Recently in Family and Society Category

What I read during my lunch:

• GOOD:

  Michael Pollan's letter to the next president:

  This, in brief, is the bad news: the food and agriculture policies you've inherited -- designed to maximize production at all costs and relying on cheap energy to do so -- are in shambles, and the need to address the problems they have caused is acute. The good news is that the twinned crises in food and energy are creating a political environment in which real reform of the food system may actually be possible for the first time in a generation. The American people are paying more attention to food today than they have in decades, worrying not only about its price but about its safety, its provenance and its healthfulness. There is a gathering sense among the public that the industrial-food system is broken. Markets for alternative kinds of food -- organic, local, pasture-based, humane -- are thriving as never before. All this suggests that a political constituency for change is building and not only on the left: lately, conservative voices have also been raised in support of reform. Writing of the movement back to local food economies, traditional foods (and family meals) and more sustainable farming, The American Conservative magazine editorialized last summer that "this is a conservative cause if ever there was one."

  I have a post kicking around in my head on Michael Pollan as one of the most prominent and effective opponents of materialism. Someday I'll find the time to write it.

• GOODISH:

  John Zmirak on Archbishop Chaput's Render Unto Caesar

  Having elsewhere published a thoughtful review of Archbishop Chaput's book that was mostly positive, Zmirak returns with sharper criticism. The title of his piece -- "Surrender Not Unto Caesar--Resisting Catholic Liberalism" gives you a hint of what he's getting at, but Zmirak is not throwing bombs here:

  In America, by our Constitution as it has been authoritatively interpreted, the State is now relentlessly secular. In practice, it is rigorously relativistic. Altering either of these settled facts in American life would be unthinkably hard. Therefore, any Christian engaged in public life must seek to shrink the sphere of the State, and reduce its functions to their bare, libertarian minimum--in order to leave some room for the practice of Christian life. The bishops' predecessors realized this, when they tapped the meager resources of impoverished immigrants to build an entire, nationwide system of alternative Catholic schools. Instead of trying vainly to Romanize the (then vigorously if vaguely Protestant) schools, they built their own. A very American response to such a problem--and also a deeply Catholic one. Homeschoolers today follow in the footsteps of Abp. "Dagger" John Hughes.

  
  The Church is officially committed to localism, rather than centralism. Catholic teaching on subsidiarity asserts that no problem should be taken up by the State which can be resolved by private action, and that no local matter should be referred to central authorities unless local institutions are hopelessly inadequate--as they are, for instance, to guard the border against foreign invasion, or prosecute interstate crimes. Empower the federal government to control (as it now does, with bishops' approval) education, social services, health care and retirement benefits, and you guarantee that each of these vital areas of life will be directed according to non-Christian or anti-Christian principles

  After tracing the dissolution of America's once formidable "institutional culture" -- a collapse which had long been stirring, became visible with JFK's embodiment of Catholics' conformity to mainstream American culture and finally exploded with the backlash against Humanae Vitae -- Zmirak notes that the Church's loss of institutional authority has led American Catholics "to depend for what voice she has on the charisma of isolated individuals, such as Mother Angelica, Fr. Joseph Fessio, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and Fr. George Rutler" -- admittedly a formidable line-up, but no substitute for being formed in the faith by a family, parish, indeed an entire sub-culture steeped in Catholicism.

  Here is where he gets back to Chaput and here is where the article breaks down a bit (hence the "goodish" tag). He makes some useful comments on the temptation of Catholic liberalism to short-sell justice in favor of mercy, but nowhere does he connect this "sentimental liberalism" with Archbishop Chaput except saying that this is a "problem" with chaput's book.

• BAD:

  A psychotherapist diagnoses John McCain as suffering from brain damage and PTSD without ever having met him.

  I feel compelled to issue a double disclaimer -- I hold no brief for John McCain and feel incapable of voting for either him or Barack Obama in good conscience and I also really, really like American Conservative.

  That said, come on, now:

  As we explore explanations for some of Senator McCain's actions, it is important to bear in mind that any professional who would render a definitive diagnosis on an individual he has not interviewed or tested is prostituting his credentials

  Buuuuuuuuuut...

  That said, I believe it is highly likely that John McCain suffers from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

  With the tanking economy effectively handing Barry O the presidency, is this really necessary?

• DERANGED:

  Hanna Rosin on "transgendered" children and their enabler parents.

  Apparently the growing trend is for parents to allow their children to live as the opposite sex, even giving them drugs that block the onset of puberty:

  It took the gay-rights movement 30 years to shift from the Stonewall riots to gay marriage; now its transgender wing, long considered the most subversive, is striving for suburban normalcy too. The change is fuel‑ed mostly by a community of parents who, like many parents of this generation, are open to letting even preschool children define their own needs. Faced with skeptical neighbors and school officials, parents at the conference discussed how to use the kind of quasi-therapeutic language that, these days, inspires deference: tell the school the child has a "medical condition" or a "hormonal imbalance" that can be treated later, suggested a conference speaker, Kim Pearson; using terms like gender-­identity disorder or birth defect would be going too far, she advised. The point was to take the situation out of the realm of deep pathology or mental illness, while at the same time separating it from voluntary behavior, and to put it into the idiom of garden-variety "challenge." As one father told me, "Between all the kids with language problems and learning disabilities and peanut allergies, the school doesn't know who to worry about first."

  
  A recent medical innovation holds out the promise that this might be the first generation of transsexuals who can live inconspicuously. About three years ago, physicians in the U.S. started treating transgender children with puberty blockers, drugs originally intended to halt precocious puberty. The blockers put teens in a state of suspended development. They prevent boys from growing facial and body hair and an Adam's apple, or developing a deep voice or any of the other physical characteristics that a male-to-female transsexual would later spend tens of thousands of dollars to reverse. They allow girls to grow taller, and prevent them from getting breasts or a period.

  The whole article is pretty shocking and disturbing. I don't mean to be insensitive, and I'm sure parents who have to deal with this have it rough, but letting your 6 year old decide their own sex is too much.

That's all folks!

This brief column by Anthony Esolen from a 2006 issue of Touchstone reminds me that I've never bragged here about the fact in addition to my two siblings I have at least 35 first cousins by blood.

The family had gathered around him, and in our case that meant that a few of my cousins who lived nearby stopped to say farewell. One cousin in particular hung his arm around my father’s shoulder and talked to him about the times long ago, when he was just a kid with a live fastball and my father was the coach. He smiled and told stories, leaning over to keep the old man from having to turn his head, almost whispering into his ear...

But the odd thing about this scene, for modern Americans, is not that my cousin should express his affection in so touching a way, but that there should be any cousin at all in that room--any person with intimate ties to a family beyond his parents and siblings, and a deep reservoir of shared memories with that family. Americans who live in separate bedrooms and worship at separate television sets may find it hard to imagine the bond that would link not merely brother and brother, but kinfolk a couple of streets or farms away...

Most Christians have noticed that families have become small, and many Christians see that it involves a peculiar rejection of generosity. We say that we can’t have a lot of children because we want to give the children we do have the greatest opportunities we can. Thus we assume that our children are deeply selfish, as if they would prefer a yearly vacation in the Adirondacks to another brother or sister, or, to put it differently, as if in years to come they might look at a younger sibling and wistfully daydream of hikes that never were.

But that is where our analysis stops: with the nuclear family, the hydrogen or helium family. It hasn’t occurred to us to ask what our small families do to neighborhoods and churches, or even to the families to which we are related. For if we fail to give our children siblings, we also fail to give them cousins, and fail to give what cousins they do have the number of cousins they need. We cannot isolate ourselves without doing our part to isolate others, too, and whether they like it or not.

From the NYTimes:

Edwina Froehlich, who was inspired to help found La Leche League to support breast-feeding after being told at the age of 35 that she was too old to make breast milk for her baby, died Sunday in Arlington Heights, Ill. She was 93 and lived in Inverness, Ill.

From the "Hell in a Handbasket" file:

This New Yorker piece about our coming post-literate society contains a little nugget about one of my hobby horses.

Now I suppose it could be true that these videos help other types of inteligence to develop, but do the producers make that claim? And if so, are parents aware of and OK with the trade-offs?

...is the simultaneous combustion of the heads of feminists all over the English-speaking world.

There's a lot to unpack there. First off, you gotta wonder where this guy gets his grant money.

More seriously, I do recall a comment by a female friend of mine that one of the reasons she got hit on so much at her office was that she was the only lady there who wasn't chemically neutered.

Really, this is intuitive, and the evolutionary theory posited in the second paragraph can be turned right around. It may benefit women (evolutionarily, not morally, of course) more for the signs of their fertility to be discernible to ensure that a mate is available at the right time. Even if he doesn't "stick around." In fact, looking at the reproductive tendencies of our own lower classes confirms this: women using less birth control, men not sticking around, very high birth rates.

Which, ahem, is why marriage and the traditional family are so important. Without it, society has no effective way (outside of legal coercion) of matching up fathers with the children they beget. With the drastic weakening of marriage we've seen over the past several decades, we have - ta da! - lots of fatherless children, even with widely available birth control. (Which gives the idea that men are good at sniffing out fertile women a little more credibility.)

- Bob Herbert on Bill Crosby and Dr. Alvin Poussaint's noble crusade to encourage men to be fathers.

For all you Chicagoans, Dawn Eden is going to be discussing and signing copies of her book at St. Alphonsus Church in my old stomping grounds on July 10th. It should be a good time!

This is nuts. Neurotic parents paying third parties to recommend names for their babies. Is there any part of parenting we won't outsource?

Professional baby-name consultants? Seriously? This would be only laughably pathetic if it weren't a symptom of a rejection of traditional family and religious ties.

At our parish, Jenny and I are in charge of a committee that conducts classes for parents who want to have children baptized. One of the things we do is have everybody talk about their own names and the names they plan to give (or have already given) their children. We try to hit the point of having a saint's name, though really I'm equally impressed with couples who have dear family members they wish to honor as with couples who pull them out of the breviary.

Yet increasingly, the answer to "Who are you named after?" will be "Nobody," and on top of the usual angst, tomorrow's teenagers will also have to deal with the fact that, after drafting college students and unemployed poor women to carry them, and before shipping them off to daycare 6 weeks after birth, their parents also PayPal-ed five bills to a complete stranger to draft a naming portfolio. How much more will the insecurity be multiplied when they realize that the appellation strategy consisted of misspelling a perfectly good name and that they are going to spend the rest of their lives paying for their parents' idiocy by spelling their names two or three times to every customer service representative and civil servant they encounter?

As the father of two boys 18 months apart, this resonates, though I should also point out that on Saturday little Charlie (my baby!) bludgeoned his older brother with a small but dense wooden block.

The NY Sun reviews a book that sounds promising.

Kay Hymowitz and Brad Wilcox encourage the Republican presidential candidates to drop a different kind of f-bomb. Their argument is obviously a winning one, the problem is that they are also correct that the current "top-tier" candidates are in no position to make it.

Another worthy piece from the June 05 Touchstone: Frederica Mathewes-Green on the natural meaning of human sexuality, including this nugget from what was probably a sidebar in the print issue but is tacked on to the end of the online article:

Ouch!

This made it's way around St. Blogs a week or so ago, but I just got to see it for the first time.

Wow.

His parents blog is here.

One new, two old from Touchstone.

New, from the May 2007, Allan Carlson takes us on a brief tour of 400 years of Protestant history on the question of artificial contraception.

Old, from May 2005, but available online for the first time now, John F. Kippley addresses illegitimacy and Anthony Esolen turns the Good Samaritan around: how we can treat people like they are our neighbor when we don't have any?

I know there are many of you out there who hope one day to meet and marry Ms. Right. Should the time come when you wish to make a proposal for life-long sacramental companionship, use this post as a guide on how to go about it.

Oh, and while you're there, you may want to congratulate the groom-to-be. :)

For those in the range of WGN-AM 720 (I've received it clar as a bell until about an hour outside of Nashville, TN in December) should listen in tonight at 9 PM. Extension 720 is going to have David Blankenhorn and Elizabeth Marquardt from the Institute for American Values (which is neither as right-wing nor as Orwellian as it sounds) who also blog at the Institute's Family Scholars weblog.

Host Milt Rosenberg is a media legend and a highly skilled interview, while Blankenhorn and Marquardt are highly-esteemed scholars on marriage and family issues. Should be good.

In about 30 minutes from now (@7:30 PM Central Time), author and blogger Dawn Eden will be in Champaign giving a talk at St. John's Catholic Newman Center on chastity. Dawn will also be helping preach the chastity gospel during the U of I's sex fair tomorrow.

Also, see John Bambenek's guest column in the DI on chastity and Eden's book.

I know, it's late. I work, sue me.

In Britain it seems like it will soon be illegal to teach kids that the truth is true.

British priest Tim Finigan is cited in the article. For further developments, keep an eye on his blog.

Time for me to play the hypocrite. I have no problem with the research that says video games can be educational.

How do I square this with my loathing of Leapfrog and V-Tech? Easily:

My friends, this is a far cry from a giant frog screaming at my kid: "I Love You, SO Much!"

First of all, all the examples offered are for older children than the V-Tech target audience. That's important.

Second, it's not even "educational toys" per se that are thought to have educational value. The researchers in the article instead point to the benefits of certain video games that simulate real-world or historical situations. These are games that make you use reason and knowledge if you wish to be successful. I guess here is where I embarrassingly admit that I've learned more about medieval history and weaponry from playing "The Age of Empires" than I previously knew. Trebuchet? I had no clue until one was laying siege to my kingdom.

Still, there are a couple of important things the article left out. First, these educational benefits can often be missed if a child playing these games doesn't give a crap. A game that takes place in a specific historical context is great, but if that context is incidental to the game - if it serves as a background that doesn't really have to be engaged in order to be successful, then the educational value is diminished.

Second, and this seems to me the more dangerous problem, David Shaffer, quoted in the article as saying, "we spend most of the first six or seven years of math education teaching kids to do what a 99-cent calculator does," seems to be suggesting that technology can replace the need for basic literacy. Sure, computer games can be used as a supplement - a practical application of actual lessons that can help children master concepts - but computers cannot obviate the need for the three R's. Balance is needed. I don't care if a calculator can multiply, my kids are going to learn their tables. And I don't care if the whole world can be run off of machines, kids still need an education in what it means to be human, which means engaging with flesh and blood humans in person and through the ideas of literature and history.

In the end, it falls to parents and educators to integrate technology as a part - yes, an increasingly important part, but still only a part - of a child's human formation.

Stanley Kurtz is making a very interesting argument in a series for NRO that the tradition of cousin marriage in Islamic culture renders those societies incompatible with modern life. This, he says, is the key to understanding the terror war.

I'm a bit torn on this. Kurtz generally does excellent work on marriage and family issues, but he often sounds insane and when talking about war and the middle east. My guess is he'll make a sensible and sobering analysis of Islamic marriage culture and then use it to demagogue on the need to fight more Middle Eastern wars. I'll be very interested to see how he develops the argument and what critics will say.

Here's the first two installments in the series: 1, 2.

Keeping up on this theme, Christine Rosen offers a slightly fleshed out version of this article I blogged last month. And by "fleshed out," I mean there's two extra paragraphs.

Excerpt:

Despite the potential hazards, why are so many children playing with electronic toys? "I think electronic toys are appealing to adults" says Linda Crowe, an associate professor in the School of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University. "They think, 'Wow! These are really exciting toys; look at all of the wonderful things they can do!" But electronic toys remove social interaction and in many respects may inhibit creativity. The toy provides the fantasy and removes the opportunity for a child to mentally produce something hypothetical or imagined.” Crowe is also concerned about the effect of such toys on children’s brain development. "What's happening neurologically with these kids when they are watching flashing lights and electronic toys versus an old-fashioned play toy? Which areas of the brain are activated and what kinds of neurological connections are being established? I'm seeing outcomes in the form of shorter attention spans, but we don't know exactly what is happening in the brain."

Susan Swanson, who works for the Excelligence Learning Corporation and has been an arts educator in Monterey County, California schools, has similar concerns. "Electronic toys don't encourage dramatic play," she says. "And what is going to happen to these kids who are used to having a quick electronic fix and who think things happen at the push of a button?" she asks. Parents can go to the other extreme too, of course. "I live near Berkeley," Swanson says with a chuckle, "and you can find stores there where the only toys are those made entirely out of recycled tires or natural fibers."

Tech toys are here to stay, of course, in large part because anxious parents fear denying their children any novel advantage. "Parents believe that this is a way for their child to be ready for the academic setting," says Crowe, "and you can't fault parents for that." But she encourages parents to limit their children's use of such toys and to offer more traditional toys (such as building blocks, trains, and dolls) that encourage open-ended, creative play. Children also make their play preferences known, and they are often refreshingly low-tech. When asked by University of Stirling researchers what they most wanted to do during playtime, young children did not beg for quality time with T.M.X. Elmo. They wanted their parents to take them to the park. Sometimes, toddlers know best.

I'm a bit more cynical, so with regard to that first paragraph, I would posit that parents find additional appeal in that these gadgets keep kids out of their hair. Being the father of two toddlers, I can sympathize with folks who are tempted by toys that won't require any assistance beying swapping out double-As. But to tell me that a machine that screams the ABCs at my son is teaching him something at all - let alone in a way better than I could - falls somewhere on a continuum between condescending and insulting.

Zippy continues the NFP discussion, this time with handy charts.

And from a comment to an earlier post of his on the subject, I found this gem:

Zippy is an anonymous Catholic blogger who tackles tough questions with precise language and logic.He looks at NFP with satisfying results here and here.

Don't Worry! "It's a necessary step in growing up."

This is not a parody. This is from ABC news.

There's more:

I can literally think of nothing more morally horrifying than "school administrators" telling our little girls that posting videos of themselves pole-dancing in their training bras is a "good sign" of their "healthy self-image." And that they should feel supported by any "positive response" they receive.

Yes, Positive responses...

Seriously, if I worked for these guys I'd be paying a visit to Mr. Broughton's hardrive.

Back in August, I took issue with two columns from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. I think it only fair, then, that I point out one where I wholeheartedly agree with him.

Here are Rabbi Boteach's 5 reasons for marrying young. Somebody really ought to write a book on this subject.

Last week, there was a largish buzz over this Newsweek article about a growing Protestant movement away from contraception.

You can imagine the kinds of discussions that resulted. One lively thread was (is) over at Amy Welborn's place. I chimed in there in three posts, and I'm reposting my comments (edited only for typos and grammar) here because they are a good summary of how I feel about NFP. I think some things I've said in the past would lead people to think I oppose it on principle. That's not the case, as I hope the following demonstrates:

Post 1:
First off, on the particular case of the quiverfull and like-minded movements - I'm ambivalent. I love that they want to be open to life, but I have a hard time getting excited about movements that take a single theme and give it a huge focus. It's too close to tribalism. I dislike labels when they're assumed as much as I dislike them when they're given.

Post 2:
Now, as to the idea, expressed obliquely by some, that my wife and I need to take a thermometer, a chart and maybe a reference book to bed with us in order to do God's will: that is simply offensive. We can do God's will just fine without being up to date on the daily mucous flow.

What I don’t see is a serious discussion of what’s wrong with abstaining. Paul says we shouldn't deprive our spouse of the marital act except to be more available to God for prayer. Well, if there are circumstances in a family's life that are serious enough to delay another pregnancy, wouldn't that be a great time to be more available to God in prayer?

Now, I refuse to judge particular families, precisely because the Church teaches that having recourse to the fertile periods is licit. But does licit mean "the best practice?" Is it better than contraception? Of course. Is it somehow morally obligatory? Prove it.

I don't have a beef with couples who use NFP. Though I see a tremendous temptation to misuse it, I don't see it as my place to judge particular families in particular circumstances. Maybe it's much easier than I think to avoid misusing it. Sure there are "easy cases" like the guy mentioned above who wanted more vacations, but those are few and far between. I have no malice towards those who use it.

My beef instead is with those who say that NFP is the higher road. Specifically, I'm talking about otherwise sane and wise public Catholics like Christopher "He expects us to use it" West and Greg "more effectively cooperate with God's Will" Popcak. Even Janet Smith says the word "providentialists" (a term I don’t really embrace probably due to my allergies to tribalism and labeling) with a derisive tone.

Yes, NFP is a great mercy for couples who have a serious reason not to have children, but the idea that it's somehow more in tune with God's plan is ludicrous. So, now that we have NFP we can be holier than people could, say, 300 years ago? Has there been this great path to sanctity that has been unavailable to families for centuries because we didn't have the right science?

I don't criticize any family who uses NFP - like I said: it is a great mercy that God has given us. But please don't criticize those who – when co-creating a new life is inadvisable – choose not to make use of the means of co-creating a new life.

Post 3:
One more thing with regard to the linked article.

The article says (with my emphasis): "Purists don’t permit even natural family-planning methods, such as tracking fertility cycles."

When I read that, I didn't automatically think that, when serious reasons to delay pregnancy arise, these people disregard those reasons. I did not assume that no NFP means recklessness. Some may, some may not. We need more information.

That is where I run into problems with NFP-as-the-norm. Refusing to track fertility cycles doesn't necessarily mean "have as many babies as you can." But if NFP is your norm, then it does; prayerfully abstaining isn't even on the radar. That is an error, and it comes as a direct result of the emphasis on NFP.

Again, I don't mean to assault those who practice NFP, but I have to defend what is - in light of scripture and tradition - a sound and venerable practice: abstaining. When NFP adherents and promoters think that those who don't use it are either contraceptive or irresponsible, they are simply in error. This error comes as a result of using their choice as the norm for all instead of as a licit method approved by the Church for serious situations.

To pick up an old thread, yes pregnancy might make you stupid, but having more and more children might make you a better mother.

Or at least it works for rats .

What about the poppy rats?

Hat-tip: Danielle Bean (who just had a new baby!)

The Chi-Trib has a sad piece (originally from the Boston Globe) on the views of black youth on marriage. The verdict: few desire it.

As part of a larger look at the sin of lust, Beliefnet is rerunning a 2002 piece by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (whom I disagreed with last week). The upshot is that lust is OK if it's directed towards your wife.

Now, if the rabbi is using "lust" merely as a synonym for "desire," then there's no problem with these words. Indeed, dictionary.com defines it as simply "Intense or unrestrained sexual craving." (Although even here we see a difference between "intense" and "unrestrained.")

However, we think of lust with a fairly negative connotation for reasons that are not puritanical. For although desire is perfectly normal and even necessary for a healthy marriage, it can be corrupted by selfishness to the point where a man no longer desires his wife as a person, but as an object.

Boteach's point is that the kind of desire that is sinful when directed outside the marriage isn't necessarily sinful if it's directed towards the spouse. That's all fine and good, but the seven deadly sins are not just external expressions, they are also internal dispositions, meaning they can corrupt the heart, even if not acted out. This is why the Rabbi Boteach's contrarian position does more harm than good.

Men should desire their wives, and surely many marriages flounder due to a loss of such desire. But in an age where utilitarian sex is the norm, we should be wary of giving the green light to all of man's sexual impulses.

There is much else that is wrong, or at the very least weird with Boteach's article, but alas, work calls.

WARNING: The following post is for mature audiences only.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (of Shalom in the Home fame) has lost his mind.

I want to say right off the bat that this is a sensible thesis. It's a legitimate question that I have no problem being raised, but the good Rabbi's take is, I believe, bass-ackwards.

Now, I am ordinarily loathe to throw this word around, but we have here is a plainly sexist argument. Here's why:

John Bambenek has a post on the new HPV vaccine, recently approved and soon to be distrubuted to 12-year old girls in your local middle school. This reminds me of something else I heard on that On Point show I blogged about earlier this week.

The vaccine targets strains of HPV that are known to lead to cervical cancer. The vaccine is thus being touted by some as a "cancer vaccine." The problem is that it only prevents about 70% of cancer-causing HPV strains, and its effectiveness is in such doubt that Janet Gilsdorf, Chair of the HPV Working Group for the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices says an 11 or 12 year old girl receiving the vaccine will hace her chance of getting cervical cancer decreased by 20-66%.

Now, yeah sure 20% less cancer is good. But how many times have you heard this figure mentioned? Isn't it a little disingenuous to tout a "cancer vaccine" whose effectiveness could be as low as 20%? How many young girls receiving this vaccine will have an unjustified sense of being protected from this virus and from cervical cancer?

A real argument can be made that this vaccine will do more harm than goodUnfortunately, there's no way to quantify a "false sense of security," so we'll never know and proponents will continue to paint people with real concerns about this as puritanical fascists while they go on encouraging teenage kids to live in a fantasy land of consequence-free sex.

Not to be forgotten amidst the coverage of the Pope's visit last week to Valencia, Spain for the 5th World Meeting of Families was the theological congress that preceded it.

Here is Zenit's coverage of the opening proceedings.

More coverage:

• From Zenit: Cardinal Dziwisz: Cardinal Dziwisz on "John Paul II, Pope of the Family and of Life"
  
• From Zenit: The work of movements in supporting families
  
• From Zenit: Panel on "Ecumenism and the Family"
  
• From Zenit: Conclusion: "The family is subjected to an unprecedented crisis"
  
• From Fides - news service of the Church's missionary congregation: "The family that hands on the faith is a guarantee of hope for the future of the Church and humanity"
  
• From Fides: Summary of first day's proceedings
  
• From Catholic News Agency: Cardinal Re: Faith is greatest inheritance parents can leave their children
  
• From Catholic News Agency: More Dziwisz on JP2
  
• From Catholic News Agency: Request to recognize traditional marriage
  
• From Catholic News Agency: Summary of address by Christian Life movement founder
  
• Jennifer Roback Morse was a guest speaker at the Congress. She did some blogging (1, 2, 3, 4) from Valencia at the Acton Institute's Power Blog and wrote this column. She will eventually be posting her full speech on her website.