In the last two decades, marriage has become less central in Catholic family ethics. This recent development differs from the critical familism project led by Don Browning in the 1990s and early 2000s, which sought to reform and promote a Christian theology of marriage. The article traces three distinct but related decentering variations: accompanying the diversity of families in the church, acknowledging the potential for all families to thrive, and embracing radical possibilities for family life. While acknowledging important concerns underlying these moves, the author offers a critical retrieval of marriage that preserves its “complex centrality” and furthers its radical potential.

The essay presents an argument for critical retrieval of the framework of cooperation with evil used by the moral manualists who dominated Catholic moral theology in the first part of the 20th century. Both “liberal” and “conservative” Christians are concerned with cooperation but differ as to which issues deserve attention and when cooperation becomes problematic.

Contemporary moral theologians address a wider scope of ethical issues pertaining to families than did theologians of previous generations. In addition to attending to questions about sexual morality, divorce, and remarriage, many are arguing for intentional family practices, asking what can be done to decrease domestic violence, treating children as moral actors in their own

[The author argues that Christian parents have a dual vocation: to care for their children and to contribute to the larger society. Recent theology on the family shows that most writers emphasize only one part of that dual vocation. The author argues that this tendency diminishes family ethics. She roots the obligation to care for