34. Marriage as a Relationship. Real and Rational, by Margaret Monahan Hogan. Foreword by Richard A. McCormick, S.J. Afterword by Sidney Callahan. ISBN 0-87462-657-9. ©2003. Paperbound. Index. 170 pp. $20
“Marriage as a Relationship is a book about the nature of marriage, its ends and its act. Philosopher Margaret Monahan Hogan is convinced that only when we accurately grasp the vetera (the essential elements of the tradition) will we be prepared to move to the nova. This move is a continuity. For this reason Hogan examines the notion of marriage and its ends in the documents of recent tradition beginning with Casti connubii. Hogan is no iconoclast. Her treatment is full, fair and respectful.
“She notes that in the last sixty years there has been a gradual but perceptible development in official documents. What was suspect in the thirties … is contemporary orthodoxy. Concretely, Hogan traces the conceptual move of Church documents from marriage as a procreative institution to marriage as an intimate personal union. It is within this notion of marriage that we must weigh the distinct ends of marriage (the union itself, children, and the individual goods of the partners), hierarchize them and articulate the claims.” — Richard A. McCormick, from the Foreword
“Through analysis of the documents Hogan presents a story of development and change in the Church’s views of Christian marriage. Slowly, the historically conditioned elements in the concepts of marriage are being identified and isolated from what Hogan holds up as the positive permanent elements of the Catholic heritage. Evolution of doctrine comes from changes in ethical insight, changes in scientific knowledge and changes in the understanding of the nature of the marriage relationship. In particular the prejudice and negative bias against sexual intercourse gives way to a positive evaluation.” — Sidney Callahan, from the Afterword
Dr. Hogan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Portland and is the first holder of the McNerney-Hanson Chair in Ethics. She serves as the executive director of the Garaventa Center for Catholic Intellectual Life and American Culture at the University of Portland, and is a fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. Professor Hogan's current research lies in the field of applied ethics and the intersection of ethics and the Catholic tradition. Her article, "The Alien Tort Claims Act and the Globalization of Business and Ethics" appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics. She serves as medical ethicist to a variety of hospitals and health care organizations and as teaching faculty of the annual Medical Ethics conference at the University of Notre Dame. She is past president of the Center for Academic Integrity which has its home in the Keenan Institute at Duke University.
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