Philippe Bordeyne INTAMS review | Volume 15 | Issue 2 | Autumn 2009 | Pages 159 > 164 The Fragility of Marriage as a Challenge to Methodology in Christian Ethics (Summary) In view of the current fragility of marriage, theologians and ministers express their doubts about the rightness of preparing couples to make commitments when those individuals lack knowledge of the profound meaning of the sacrament of marriage. The author argues, however, that such judgments are often guided by an abstract doctrinal rationale rather than pastoral sensitivity. Saying that faith is required to embrace validly the ethical choice of marriage develops too simple a relationship between faith and ethics. Instead, in responding to the ethical challenge of enduring commitment, it is more helpful to have a look at the practice of couples rather than reasoning from an idealized image of marriage. Ethical subjects are being shaped for marriage in a diversity of ethos, combined with formative potential for Christian practices. In today’s pluralism, pastoral practice appears to be the major locus theologicus for ethics. Referring to pastoral reality prevents theologians from building too rigid an opposition between faith and ethics, or between individual faith and community faith. Theological ethics on the other side must recollect segments of the tradition that tend to be underestimated in fostering pastoral imagination. The spiritual tradition and liturgy might be useful here as they may help to overcome the discrepancy between ideal and reality, desire and practice. Philippe Bordeyne (1959) is a French Catholic priest (diocese Nanterre). He is professor of moral theology and dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Sciences at the Institut Catholique de Paris . His research interests are the history and interpretation of Vatican II, fundamental moral theology, ethics of marriage and family life, and bioethics. He published a.o.: Jeu d'Eglise: Enjeux et pratique d'une pédagogie, Paris: Bayard/Centurion, 1993; Croire les yeux ouverts: Quarante étapes pour découvrir la foi, Paris: Bayard/Centurion, 1997; Bible et morale, Paris: Cerf, 2003; L'homme et son angoisse: le théologie morale de "Gaudium et Spes", Paris: Cerf, 2004; Vatican II et la théologie: Perspectives pour le XXIe siècle, Paris: Cerf, 2006.