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>> we had been talking about that marriage preparation program which is quite a challenge, i'm sure, especially in the bay area. so what else do you cover in that marriage prep program. >> one of the big things we are trying to emphasize a lot more is often called natural family planning, sometimes nfp for short. family planning is a big part

of being married. that is what family planning is, a very modern method of determining when a child is able to have a child. sometimes people confuse it with with the rhythm method. it is from the 1930s and 1940s and it went out of style in the 1950s. that is 60 years old. you don't use a cell phone from 6 -- from 60 years ago or a computer, do you? >> no. >> it is current, it is up to date appear they get good information about it. also, we found anecdotally that

couples that use it have very low divorce rates, like 1 or 2%. they looked at 1100 couples over 5 years and i think there were 15 divorces. still 15 too many. >> but still when the general population is more than 50% these days. >> it helps communication with the couple. every couple of a talked to has been happy with how it's brought them together. there are some studies in the last 15 years that allows couples who are having fertility difficulties -- so you think of family planning as saying we want to postpone having children. couples with this difficulty in conceiving, it's real problem

for them and sometimes a real burden for them. and natprotechnology has been highly successful in helping couples achieve pregnancy by identifying the underlying health problems. >> this would be instead of in vitro fertilization. >> yes, it has all kinds of problems. it is expensive. it is not particularly healthy. there are some real health risks, real serious moral issues with it. and natprotechnology is very effective. >> are the couples pretty receptive for the knowledge about nfp when they are in marriage prep? >> yes, surprising. a lot of them have never heard

of it. almost everyone has heard of the rhythm method. a lot of them are surprised to find out that there is something up to date. my dad is a doctor, my mom is a nurse. my degree is in biocreme industry. i like talking about the science. you know, a lot of problems with hormonal birth control and it is damaging the water fly. so nothing to deal with there. >> any other big areas that you get into when you are doing the marriage preparation or is it mostly things like that? >> things like finances or sexuality. >> oh, fan? >> we should have you come in and do that. it is funny. they all say in the evaluations we want more on finances. thing they want us to they would them what stocks to buy. -- to they would them what stocks to buy. we're in the going to do that. >> they do say some of the

major reasons for break-ups is financial issues. >> also encouraging them to talk about t i have a friend whose coworker came into a marriage with $80,000 in credit card dead that they didn't inform her fiance of. >> recipe for disaster. >> in our next segment, we'll be talking more about the programs of the madalyn murray o'hair and family life department besides marriage prep and nfp. we'll be anxious to hear about that. stay with us on mosaic.

good morning and welcome back to mosaic. i'm your host vicki evans. our guest this morning is ed

hofner who is our director of marriage and family life at the archdiocese of san francisco. we were just talking a little bit about what the marriage preparation classes entail that ed puts on. you were saying that one thing getting ready for marriage, the preparation aspects and another thing is keeping the marriage going an enriching it. >> yeah. well, we do put a lot of effort in the church into marriage preparation but one thing that has become clear to me over the last three or four years is there is not a lot of things offered for couples after they're married. the marriages last 20, 30, 40, 50 years is a vocation. thank you a doctor or teacher or carpenter, electrician, you get ongoing training. with marriage, we have avenue let that slide.

marriage encounter is a wonderful program for couples but not every couple can do a weekend. i've been trying to find programs that we can offer in the archdiocese for couples that would enhance their marriage. we can think it was as enrichment, any way you want to call it. >> this would be at the parish level. >> my vision would be something would be happening at every parish. there would be a place for couples the first few years of marriage. you have your first child. maybe both the parents are on the east coast. before a mobile citizenry here. when they come up in marriage prep, they are trying to pay attention but they're thinking about the wedding and flowers. when they actually run into difficulties or concerns they don't necessarily have the tools. we want to provide options for

them, provide other couples they could meet with. >> i hear mentoring work well with couple whose have been married for many years. >> we're hoping to do that. we want to get a mentoring couples program going. the other thing we were able to do in east bay was tab into i grant that offers free communications workshops. they offer them for engaged couples. we have afew that went through that but a lot of married couples went through that. whether you've been married for two years or 20 years, usually, you can improve your communication skills. the response is phenomenal. that is another thing i'm hoping to bring into the archdiocese. >> on the top being of marriage, of course, all of society is grappling with this question, what is marriage? >> what is marriage. there are a lot of ways to look at it. the church teaches that

marriage is a sacrament. the husband and wife actually represent in a sense what life with god will be like. it's life-long commitment. it is a covenant which means not just a minimum requirement but you give all of yourself in a permanent relationship. another analog might be a parent, whether the child is two or 52, it is still your child. the definition i like is that marriage is a communion of life and love for the healing,

exalting and perfecting of the spouses. >> that is beautiful. >> yeah. >> so life and love. >> the church is very clear about that that couples have to be open to new life. that doesn't mean that they will have to have 20 kids or even two kids. >> that is what nfp is for. right. >> yeah. so what would you tell society in general? what would you tell them about what marriage is and why it has to be between a man and a woman. >> well, it is a unique relationship that existed before societies existed. the thing about marriage is that -- without going into a long, complicated thing, one of the primary aspects of marriage is the care and raising of children, so again, openness to life. every child has a mother and father. every child needs a mother and father. now, i know there is a lot of families where that is unfortunately not possible.

my own family, that is the situation and people do heroic jobs. but ideally a child learns from their father what it means to be a woman and from their mother -- from their father what it means to be a father and from their mother what it means to be a woman. >> we'll talk more about that when we come back. ♪ [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be great if all devices had backup power? the chevrolet volt does. it's ingeniously designed to seamlessly switch

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welcome back to mosaic. i'm your host vicki evans and our guest today is ed hofner

from the archdiocese of san francisco. ed has been telling us about the marriage and family life. if you want to go into these topics at greater depth visit our web site at www.sfd.c..org and click on the marriage and family life. we are talking about marriage. since it seems to be the burning question these days, what about children and marriage? >> well, again, children -- the church has always taught in one sense the purpose of marriage is the care and raising of children. virginia don't vote. children need adults to look out for their best interests. even though it is not always possible, the ideal for children is to be in a loving marriage with both a mother and father present. i taught high school for a

number of years and you can kind of see the did you have renss it makes for children when they come from a more fable family situation. -- the difference it makes for children when they come from a more stable family situation. families come in all flavors these days. we want to promote the children as much as possible. marriage is under a lot of pressure these days. there is financial pressures. thirty years ago, 40 years ago, there was a lot less support for divorce and divorce is a tricky subject. every family has got that in there practically. but there is a lot more support for the couples to stay together. a lot of studies have shown that when the couples stay together, even if they think about breaking up at some point, the couples that have stayed together, the majority have found that they were able to work through their difficulties. >> so it was just a seven-year

itch. >> yeah, or the 14-year itch, exactly. we want to try to find programs that will help couples to build unity to stay together and be able to support their families. >> and that is back to the enrichment programs that you were talking about. >> yeah, lots of plans. we'll see how we get off the ground. >> what do we have coming up at the archdiocese? are this some events or programs? >> i've only been here two weeks. >> and you don't have a whole agenda? >> we did this big marriage and family race, a great event. like a thousand people were there even though -- we had people from across the board, all the different cultures represented. speakers in english and spanish and we hope to make that an annual event. we were pleased with how many

people attended that. we have the wedding anniversary mass for couples celebrating wedding anniversaries. we had couples celebrating 40, 50, 60 years of marriage together in a public venue at the cathedral. it was a wonderful event. so encourage people to come to that, bring their families. the archdiocese is great to celebrate that mass. we'll have pictures and a reception afterwards. >> that is wonderful. and know that the archbishop is a huge supporter of marriage. >> it is tough in san francisco too because it is tough to raise family here in some ways, especially in the city because of financial pressures and commuting pressures too. anything we did k. do to be

supportive is what we're after. i'm hoping, as i said, to try to get programs started. the mentor couples, if we can get some communication workshops going, we did them in different par,s last year. those are some of the things we hope to do. >> you have your work cut out for you. >> yeah. >> do you have much of a staff? >> i have a wonderful woman named betty reichmann working with me. we are doing t they are hiring a new director for young adult ministry. before a director for youth ministry that we also recently hired. all three of us are new. we hope to work together closely because when we talk about marriage preparation, we see the couples a few months before marriage. really, preparation is a life long thing. you learn about marriage from your family but hopefully you learn from your experiences in the church. hoping to work with the youth

and young adult ministries directors to try to get people thinking about marriage. so if they are dating in their high school and teenaged years and college years, they are thinking what kind of things might i be looking for in a potential spouse. marriage is a vocation and we want them to have that in the back of their mind. so hopefully, when the people are all together all on board, we can start working on programs for that as well that is a really good point to get the young people involved in high school and in college to kind of define what marriage is because society has made it something else. society can kind of say what they want. marriage is a natural institution. natural marriage has existed before societies ever existed before and the state really sanctions marriage because of money. i have some lawyer friends who said that is their interest. they are not reallyern candidate about the issue of who loves who and all of that,

that is more of a religious question, i think, so that is something that is better left to the church to talk b okay. thank you. it has been a relate education talking with you this morning and seeing what the archdiocese has available. -- it has been a real education. check out our web site if you get a chance. thank you for being with us this morning on mosaic. we will see you next time.

c1 hi every one. welcome. we begin with our weekly pitch. if you have a show idea out there, go to kpix.com. scroll down to bay sunday and hopefully we can get in touch. >> it is obvious through education there is opportunity. our next guests are helping in california reach their full potential with a goal of earning citizenship and it is part of the project e4fc. joining us now, the founder and legal advocate. how are you? >> nice to meet you. yo great to have you.