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Catholic marriages declined 69 percent even as the Catholic population increased by nearly 20 million

(OSV News) -- Among Catholics, the sacrament of matrimony is in freefall. Over 50 years between 1969 and 2019, Catholic marriages declined 69% even as the Catholic population increased by nearly 20 million, according to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. In 2021, as U.S. Catholics largely emerged from the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, weddings were still down more than 30,000 from 2019's pre-pandemic number of nearly 132,000 marriages celebrated. Ho

iStock On May 5, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a proclamation on the National Day of Prayer, which was to be observed on May 6. Speaking to people of all religious backgrounds and acknowledging his own prayer life, the president stated: “I invite the citizens of our Nation to give thanks, in accordance with their own faiths and consciences, for our many freedoms and blessings, and I join all people of faith in prayers for spiritual guidance, mercy, and protection.” After a year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and other experiences of loss, Mr. Biden suggested that “the determinat...