Throughout human history all types of arrangements have evolved to nurture children, of which a common form is a reasonably stable relationship between woman and man. Whether or not this was seen as marriage varied widely.  So, use of the term “traditional marriage” is a misnomer.  What the Catholic hierarchy is presenting as “traditional” is really a romantic, bourgeois understanding of marriage. 

Over the last five years, the Australian Catholic Church has experienced its worst crisis in its 200-year history.  The catastrophic fall-out from the evidence presented at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Abuse, the charging of “Australia’s most senior Catholic” with historic offenses, the 2.6% drop in the number of Australian Catholics between the 2011 and 2016 Census, the collapse in the number of younger people adhering to or practising Catholicism (among Catholics aged 25 to 34 only 5.4% attend Mass) and the continuing decline of general Mass attendance (it is now down to between 8% to 10%), is all evidence of a profound malaise effecting Catholicism.  The church’s proclamation of Christ’s Gospel has taken a series of body blows and Catholic moral authority is in tatters.

Full report at :  John Menadue – Pearls and Irritations