March 19, 2010. There’s happy marriages, and challenging ones. But what many people may not know is that there’s holy marriages too.


Msgr. Jean Laffitte
Secretary, Pontifical Council for the Family
“It’s proof that this kind of sanctity of marriage and family exists. They are saints because when they marry, they really want to love one another and their children. They live that sense of service with Christ.”

After the Second Vatican Council, the Church began to speed up the beatification process of people who served as role models for others. And that’s when the idea to beatify married couples came about.

Msgr. Jean Laffitte
Secretary, Pontifical Council for the Family
“Marriage and the sanctification of two people who are striving for holiness go hand in hand. Here we have two people who decided to unite themselves with God and who strive to live holy lives.”

And there’s many examples of holy couples, like the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux, Louis Martin and Mary Celia Guerin, who were named blessed in October 2008.

Msgr. Jean Laffitte
Secretary, Pontifical Council for the Family
“The way they lived their lives together and the way they took care of their daughters showed they lived in harmony with real Christian love- to the point where they agreed to let all their daughters leave home to become nuns.”

Luigi and Maria Corsini Beltrame Quattrocchi are also blessed. According to a former prefect of the Congregation for the causes of Saints, Jose Saraiva Martins, “it was impossible to beatify them individually since there holiness was lived as a couple.”

Msgr. Jean Laffitte
Secretary, Pontifical Council for the Family
“The Church proposes that human love is a way of sanctification and encounter with God. When couples marry, it’s not two single individuals rather God who joins them in love.”

And there are more couples on the list who are are waiting to be proclaimed blesseds, like Yu-Jun Chol and LeeSun-i, of Korea, Tomas Alvira and Paquita Rodriquez from Spain and Italian couple Giovanni Ghedo and Roseta Franzi- all examples of how marriage can also lead to holiness.

BR/MC
FF
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