Original scientific paper
The Community of Marital Encounters and Moral Evaluation of Its Members
Stipe TADIĆ
Vine MIHALJEVIĆ
Abstract
The contemporary ecclesiastical movement called the
Community of Marital Encounters entered Croatia in the
1970s. Its purpose is to establish open, direct and vivid
communication between spouses, increase awareness of the
importance of marital sacraments, intensify religious family life
and improve the quality of relationships between spouses. The
activity of its members suits the modern way of life,
contemporary (atomised) families vitally endangered and living
in industrialised, secularised and urbanised environments. In
the empirical research on contemporary ecclesiastical
movements members of the Community of Marital Encounters
have also participated. Due to the fact that the members of
this movement are exclusively persons having family or marital
status, the authors were primarily interested in issues regarding
their moral evaluation of marital and family life. The
examinees expressed a very high degree of agreement with
the ethical and moral teaching of the Catholic Church in
answers regarding the unjustifiableness of adultery and marital
infidelity. A relatively high agreement with the ethical and
moral teaching is evident also in issues with regard to the
insolubility of marriage and wilful termination of pregnancy.
The lowest degree of agreement with the ethical and moral
teaching of the Church, concerning the ethical-moral analysis
in this work, is found in the examinees' answers referring to contraception. Keeping in mind that members of selective
ecclesiastical groups or movements are concerned, members
of the Community of Marital Encounters movement have
demonstrated more liberal attitudes, permissive opinions and
a relatively high degree of discordance with the ethical and
moral teaching of the Catholic Church in attitudes and values
concerning extramarital sexual relations and contraception.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
19512
URI
Publication date:
31.8.2003.
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