Retrieving the Radical Potential of Marriage: A Response to Recent Trends in Catholic Family Ethics

In the last two decades, marriage has become less central in Catholic family ethics. This recent development differs from the critical familism project led by Don Browning in the 1990s and early 2000s, which sought to reform and promote a Christian theology of marriage. The article traces three distinct but related decentering variations: accompanying the diversity of families in the church, acknowledging the potential for all families to thrive, and embracing radical possibilities for family life. While acknowledging important concerns underlying these moves, the author offers a critical retrieval of marriage that preserves its “complex centrality” and furthers its radical potential.