give lectures in Melbourne and Sydney. The theme of his Melbourne talk, delivered at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family, was the importance of commitment in marriage. In an interview with The Record, Mons Burke warned of some of the dangers confronting marriages in the modern world.

"Atomic" explosions in marriage
Among these is a common lack of understanding that every marriage will inevitably go through tough times, including anger against one's married spouse. "All of the successful marriages I've seen have gone through plenty of troubles," he said.

People outside the marriage, especially relatives and friends, can play a crucial role in helping married couples get through these periods of sometimes "atomic" explosion, Mons Burke said. "It's very important that relatives and friends bear in mind that every couple goes through difficulties, and perhaps difficulties that seem insurmountable.

"Sometimes there is an 'explosion' against the other partner. The wise friend should listen, and say nothing, because many of these things can, and do pass. "Friends can do a lot of harm, otherwise," Mons Burke said.

The former judge warned particularly against the question of rivalry between the sexes, and what he calls "global judgments" about the other sex. "Someone might say: 'you're quite right, all men are like that, or all women are like that'," Mons Burke said. "That can not only be unwise but, from a Christian point of view, it can be a very grave sin, showing a lack of prudence and a lack of charity." The better thing in such situations is to say nothing, and after the other person has cooled down, offer them a more balanced picture of their spouse, he said

The monsignor, a quietly spoken Irishman, is a canon lawyer and a member of the Dublin bar. He is also a professor of modern languages and has published extensively on moral theology, conscience and the anthropology of marriage. He currently teaches at Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya. Mons Burke said that moral theology, rather than canon law, had always been his primary field of interest.

Commitment and calculation
His experience in the field of marriage had inevitably led him to think more deeply about modern society's cultural problem in making commitments. "There's a lack of commitment, a fear of commitment, a fear that there is nothing worth committing yourself to".

There is also a problem with people unwisely trying to obtain happiness through too much calculation. "Our tendency today is to calculate too much. There's no such thing as calculated happiness. It's one of the big mistakes of modern living," said Mons Burke.

The contemporary phenomenon of the "trial marriage" B where couples move in together as a preliminary step on the road towards a possible marriage commitment B is an example of flawed thinking, the Monsignor believes.

"The sexual union implies 'I belong to you, you belong to me.' That's a state. It means 'I belong, and I cannot take myself back.' That's when I'm married. "Before that, I'm using you, I'm not giving myself totally, or accepting you totally. That's why a 'trial marriage' makes no sense." Trial marriages are not "inevitably" doomed, he says, but are unlikely to succeed. He feels in a trial marriage, "people diminish each other in each other's eyes."

Part of the problem is that in many areas of modern life, people want a virtual 'money-back-if-not-satisfied' guarantee. But there is a danger that couples will fall into "self-centredness" unless, before marriage, they have made a proper judgment of the value of the person they are marrying. Couples also need to have "sticking power," he said. This is because every marriage marriage ever made must involve an encounter with the weakness of human nature. "Loving a defective person, being a defective person, hopefully being loved by a defective person" is an essential part of marriage, he said.

Sexuality and conjugality
Monsignor Burke also said that the frustrations often experienced within marriage today are not frustrations of sexuality, but of conjugality. "Sexuality alone is not enough to provide happiness," he said. Human beings, unlike other species, have a desire to form a permanent marriage relationship with one other special person, and to create children and a successful family life with that person. That is the conjugal instinct, Mons Burke said. Burke calls the desire for conjugality "distinct, but connected" to the desire of sexuality.

Mons Burke says that a big issue B perhaps the big issue B between the sexes today is "respect." This is so for young people, including teenagers, just as it is for older adults, he says. Often when a teenager meets another of the opposite sex, there is "attraction," but also a feeling of "admiration" and even "reverence" for this new person. Soon B "maybe almost immediately B a "more physical element" begins to come in. This feeling comes from an attitude towards the other sex in general. However, if the attraction is deep, a teenager will try not to let the physical element come into the relationship too much, because he or she will be feeling "too much reverence."

"Without respect and without reverence, it is not love," Mons Burke says. "Young people need to be encouraged to see that love implies respect."

Mons Burke, who is writing a new chapter, addressed to young people, for his book Covenanted Happiness, said he has been greatly impressed by Pope John Paul II's theology of the body, with its meditation on Jesus' words about God's plan for humankind in marriage.