Child poverty blamed on family breakdown: CEN 1.04.08 p 4. January 4, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, House of Lords, Youth/Children.trackback
The problem of child poverty in Britain was a function of broken families and absent parents, the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham said in Parliament last week.
Speaking in the House of Lords on Dec 18 during the second reading of the government’s Child Maintenance Bill, Bishop George Cassidy applauded the government’s commitment to “ending child poverty by 2020.” However, putting the government to work at tackling the problem of broken families would have a more immediate and lasting effect, he argued.
A significant factor in the rate of child poverty was the failure of absent father’s to provide for their children. Only “one in three” one-parent families “receives any support from the non-resident parent, Bishop Cassidy said.
“If we are going to achieve the Government’s targets on child poverty, it is vitally important that this issue of maintenance is sorted out properly, particularly for the most vulnerable in our communities. Children are a gift, but creating a child also creates positive responsibilities towards that child. I sincerely hope that the Bill creates a commission that will play its part in helping parents to live up to their responsibilities, with enforcement as a last resort.”
He also supported the government decision to increase the “maintenance disregard for those on benefits” and for having understood that the child welfare agency’s “main purpose is to promote the welfare of the child rather than to claw back benefits. That should directly affect child poverty,” he said.
I am interested to see your comments on the speech by the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham in the House of Lords. I am puzzled though why it is that Bishops seem to be reluctant to endorse the Community Marriage Policies which are effective in the US? [http://www.smartmarriages.com/cmp.weed.pdf]
The Episcopal Church was the first national church in the US to endorse Community Marriage Policies at its triennial General Convention in Phoenix in 1991. The resolution calls upon the bishop in each diocese to take the lead in their implementation. The Rt. Revd Edward MacBurney [formerly Bishop of Quincy, Illinois, now retired] was responsible for introducing the resolution at Phoenix and was very committed to the Community Marriage Policies - in conjunction with Evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders - at Quincy, Peoria and Moline-Rock Island. He also helped to extend the focus of CMPs to include marriage ministry generally, not just marriage preparation. CMPs include the provision that couples will take a research-based marital inventory in good time before their wedding.
The Review of the Year by Dr David Edwards, Provost Emeritus of Southwark, for The 1997 Church of England Year Book, contains a reference to pre-marital couples and to a certificate or agreement between them before marriage:
“It would be no panacea, but it might be useful, if it was made compulsory for the couple to sign and keep a certificate that the main obligations of a marriage between Christians, put in plain language, had been discussed and accepted.”
In other words, couples need to identify - and sometimes to clarify - their understanding of the concept of marriage, whether or not they invoke Christian tradition. If this evaluation does not lead to broad agreement over the most significant issues, they will be wise not to marry, because the outcome is unlikely to be satisfactory.
The idea of a certificate in the C of E Year Book is similar or complementary to what is being attempted in the US. If we were to combine this idea with the taking of a pre-marital inventory - together with the implementation of other aspects of Community Marriage Policies, it would have an impact on couple relationships and the attention that is being paid to marriage ministry.