Thomas Knieps-Port le Roi INTAMS review | Volume 16 | Issue 1 | Spring 2010 | Pages 1 > 2 Editorial (Full-text) This issue of the INTAMS review covers a variety of topics. Although they witness to different contexts, perspectives, and scopes the first four contributions all focus on issues that emerge from or have a particular relevance for the pastoral field. Stefan Gärtner’s point of departure is the blatant discrepancy between the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church in the realm of sexual morality on the one side and the lived experience of large parts of the church folk on the other, a cleft that seems even more marked when it comes to matters of relationship formation and sexuality among young people. Beyond the Scylla of giving adolescents over to moral relativism and the Charybdis of propagating a morality that is out of touch with the late-modern conditions of life, Gärtner sees a particular role in this case for youth ministry. Analyzing the situation in Germany, he suggests a pastoral strategy that focuses on and shapes the process of personal and relational maturation of young people which could thus give shape to what recent church documents have called the “remote” phase of marriage preparation. One illustration of how massively young adults in particular deviate from the official church teaching is the widespread phenomenon of unmarried cohabitation in western societies, which the INTAMS review has dealt with on several occasions and which Henk Sanders takes up again in a fresh way in this issue. Based on broad demographic and sociological evidence he further elaborates on the pastoral proposals that have been offered by theologians such as Adrian Thatcher and Michael G. Lawler. Sanders pleads for and presents the model of a blessing that, in analogy to the blessing of the betrothed, parents could say when their offspring leave the parental home and start living together. According to our author, such a ritual performed by the parents rather than by any church minister would not only help to prevent the young couples from what has been labeled—and cautioned against by recent research—as “sliding” into cohabitation (versus “deciding”). It would equally highlight that lifelong marital commitment is not made in a day but develops in a continuous process of becoming. Helène Bricout addresses a dilemma that many ministers are confronted with when couples ask for a church wedding, and thus sacramental marriage, although their personal church affiliation and religious practice may seem incompatible with the request. As a liturgist, Bricout uncovers the theological depths and pastoral opportunities offered by the 2005 French-speaking marriage rite. In line with the French bishops’ pastoral option of Proposer la foi (proposing the faith) she argues that the rite not only presupposes some minimal faith but is also an invitation to progress in faith which in turn presages a whole program for marriage preparation and ministry. Worthy of consideration is her explanation for the paradoxical fact that despite the erosion of faith life still so many couples today turn to the churches for their wedding celebration: They don’t come because they believe but because we believe and because the church seems to remain the only institution that puts its faith in the grandeur and the goodness of marriage. Much more critical towards the (Roman Catholic) Church’s marriage rite is Jean-Désiré Kabwit when it comes to marriage and family life in sub-Saharan Africa. Since traditional marriage is still widely practiced in most countries, couples fail to realize that once they have gone through the different stages of traditional marriage they ought to undergo two additional forms of marriage: civil marriage before the state registrar and the “sacramental” marriage celebration in the church. If they refuse to do the latter, the church regards their marriage as concubinate and excludes the couple from the sacraments of the Eucharist and of Penance. In order to overcome this ecclesial practice and the mentality of “cultural hegemony” underlying it, Kabwit refers to the civil marriage law in the Democratic Republic of Congo and suggests that, in analogy to the registrar, the church minister should assist during the various stages of traditional marriage and finally recognize also its sacramental status if the marriage has been concluded between two baptized spouses. Ellen Haskell introduces us into medieval Kabbalah theology and imagery. After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, rabbinic Judaism shifted theological attention from the central sanctuary to the Jewish home and family life, a tendency that was reinterpreted by kabbalistic mysticism in the thirteenth century. Mainly two aspects of domestic life, the home and the marital relationship, provide central images that allow the kabbalists to develop a link between the divine and the domestic. Haskell explores the spiritual richness of this domestic imagery and also puts into perspective the gender bias that medieval kabbalistic thought inevitably imports. Raffaella Iafrate, Silvia Donato and Anna Bertoni, three Italian psychologists, present the results of a survey that they have carried out with two generations of couples in Italy. Their interest in couple relationships does not merely focus on the two main factors of relationship stability and satisfaction that are usually highlighted in relationship research. According to their conceptual framework, they regard a “mature relationship” as a successful interaction of affective, ethical, intergenerational, and social components that account for the “generativity” of a partner relation thus being situated at the junction of different kinds of intergenerational and social transfer. Finally, we reproduce the address which Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has given during this year’s annual John Coventry Lecture with interchurch families in London. The “Fellowship of the Baptized” gathers Christians at the one place where Jesus is, argues the Archbishop, but it reveals also their proximity to chaos and division as the Anglican Communion and other Christian Churches so painfully experience at current. The fellowship of baptized Christians marrying across denominational boundaries by contrast is an eschatological sign testifying to how things should be in Christ’s Church and unfolding the transformative power of His self-healing Body.