Children of Divorce: Recovering Origins
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Pablo Picasso, The Tragedy.
National Gallery of Art
Recently much has been written about the effects of divorce on children by children of divorce themselves, who now, as adults, are questioning the conventional opinion that children are better served by a so-called "good divorce" than a bad marriage. In light of their direct experience, they have begun to identify the central problem inherited by children of divorce (irrespective of the "quality" of their parents' parting), namely, that of living in the horizon of a broken origin.
Prompted by this striking re-evaluation of divorce, the Center wishes to take stock of the effects of divorce on children. In its engagement with this issue, the Center endeavors not only to understand the pertinent sociological evidence, but also to probe the most fundamental questions the problem of divorce raises, such as the relation between human identity and the horizon of an enduring love, as well as that between freedom, happiness, and fidelity. These questions, together with the ones asked by the children of divorce themselves, animate the Center's cultural and pastoral activities surrounding this question.
