By Sean Stevens, Ph.D, CatholicTherapists - Many threads make up the theology of Catholic marriage. Some threads do overlap with Protestant thought – e.g., marriage as an image of the union of Christ and the Church. Other threads tend not to, particularly those that focus on marriage as a pathway to holiness; as a “school” of sacrificial love; and as a microcosm of the Body of Christ – because Protestant thought tends not to emphasize holiness, sacrifice, and the Body of Christ. And any theology based on marriage as a sacrament, of course, is foreign to Protestantism.