Washington D.C., Nov 17, 2004 / 22:00 pm
U.S. Catholic bishops on Wednesday launched an ambitious plan to promote marriage, an institution they see as being under extreme pressure, not specifically from those who favor homosexual unions but from the general difficulty of getting and staying married.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also approved plans to collect more information on clerical sex abuse as the church struggles to respond to victims of priest pedophilia in a scandal that surfaced more than two years ago.
The multi-year marriage plan approved by a wide margin by the bishops will include a pastoral letter and also features focus groups -- group discussions -- with single, engaged and married people, a survey of Catholic clerics and a national research project.
The bishops have previously made their opposition to homosexual marriage known, but one architect of the marriage initiative noted that gay marriage was not the focus now.