Can this marriage ceremony be saved?

A growing number of young Catholics are choosing to get married outside the church, saying the hurtles to a church wedding aren’t worth it.

by ABIGAIL KELLY

Reprinted with permission from U.S. Catholic magazine, Claretian Publications, www.uscatholic.org, 800-328-6515.

For Bridget Carter of Boston, planning to be married in a Catholic ceremony seemed completely natural. Although her fiance is not religious, Carter, 29, is a devoted Catholic and works for the church. (She asked that her real name not be used.) What's more, her fiance supported her desire to have a Catholic wedding. And so, it seemed nothing should stand in the way.

But as the couple encountered obstacle after obstacle, Carter began to doubt that her wedding would be all she had hoped. Several months before the October 2000 ceremony, they considered abandoning their plan for a Catholic wedding altogether.

"My faith is a huge part of my life. I could hardly imagine not having my wedding in the church," says Carter. "But it was so stressful and so difficult that we had to ask ourselves whether it was really worth it."

The headaches ranged, she says, from the inability to have an outdoor wedding, to endless logistical issues related to their choice of church and celebrant, to the process of obtaining the "disparity of cult" dispensation required when a Catholic marries an unbaptized person. According to Carter, it was the latter issue that nearly became a deal breaker.

To hear young Catholics and some who work with them tell it, stories like Carter's are increasingly common. While the couple ultimately followed through on plans to marry in the church, there are signs that hurdles like the ones they encountered are starting to take a toll: New research indicates that fewer young Catholics than ever before are marrying in the church.

The issues that may underlie this trend are as varied and diverse as the couples themselves. At one end of the spectrum are smaller issues-like the church's ban on outdoor weddings or on certain music-that most couples overcome; at the other, however, are fundamental dilemmas that call into question the effectiveness with which the church is ministering to the post Vatican II generation.

Not necessarily going to the chapel.

Like other Americans, Catholics today are less likely to marry at all. This change alone goes a long way toward explaining why the number of Catholic marriages in recent years has not kept pace with the number of Catholic Americans. But it does not account for statistics uncovered by Purdue University sociologist James Davidson.

According to Davidson's findings, only about 40 percent of young Catholics involved in interfaith marriages are married in the church. That's a decrease of nearly 10 percent over previous generations. Even more striking, however, are Davidson's findings with respect to intra faith marriages-those in which both parties identify themselves as Catholic.

"Among pre-Vatican II Catholics, only 6 percent of those involved in intra faith marriages were married outside the church," says Davidson. "For young Catholics today, though, our research shows that that number has risen to 28 percent."

Clearly, these statistics paint a picture of a generation of Catholics for whom a church wedding is not a given. And though the issue has received relatively little attention in Catholic circles to date, those in leadership roles seem to sit up straight when they hear the numbers.

"In regarding marriage as an important pathway, a vital social institution, and a sacramental blessing-we've been losing ground on all those fronts in our society and certainly in our church," says Richard McCord, executive director of the Committee on Marriage and Family with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB).

It is difficult to say precisely what these findings mean. And it is at least as difficult to assess the myriad factors ~ both societal and uniquely Catholic ~ that lead young couples to choose non-Catholic ceremonies. A look beneath the surface, however, reveals some of the challenges.

Different kind of Catholic

Today's brides and grooms are closer in age to 30 than 20, and, more often than not, they have complicated lives and demanding work schedules. Many are transient or living far from home, and few have strong ties to a religious community. These factors can make a logistical headache of planning any wedding. A Catholic ceremony, with its time-consuming paperwork, planning, and mandatory preparation, often becomes a nightmare.

Keriann and Sean McSweeney, both 27, also encountered enough obstacles in planning their August 2000 wedding that they gave serious consideration to ditching their plans for a Catholic ceremony. Living in Los Angeles while planning their Wisconsin ceremony, they ran into policy inconsistencies between the two dioceses that made their ideal wedding impossible. They had to join a Los Angeles parish they would never attend, pay extra fees to marry in a parish they did not belong to, and complete their marriage preparation with a priest they didn't know.

"I accepted the policies and the rules and everything that was involved because I know that's just the way it is when you have a Catholic wedding," says Keriann. "But there were many times along the way when I thought, 'We could do this somewhere else."'

Years ago, a couple like the McSweeneys-both with Catholic families eager to see them walk down the aisle-might scarcely have considered looking outside the church, no matter what obstacles they encountered. So what has changed?

In part, say observers, there is a decreased tendency among young Catholics to regard a church wedding as the only feasible option. To anyone who's tuned in to recent discourse about young adult Catholics, this should come as little surprise: Today's Generation X Catholics were reared in a culture that encourages them to rely on a personal spirituality rather than organized religion. As a result, many young adults feel that God will be with them no matter what church they marry in ~ even if they marry on a hillside or in a courthouse.

In addition, today's brides and grooms are older and more independent than in the past; they generally feel little obligation to cater their wedding ceremonies to family members' expectations. All of these factors have combined to do away with much of the stigma once associated with marrying outside the church, and to lead many to feel that they can still be Catholic without being married in the church.

"Some people who didn't bother with the Catholic ceremony still attend Mass," says Chuck Lamar, a deacon at Light of the World Parish in Littleton, Colorado, who has 20 years' experience helping couples prepare for marriage.

Frequently, however, that is not the case. "Once people marry outside the church, it becomes harder and harder to get them back," says Father Robert Ruhnke, a Redemptorist priest in San Antonio, Texas who has been involved in marriage preparation programs for over 30 years.

In part because of the implications for the future, where young Catholics marry is of growing significance to the church. And it's a dilemma that cuts to the very heart of a much-debated question: how to strengthen the bond between the institutional church and a generation that seems inclined to disregard it.

Putting out a welcome mat. Groom

Not all the news is gloomy. Despite an apparently growing willingness to do other wise, most young Catholics still want to be married in Catholic ceremonies. As long as their most basic requirements are met, they seem willing to endure the frustrations and extra effort a Catholic wedding can entail.

What are those requirements? Two things, above all others, are important to young Catholics as they plan their weddings: They want to feel welcomed and accepted by their parish community, and they want the freedom to plan a ceremony that reflects them as individuals and as a couple. When they perceive that these two pieces are in place, couples seem far less likely to be dissuaded by the policies and procedures so many regard as a hassle.

Making young couples feel at home begins the moment an engaged couple walks through the door, and it's not as easy as it used to be. The majority of today's young adult Catholics disagree with church teachings on issues like cohabitation, premarital sex, and contraception. For parish staff administering marriage preparation programs where these topics come up, it's something of a catch-22 ~ how can you discuss these issues from a Catholic perspective without alienating couples?

In many parishes, cohabitation before marriage has become a particularly thorny subject. Although the church opposes it, living together before marriage is increasingly common: According to a report by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, "the number of cohabiting unmarried couples rose by nearly 1,000 percent in the United States between 1960 and 1998. And Catholic couples are clearly no exception.

"A great percentage I see ~ I'd guess it's well over 50 percent ~ are already living together when they come to be married," says Lamar.

Church leaders like to quote statistics illustrating the dangers of cohabitation for the long-term health of a relationship, and some parishes have instituted formal or de facto policies to dissuade couples from living together or to induce them to separate during their engagement. But young Catholics, grown adults who feel their decisions about living arrangements and sexuality are made maturely and in good conscience, often bristle at these tactics.

"Being asked to go to Confession because we had been living together was a little like being asked to say I'm sorry for the choice I made," says Keriann McSweeney. "I still believe in that choice. I don't regret it ~ only that the church sees it as wrong."

Some parishes have learned that lesson the hard way ~ by watching the numbers of couples seeking marriage drop as word spreads of a hardline stance against cohabitation.

"You get priests who say, 'Oh, you're living together don’t come around here,"' says Ruhnke. "I suppose that sounds good and very Catholic, but it usually has a very negative pastoral result."

Sensitive issues

In the heat of it all, many parishes are struggling to find common ground and to develop marriage preparation programs that young Catholics will embrace. That requires a sensitive touch-particularly where the prenuptial investigation and testing parts of the process are concerned. Many young Catholics view these elements as outdated, inappropriately personal, or even as clever attempts by the church to get them to admit to living together or having had sex.

"It felt sort of like an interrogation," says Sean McSweeney. "It's a little draconian."

What kind of program balances all these difficult issues most successfully? To hear young Catholics tell it, it's the sort that guides without judging, that fosters communication without delivering lectures-that listens, perhaps, more than it speaks.

"Generation X is interested in a real sense of spirituality and in seeing how religious faith is lived out from day to day," says Barbara Markey, associate director of Creighton University's Center for Marriage and Family and director of the Family Life office of the Archdiocese of Omaha. "The tendency in marriage preparation is to speak in generalities about how your marriage is sacred, but we need to place more emphasis on showing them the kind of applied spirituality they want."

Positive marriage prep

Some marriage preparation programs have won rave reviews from young couples and parish officials alike. The use of sponsor couples or incorporating talks with married couples into marriage preparation are consistently cited by couples as the most memorable and useful parts of the process.

"We both really enjoyed and appreciated hearing the married couples speak," says Leslie Peters, 28, of Philadelphia, who attended an Engaged Encounter retreat with her then-fiancé, Jim, before their April 2000 wedding.

Of course, often these programs demand staff and resources many parishes lack. But treating marriage preparation as the unique pastoral opportunity that it is ~ not as a service that gets performed over and over, week in and week out ~ is one challenge the church must face if it hopes to continue to attract engaged couples.

Bride

"The way in which people are met, welcomed, and dealt with in marriage preparation is going to color and shape their attitudes toward the church and toward organized religion for years to come," says the NCCB's McCord. "That makes marriage preparation one of the most critical moments of ministry to young adults."

Ministering to engaged couples gets especially difficult ~ and especially critical ~ with interfaith marriages. Changes in canon law have loosened restrictions on interfaith marriage considerably since midcentury, making it far easier for today's Catholics to marry non-Catholics in church-sanctioned ceremonies, and for non-Catholic partners to preserve their own spiritual identities. But good communication between parishes and engaged couples is still key.

Like many couples, Dianna and David Steinbach of Milwaukee were concerned about what a Catholic ceremony would mean for David, who is not Catholic. Largely because her parish did an effective job of communicating church rules and expectations without making the couple feel uneasy, Dianna reports that her October 1999 ceremony went far more smoothly than she and David had anticipated.

"Our priest and the pre-marriage retreat we went on made David feel like a I part of the process and like he was welcome ~ not an outsider just because he wasn't Catholic," says Dianna, 25.

But too often interfaith couples report that parish staffs are not helpful, that they feel they have to fend for themselves in locating and filling out the proper paperwork, and that church policies feel anything but welcoming.

“The process of getting disparity of cult and dispensation to get married was the biggest struggle,” says

Bridget Carter of Boston. “Just the fact that it's called 'disparity of cult' feels very loaded and negative.”

The personal touch

Meeting couples' second criterion ~ the freedom to personalize their ceremonies ~ seems like a relatively uncomplicated task compared with the many challenges that come with rolling out the welcome mat. But many young Catholics report feeling like they're on a wedding assembly line, complete with snippy parish secretaries and priests who can't remember their names. For couples investing a lot of time and money in their ceremonies, this can be very frustrating.

For Jessica and Steve Monahan, both 26, of Maryland (who also asked that their real names not be used), nothing was more important than having their wedding celebration be meaningful and a reflection of their faith. They worked hard before their June 2000 ceremony to incorporate elements that would feel special, and took an active role in liturgical decisions.

Despite their efforts, the Monahans felt that that personal touch was missing from their dealings with the priest who married them; ultimately, they were disappointed with his homily.

"It wasn't a reflection of who we are at all, not of us as people or even our beliefs as Catholics," says Jessica. "I'm sure there were people at our wedding who might think twice about having a Catholic wedding because of our experience, and that's disappointing. Not that it ruined the ceremony or the day for us, but it left a terrible taste in a lot of people's mouths. I won't watch the video."

In an age when many parishes are strapped for staff and time, the Monahans’ experience is not unique.

"Many, many people have unfortunate experiences in dealing with the church because they don't meet a cleric they can talk with very easily," says Ruhnke.

Of course, the opposite experience can happen, too. Jim and Leslie Peters were delighted with their ceremony, which incorporated elements of family traditions and, they felt, really captured a sense of their spirituality. For this couple, as well as the Steinbachs, being guided through the marriage process in ways that made them feel welcomed and included made it easier to forget the hassles they encountered along the way. Both couples say they would choose a Catholic ceremony again if they had it to do over, and that they would recommend the decision to friends.

A positive experience also requires flexibility and realistic expectations from the couple. Above all, they shouldn't confuse the "wedding" with the "marriage liturgy," says Bishop Kenneth Untener of the Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan. "The wedding is a large event that covers many months and includes many rituals,"' the bishop writes in one of his "four-minute teachings" on the diocese's Web site. "One part of all this is the marriage liturgy. Actually, it's the smallest part and has its own distinctive character."

For parishes, keeping couples satisfied means making a commitment to really listening to every couple's concerns and desires, and to making reasonable efforts to accommodate their wishes whenever possible. In effect, it means treating each marriage as the critical moment in a young adult's life ~ and in his or her relationship to the church ~ that it is.

Still, some observers question whether the exodus of young engaged couples is really as serious a problem as Davidson's research findings would indicate.

"If you look at the number of marriages in the church ~ it has declined about 25 percent since 1975," says Markey. "That's a little bit lower than the decline of U.S. marriages overall."

Davidson himself points out that his findings are from a first round of research and that the issue needs further study. As long as there are Bridget Carters and Sean and Keriann McSweeneys, however, perhaps precisely how many couples are or are not choosing Catholic weddings is something of a belljar argument.

"A marriage is a critical moment in a young Catholic's life and it's a unique kind of opportunity for outreach," says Ruhnke. "Parishes need to realize that every time they miss it, that chance may not come again."

Abigail Kelly is a grant writer for a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia. She is finishing her master’s thesis on GenX Catholics.

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What’s the use of marriage prep?

by Father George Dyer

T he “Two Walllies,” as they called themselves, wanted to set a wedding date. Walter and Wallyce, both slight with thick silver hair and the same number of adult grandchildren, had lost their spouses, met, dated, and fell in love. They were both 75 when he proposed.

Now they wanted to prepare for their upcoming marriage. They had much history to blend into their new relationship, they said, and they wanted to get it right. The two Wallies obviously took their marriage preparation program seriously. The church does also, for two reasons.

First is our recent cultural history. Most couples have witnessed lifeless marriages or bitter breakups. They are wary about entering marriage and concerned about that forever in their vows ~ and the church certainly wants them to address that history and those concerns.

And second, the church wants to keep itself honest. It is being asked to witness the administration of a sacrament and can only do so when it has some assurance that the couple has a clear idea of the sacrament, is free to embrace it, and fully intends to do so.

Typically the marriage preparation consists of five or six sessions over several months (some may even extend to eight or nine). Three of these meetings are with the priest, deacon, or parish minister. In addition, a couple can usually choose from a variety of preparation programs, such as pre-Cana or an Engaged Encounter weekend. Couple-to-couple exchanges in the home of married couples are also becoming commonplace and valued experiences.

Couples are encouraged to talk about children, church, creative listening, the difference between love and possession, and how they foster their respect for one another. Most important, they are reminded that when they exchange their vows, they administer the sacrament of marriage to one another.

As they administer this sacrament, couples lead the Christian community into the world of the holy. They bring the Christian community face-to-face with a love that is just like its own ~ without conditions, without reservations ~ one that will endure so long as there is breath in each of their bodies.

God places these couples in our midst as a sacred sign and revelation of the love that God has for them, and for all of us. They reveal to one another and the Christian community that divine love described so vividly in the sensuous, erotic verses of the Song of Songs.

God's Spirit will always be with them, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. The Spirit will help them aspire to a love that is patient and kind ~ never rude or selfish ~ a love that believes all, hopes all, trusts all. In a word, a love that goes on forever.

Father George Dyer is the founding editor of Chicago Studies and writer and editor of Androgogy, The Three-Minute Theologian, and Catholic Educator.