Against the backdrop of the World Meeting of Families and Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia in late September, Catholics for the Common Good Institute launched the Marriage Reality Movement, a coalition of organizations and people dedicated to taking back marriage for our children and families.

The Marriage Reality Movement provides resources, training and tools to help people learn to share the true meaning of marriage in ways that others can understand.  Membership is free and open to anyone who shares the desire to restore a civil institution that protects the rights of children to be united with their mother and father.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee for Promotion and Defense of Marriage, gave the keynote at the launch, focusing on the long term erosion of marriage to the detriment of children and society.

“Now there is the idea that a union of a man and woman could be for whatever they desire it to be rather than for why it exists in the reality of nature – to bring new children into the world and unite the man and woman to each other and to those children they bring into the world. “

The Archbishop noted that despite the fact that marriage has only recently been legally redefined in the courts, it has been redefined in the hearts and minds of Americans for a very long time through a contraceptive mentality, the sexual revolution and no-fault divorce.

In his remarks to the crowd of bishops, potential partners, diocesan personnel and other invited guests gathered for the launch reception, CCGI founder and president Bill May noted that after the Supreme Court decision to legally redefine marriage, many have developed a defeatist attitude and simply given up or are focusing solely on how to protect themselves from religious discrimination.

“The restoration of marriage is not the work of politics, but of the evangelization of culture starting in our own families. It is essential because if we are not evangelizing the culture, the culture is evangelizing us and our children.”

May proposed that through the Marriage Reality Movement we can go back to the beginning and reintroduce marriage, and this is the only way America can once again create a civil institution that protects the rights of children to be united with their mother and father.

Noted speaker, media host and author Teresa Tomeo emceed the event at the Marriott Hotel’s Liberty Ballroom in downtown Philadelphia. Tomeo highlighted the work of Archbishop Cordileone in tirelessly upholding the Church’s teachings in his archdiocese and the work of Catholics for the Common Good as they stand with children and their right to be born into a family with their mothers and fathers united in marriage.

Archbishop Cordileone endorsed the Marriage Reality Movement remarking that it “gives us an opportunity to help people focus back on these goods of marriage and the beauty of God’s plan for marriage as it’s woven into our very nature. “

Before taking questions from the audience, Bill May encouraged the crowd with a rallying cry.

“We will not rest until marriage reality is once again recognized and promoted by laws, the culture and in the classroom.”