Stefan Oster of Passau releases video statement…
Conservative Novus Ordo Bishop Warns of ‘Tradwives’ Trend!
The Most Rev. Stefan Oster (b. 1965) is the counterfeit ‘Roman Catholic bishop’ of the diocese of Passau, Germany. A perpetually-professed Salesian since 1999, he was appointed to his current role by the false ‘Pope’ Francis in 2014. Oster is considered ‘conservative’ by comparison with his mostly über-Modernist colleagues; and although that is surely accurate, it doesn’t say a whole lot, as we will now see.
In an elaborate statement published by him on Feb. 26, 2026 on his personal blog and also released as a video, Bishop Oster warns against the (clearly politically-incorrect) surge in young women who present themselves online as happy and fulfilled ‘tradwives’, or as aspiring to become such.
A so-called ‘tradwife’ is a wife who embraces her God-given (‘traditional’) role of being, first and foremost, a mother and homemaker, submissive to her husband, who in turn is the head of the family and has the primary duty of loving, supporting, and protecting his wife and their children. This natural order of the family stands in stark contrast to the feminist ideology which has effectively ruled our Western society for decades, and which has also made inroads into the Novus Ordo (‘Catholic’) magisterium.
Oster’s statement follows a documentary that aired on public German television on Dec. 17, 2025, entitled “The Trendy Missionaries: With Jesus Against Freedom?” (Die hippen Missionare: Mit Jesus gegen die Freiheit?). The video can be viewed here. It was a secularist film critical of the conservative religious stance promoted by certain ‘Catholic’ charismatic renewal movements, including their fierce opposition to abortion, their belief in the existence of fallen angels, and their promotion of properly-ordered family life. Bp. Oster, who is criticized in the documentary for his support of such movements, says he decided to issue a statement to clarify where he stands with regard to the proper role of women in the family after sundry people encouraged him to do so.
Oster Takes a (Wrong) Stand
As was to be expected, in his statement Oster presents himself as faithful to Church teaching, which he positions at the center between two extremes: a Marxist conception of the family as a social construct that must be obliterated, and what he sees as a right-wing conception of rigid and coerced ‘gender roles’, where the husband misogynistically dominates the wife.
What he proposes as the true and orthodox position, however, runs contrary to the perennial, traditional Roman Catholic doctrine; and he knows it. In fact, he openly admits that this is so, noting that the traditional teaching has undergone a ‘development’ since Vatican II that is incompatible with the prior view, as we will see later.
Before we look at and dismantle Oster’s arguments, we should mention that the false shepherd of Passau also connects the tradwife phenomenon to the current president of the United States, a Protestant who is not exactly known for his personal adherence to traditional Catholic teaching on marriage and the family, but whose ‘Make-America-Great-Again’ (MAGA) movement “is strongly associated with religiously conservative positions…”, Oster notes. Furthermore, the assassinated MAGA activist Charlie Kirk “promoted the tradwife model and presented himself, together with his wife Erika, as part of this family model”, he explains, adding that the tradwife model “appears to hold considerable appeal for politically right-wing narratives” (all translations via ChatGPT, with review and modifications by us, from German).
Of course Oster is welcome to distance himself from certain politicians or political movements. It’s his rejection of the timeless Roman Catholic doctrine that is the real problem.
Let’s take a look at his main arguments now.
Oh No, They’re Following Scripture!
Oster’s blog post and video critical of “tradwives and Trump” begins as follows :
For some time now, Christians who go by Scripture and Tradition have been discussing on social media an age-old phenomenon appearing in a new guise: “tradwives” (women with a very traditional understanding of gender roles) with the “Jesus glow.” These are devout women who, on social media, present themselves in radiant attire and perfectly staged aesthetics, talking about their self-fulfillment through children, kitchen, and church—obediently “submitting” to their husbands, whom they readily accept as the head of the household—and finding their happiness as mothers and homemakers. They do this out of deliberate fidelity to Holy Scripture, which they want to follow without compromise—and they do it with faith in Christ, who makes them shine with inner joy (“Jesus glow”).
(Stefan Oster SDB, “Über Tradwives und Trump…”, Stefan-Oster.de, Feb. 26, 2026. This and all translations in the present blog post via ChatGPT, with review and modifications by us.)
What? There are devout women who are promoting the God-ordained family life online, and they do so because they believe in Sacred Scripture and love Jesus Christ? Heaven forbid! Clearly, it’s high time for a Novus Ordo bishop to intervene!
So, what do we make of this? Does Bp. Oster not know what the New Testament says about the Christian family? But of course he does: “In fact, passages can be found in the New Testament that can be used to reinforce such a self-understanding of a woman’s life, for example Col 3:18, Eph 5:22, 1 Pet 3:1, or 1 Tim 2:9–10”, the false shepherd admits. Notice his measured language, however. He doesn’t concede that it is the biblical teaching; here merely agrees that the given passages “can be used to reinforce” the tradwife position (emphasis added).
A little further on in his text, Oster even quotes at length St. Paul’s teaching to the Ephesians on the Christian family (but not without subsequently distorting it, as we will see):
Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Let wives be subject to their husbands as to the Lord; because a husband is head of the wife, just as Christ is head of the Church, being himself savior of the body. But just as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her in the bath of water by means of the word; in order that he might present to himself the Church in all her glory, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and without blemish. Even thus ought husbands also to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife, loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh; on the contrary he nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ also does the Church (because we are members of his body, made from his flesh and from his bones). “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh” [cf. Mt 19:5]. This is a great mystery–I mean in reference to Christ and to the Church. However, let each one of you also love his wife just as he loves himself; and let the wife respect her husband.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is just. Honour thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with a promise: That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be long lived upon earth. And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord. Servants, be obedient to them that are your lords according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the simplicity of your heart, as to Christ: Not serving to the eye, as it were pleasing men, but, as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart, with a good will serving, as to the Lord, and not to men.
(Ephesians 5:21-6:7; Confraternity of Christian Doctrine translation [1941]; underlining added.)
This is divinely revealed truth, and it is not terribly difficult to understand: Christian marriage is a reflection of Christ’s relationship with the Church, which is one of a mystical nuptial union. From this certain consequences follow:
A husband should represent the image and office of Christ; therefore he should be the head and love his wife as himself. The wife similarly represents the Church; therefore she should be subject to her husband in all things. Husband and wife, in this familial society taken as a whole, represent that mystical union, which is a true mystery, and indeed it is a great one.
(Francis A P. Solá, S.J., On Holy Orders and Matrimony, n. 184; italics given. In Sacrae Theologiae Summa, vol. IV-B, trans. by Fr. Kenneth Baker [Saddle River, NJ: Keep the Faith, 2016], p. 171.)
Nevertheless, the false shepherd of Passau, being Novus Ordo rather than Catholic, must find a way around this clear and beautiful doctrine. To see how he does this, we will quote his ‘explanation’ in full:
Paul, in this context, speaks of three relationships in which—given the social conditions of the time—the weaker party is mentioned first: women in relation to men, children in relation to fathers, and slaves in relation to masters. In my opinion [sic], Paul initially gives an account of these social relationships, along with their inherent power imbalances, in a descriptive manner—and accepts them as given. After all, Paul is familiar with the creation narrative, according to which, as a consequence of humanity’s disobedience to God, power and desire, with negative connotations, also come to define the relationship between man and woman: “Thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee” (Genesis 3:16).
Now, accepting social relationships as they exist after the Fall is one thing, but with Christ and through His love, a profound reminder of the original equality of human dignity is brought back into the life circumstances shaped by faith in Christ—and this is capable of bringing about lasting change. Even if “submission” is to occur, Paul qualifies it in an entirely new way. He therefore embeds the existing power imbalances within a new framework of love and mutual (!) submission, of shared responsibility, and of the submission of both genders to Christ.
This means that Paul recognizes and emphasizes how existing relationships are transformed from within and are led into a new situation of acknowledging equal dignity. This applies analogously to the relationships between slaves and masters, and children and fathers. All power relationships find their measure in the relationship to the Lord, who is love itself—and who humbled Himself radically for us so that we might grow in Him. In the relationship between man and woman, Paul is radical in his demand: men are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church! In other words: Christ died for His Church out of love.
It may not be immediately evident just how outrageous these lines are, so let’s unpack them.
First, Oster falsely characterizes St. Paul’s divinely-inspired words as a mere description of the social conditions prevailing at his time, as unfortunate circumstances he merely “accepts as given”. But this is pure spin. For one thing, St. Paul is manifestly not describing anything, he is commanding that:
- (a) wives submit to their husbands;
- (b) husbands love and cherish their wives;
- (c) children obey their parents;
- (d) servants obey their masters
as a matter of living the Gospel. This is clear from the theological reasons the Apostle gives for his exhortations, namely:
- (a’) “because a husband is head of the wife, just as Christ is head of the Church” and “the Church is subject to Christ”;
- (b’) because “Christ also loved the Church, and delivered himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her in the bath of water by means of the word”
- (c’) because “this is just” and partly fulfills the fourth commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother”
- (d’) because in doing so they are “doing the will of God”
This shows that St. Paul is not merely accepting infelicitous social conditions as given and making the best of them, as it were; no, he is very much endorsing them as proper and right, and as being reflective of the order positively willed and instituted by God: Christ is the Head of the Church (see Col 1:18); Christ loves the Church as His Bride, who came from His opened side as Eve was made from Adam’s rib (see Leo XIII, Divinum Illud, n. 5; Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, nn. 26-28; Gen 2:21-23; 3:20; Jn 19:34); father and mother have been placed by God to exercise authority over their children (cf. Lk 2:51; Col 3:20); and the master has charge over his servants (see Mt 8:9; cf. Mt 18:17,34; Jn 13:16; Heb 13:17).
The Wife’s Submission to Her Husband
In his attempt to get around St. Paul’s unpopular doctrine of the wife’s duty to obey her husband, Oster invokes Gen 3:16, which relates what God said to Eve immediately after she and Adam had sinned: “To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.”
Passau’s pseudo-Catholic bishop uses this passage to suggest that the submission of the wife to the husband is an unfortunate consequence of original sin (as is pain in childbearing, for example) and not part of God’s original plan, which Christ came to restore (cf. Mt 19:3-9). In other words, Oster apparently holds that God’s original design for husband and wife was one of equality, not one of submission of the wife to the husband.
This, however, is not true. The submission of the wife to the husband goes back to the creation of Eve from Adam: “And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man” (Gen 2:22-23); “He created of him a helpmate like to himself” (Ecclus [Sir] 17:5a); “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed; then Eve. And Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression” (1 Tim 2:12-14).
Pope Leo XIII teaches explicitly:
The husband is the chief of the family and the head of the wife. The woman, because she is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, must be subject to her husband and obey him; not, indeed, as a servant, but as a companion, so that her obedience shall be wanting in neither honor nor dignity. Since the husband represents Christ, and since the wife represents the Church, let there always be, both in him who commands and in her who obeys, a heaven-born love guiding both in their respective duties. For “the husband is the head of the wife; as Christ is the head of the Church. . . Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things” [Eph. 5:23-24].
(Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Arcanum Divinae, n. 11; italics and underlining added.)
That the creation of woman (Eve) from man (Adam) was most fitting, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) explains in his Summa Theologica (I, q. 92, a. 2); and he points out there is also “a sacramental reason for this. For by this is signified that the Church takes her origin from Christ.”
What changed with the introduction of sin is that the proper order of submission has now become difficult and irksome to the wife, and the husband is tempted to lord it over her. The Church’s eminent Scripture scholar Fr. Cornelius a Lapide (1567-1637) characterizes the woman’s subjection to the man after the Fall thus: “Not as before, willingly, gladly, with wonderful sweetness and harmony, but often unwillingly, with great annoyance and resistance. For the husband has now received the power to restrain and punish his wife” (Commentaria in Genesim, cap. III, v. 16; translated using ChatGPT from original Latin: “Non ut prius sponte, libens, mira suavitate et concordia, sed sæpe invita, cum summa molestia et repugnantia. Accepit enim hic vir potestatem uxorem coercendi et puniendi.”).
Oster tries to reinterpret the clear Apostolic teaching of the duty of the wife’s submission to the husband as being a “mutual (!) submission” — the parenthetical exclamation mark is Oster’s own — and indeed St. Paul does say, “Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ” in Eph 5:21. However, how that is to be understood is explained in the verses that follow (Eph 5:22-6:7), which we have already analyzed. By no means is St. Paul teaching that husbands are also to submit themselves to their wives, anymore than he is suggesting that parents submit also to their children.
Other passages in the New Testament confirm this. For example: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3); “For after this manner heretofore the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands” (1 Pet 3:5).
But What About Equality?
As part of his attempt to eliminate the wife’s duty to be subject to her husband, Bp. Oster suddenly shifts the topic to one of the dignity of the spouses. This allows him easily to speak of equality, for indeed, husband and wife are equal in dignity, since woman no less than man is created in the image of God. However, equality in dignity does not in any way suggest or imply equality in authority. To make this about personal dignity, therefore, is but a deflection.
The teaching of Pope Pius XI is rather clear on the matter:
Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that “order of love,” as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which the Apostle commends in these words: “Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church” [Eph 5:22-23].
This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to the wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.
Again, this subjection of wife to husband in its degree and manner may vary according to the different conditions of persons, place and time. In fact, if the husband neglect his duty, it falls to the wife to take his place in directing the family. But the structure of the family and its fundamental law, established and confirmed by God, must always and everywhere be maintained intact.
(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Casti Connubii, nn. 26-28; underlining added.)
Further on in the same text, Pope Pius writes:
This equality of rights which is so much exaggerated and distorted, must indeed be recognized in those rights which belong to the dignity of the human soul and which are proper to the marriage contract and inseparably bound up with wedlock. In such things undoubtedly both parties enjoy the same rights and are bound by the same obligations; in other things there must be a certain inequality and due accommodation, which is demanded by the good of the family and the right ordering and unity and stability of home life.
(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Casti Connubii, n. 76; underlining added.)
These passages from Pope Pius XI basically settle the whole debate. The Holy Father makes clear that the wife’s submission to her husband in no way detracts from her human dignity, nor does it entitle the husband to treat his wife like a slave or an imbecile. Rather, it is part of the right ordering of the family as “established and confirmed by God”, and this means that it can never change but “must always and everywhere” remain the same, even in our own oh-so ‘enlightened’ times.
If Oster were right in suggesting that the Christian ideal is a family in which the husband does not exercise authority over his wife and the wife does not submit to her spouse, or in which they somehow both submit to each other (if this were even possible), then we would have seen this strange order reflected in the relationship between St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary, certainly the holiest spouses on earth.
Yet, what do we find? She who was sinless from the first moment of her conception was nevertheless subject to her husband, St. Joseph! No wife ever submitted more perfectly to her husband than the Holy Virgin did to St. Joseph, and this despite (or rather, because of) the fact that her soul was never stained by original sin.
Let’s look at just two magisterial sources which establish that.
In his 1931 encyclical on the Council of Ephesus (which dogmatically defined the Blessed Virgin’s Divine Maternity), Pope Pius XI quotes his predecessor Pope Leo XIII, who taught:
Fathers of families indeed have in Joseph a glorious pattern of vigilance and paternal prudence; mothers have in the most holy Virgin Mother of God a remarkable example of love and modesty and submission of mind [submissionis animi], and of perfect faith; but the children of a family have in Jesus, who was subject to them, a divine model of obedience, which they may admire, and worship and imitate.
(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Lux Veritatis, n. 49; quoting Pope Leo XIII, Apostolic Letter Nemine Fugit of June 14, 1892, in Acta Sanctae Sedis, vol. XXV, pp. 8-10; underlining added.)
In an Allocution to Newlyweds given on May 10, 1939, Pope Pius XII lauds the Blessed Virgin’s “humility which manifests itself in loving submission to St. Joseph” (excerpted in Papal Teachings: Our Lady, n. 349).
Even though she was holier than St. Joseph, the Holy Virgin nevertheless happily submitted to her husband, for this is the order God established; just as the Child Jesus submitted to His mother and foster father, even though He was infinitely holier than both: “And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them” (Lk 2:51).
(For those who are interested in a scholastic treatment of the question whether there would have been perfect equality between all human beings in the state of original innocence, see Articles 3 and 4 of Question 96 in the First Part of St. Thomas’ Summa Theologica. Spoiler alert: The answer is negative.)
The Source of Oster’s Novel Doctrine: Vatican II
It is quite telling that the only official teaching documents to which Oster appeals in support of his position are those of Vatican II (1962-65) and the subsequent ‘magisterium’: the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes (1965), the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), and ‘Pope’ Francis’ so-called apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (2016). Any reference to Catholic teaching from before Vatican II is conspicuously absent.
Interestingly enough, however, the counterfeit bishop of Passau readily admits that Church teaching concerning this matter has changed. Here is what he says (note in particular the underlined portions):
…the more recent magisterial texts of the Catholic Church on the teaching of marriage no longer include any mention of an explicit subordination of the woman to the man. Instead, it is now widely recognized that marriage between a man and a woman, and its specific forms, have taken on different expressions and modes of realization throughout history and across various cultures. However, through and in Christ, marriage is directed back to its original design within God’s plan of salvation.
The Catholic Church is undergoing a clearly discernible development in this area as well. During the Second Vatican Council, for instance, the dignity of the human person, particularly with regard to his freedom, was understood more deeply, which also led to a more profound understanding of marriage. Whereas the primary “purpose of marriage” was previously seen as procreation, the mutual well-being of the spouses has now been recognized as an equally important goal. Marriage is now defined as a personal community of life and love. This development is expressed deeply in the Council document Gaudium et Spes (47-52), as well as in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1601-1617)—always with an emphasis on mutual responsibility for one another and for children. And notably, there is no mention of any particular subordination of one spouse to the other, least of all the woman.
(Stefan Oster SDB, “Über Tradwives und Trump…”, Stefan-Oster.de, Feb. 26, 2026; underlining added.)
Wow! Thank you, Bishop Oster, for this stunning admission of how Vatican II has changed the Catholic teaching to the point that the pre-conciliar teaching can “no longer” be affirmed!
Thus we see confirmed that the Novus Ordo doctrine is not a genuine development but a corruption: The perennial Catholic doctrine is now rejected as false. A genuine development, instead, would clarify and elaborate on established teaching; it would not contradict it.
Oster takes the constant, pre-Vatican II Catholic doctrine and historicizes it, that is, he divorces it from the objective Deposit of Faith and makes it into a matter of historical accident, relative to the prior ages, which have now been overcome. (But the new teaching, of course, is now objectively true and certainly not a mere product of the spirit of the age, right?!)
The hubris of this position is immense: Oster implies that for 1900 years, the Catholic Church got the proper ordering of the spouses wrong, and it was only a council held during the glorious 1960s that saved it for us!
Notice what is being given as justification for this change in doctrine: a new “recognition”, a “more profound understanding”. In other words, it’s all about some nebulous new ‘awareness’ — which, incidentally, is the same ‘source’ for novelty that ‘Pope’ Francis used as justification for his change of the teaching concerning the death penalty: “Today … there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2267 as amended in 2018 edition; italics added).
This is Modernism! Pope St. Pius X warned that the Modernists “make consciousness and revelation synonymous. From this they derive the law laid down as the universal standard, according to which religious consciousness is to be put on an equal footing with revelation, and that to it all must submit, even the supreme authority of the Church…” (Encyclical Pascendi, n. 8). Furthermore, we must not forget that the idea that “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” is an error solemnly condemned by Pope Pius IX (see Syllabus of Errors, n. 80).
We have documented and discussed the Second Vatican Council’s change in doctrine concerning the ends of holy matrimony in some detail in the following post, so we will not repeat it here:
With all this new ‘awareness’ that can apparently overturn centuries of Catholic doctrine willy-nilly, one shudders to think what Oster’s strange religion will become ‘aware’ of next!
The Dignity of Christian Marriage
It can readily be admitted, and should in fact be emphasized, that our Blessed Lord raised the submission of the wife to her husband from the level of a vexatious natural burden to the level of a supernatural, holy, and meritorious obligation, just as He sanctifies all labor that is carried out with the proper dispositions and relies on His grace: “Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light” (Mt 11:28,30; cf. Lk 9:23; Col 1:24). In this way, holy matrimony, which is a sacrament, raises the pre-Christian relationship between husband and wife to a supernatural level and sanctifies it. How beautiful!
Thus Pope Leo XIII teaches:
But what was decreed and constituted in respect to marriage by the authority of God has been more fully and more clearly handed down to us, by tradition and the written Word, through the Apostles, those heralds of the laws of God. To the Apostles, indeed, as our masters, are to be referred the doctrines which “our holy Fathers, the Councils, and the Tradition of the Universal Church have always taught” [Council of Trent, Session 24], namely, that Christ our Lord raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament; that to husband and wife, guarded and strengthened by the heavenly grace which His merits Rained for them, He gave power to attain holiness in the married state; and that, in a wondrous way, making marriage an example of the mystical union between Himself and His Church, He not only perfected that love which is according to nature [Trent, Chapter 1] but also made the naturally indivisible union of one man with one woman far more perfect through the bond of heavenly love. Paul says to the Ephesians: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it. . . So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. . . For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the Church; because we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church” [Eph 5:25-32]. In like manner from the teaching of the Apostles we learn that the unity of marriage and its perpetual indissolubility, the indispensable conditions of its very origin, must, according to the command of Christ, be holy and inviolable without exception. Paul says again: “To them that are married, not I, but the Lord commandeth that the wife depart not from her husband; and if she depart, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband” [1 Cor 7:10-11]. And again: “A woman is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband die, she is at liberty” [1 Cor 7:39]. It is for these reasons that marriage is “a great sacrament” [Eph 5:32]; “honorable in all” [Heb 13:4]; holy, pure, and to be reverenced as a type and symbol of most high mysteries.
(Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Arcanum Divinae, n. 9)
Instead of trying to find ways around Catholic doctrine to accommodate an unbelieving world, we should praise and thank God for having given us these beautiful and splendid truths of our Holy Faith!
We must give Bp. Oster some credit, however: His candid admission that the Vatican II Church has changed the Catholic doctrine on the matter means fewer people will be misled as they ask themselves why what was true and requiring our assent just before the council should suddenly be false and have to be repudiated just a few years later.
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