Katrin Bennett blogs at holier matrimony.com.

She's a monthly contributor to Catholic mom.com.

Her new book is Holier matrimony, married saints, Catholic vows, and sacramental grace. Our topic today. Welcome, Ms. Bennett.

Thank you so much for having me, Mark. You know, you begin with a stunning statistic, at least from my elderly perspective.

Year 2020, you note, saw 28% fewer marriages than in year 2000. That's a cataclysmic drop, demographers will say. And we hear much about the loss of faith in religion. You call this

quote, a loss of faith in matrimony. What's, what's going? I mean, have you seen this in your

friends? What's going on? Yes, especially in my younger brother's friends, kind of going into that Gen Z era,

that a lot of their friends have been dating the same person for 8, 10, 12 years,

and they're still not talking about getting engaged, getting married.

They just live together, and that's the end of their relationship.

That's the final step.

Does, does, I guess, the marriage, is it that they actively don't like the idea of marriage?

Or is it just marriage just doesn't mean very much one way or the other to them?

I think it's with the loss of the religious aspect of marriage.

When you don't see any part of God in the marriage, you kind of lose the importance of having that to them.

It's just a document now that's signed that they're married.

And they feel like that doesn't legitimize the relationship they already felt like they had anymore.

So why would they do that?

You know, I remember when I would mingle a lot of it with, you know, when I was younger and mingle with a lot of people who

were irreligious, maybe not even anti-religious, but it was almost the attitude of,

we don't need that marriage document to solemnize our, we feel so strongly about one another. In fact, almost getting married,

requiring the, the legitimation of the state even, not to mention the church, would almost

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