Family and Friends: Celebrating Marriage

To mark the release of a book of essays by Pope Francis and diverse religious leaders and scholars titled Not Just Good, but Beautiful: The Complementary Relationship between Man and Woman, Plough hosted an interfaith panel at Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History during the World Meeting of Families.

As Dr. Jacqueline C. Rivers, director of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies, told the audience: “Our concern for the family is about the poor. Men and women suffer from the retreat from marriage, which is now common among the poor, but even more so among the black community. And it’s the innocent who suffer most – the children.”
Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and another contributor to the book, added: “I think we need to celebrate good marriages. I think we need to celebrate strong families – rather than being an opponent of the negative, being a proponent of what’s right.…We came to this conference from a lot of different perspectives, but there was one thing we agreed on: you can’t have a strong nation, a strong community, a strong congregation without strong families.”

A Jewish perspective was offered by Daniel Mark, a professor at Villanova. Other speakers included D. Todd Christofferson, a Mormon leader; Helen Alvaré from the George Mason School of Law; and Gerhard Cardinal Müller from the Vatican.