Article: "Catholics Continue to Have Lowest Divorce Rates." Reports of 50% Divorce Rates Among Catholics False

[mdgspencer]

see www.ncregister.com/daily-news/catholics-continue-to-have-lowest-divorce-rates/
Commentators say false reports of 50% divorce rates among Catholics is harmful, make some Catholics ambivalent about marriage and divorce, and make some more ready to give up on their marriages.

 

[sscott]

The report covered all types of Catholics from irreligious to very observant. The ones who regularly attend mass together have a much lower rate than the ones who don’t. They are the ones mostly likely to follow more of the rules.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

2 things I’ve learned.

1. The rate used to be around 50% but has started to decline to the current 50% or so.
2. It seems that the Catholic marriage process is a bit daunting to be honest. Makes me wonder how many decided not to marry or even propose once they found out?

 

[Allegra]

2 things I’ve learned.

1. The rate used to be around 50% but has started to decline to the current 50% or so.
2. It seems that the Catholic marriage process is a bit daunting to be honest. Makes me wonder how many decided not to marry or even propose once they found out?

Daunting? We had to meet with a priest twice and take a two hour class on NFP. Then we had to have perhaps three meetings with a “focus couple” to discuss issues pertaining to marriage that we might not have thought about or discussed yet. If that is daunting to anyone, they probably shouldn’t be getting married.

 

[KP3243]

It might seem daunting if you are getting married for the wrong reason which a lot of people do now a days and might not even know it. When most people in the class answer no to the question “Is there any thing that my future spouse could do that would make me doubt their love” then people don’t get it. Seriously? If your spouse cheated on you, you wouldn’t doubt their love? Every married person would say yes. If you are getting married because of how your fiancée makes you feel, you are going down a bad path because what are you going to do when they don’t make you feel good and it is a utilitarian use of a person you use them to make yourself happy- women do this more than men and both men and women elevate the good in the other and ignore the bad a lot of people love the idea they have created their spouse to be and not who they really are. If you get a priest like Father Larry, he will press you even during the rehearsal.
PS couples who practice natural family planning have a 2% divorce rate.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

Daunting? We had to meet with a priest twice and take a two hour class on NFP. Then we had to have perhaps three meetings with a “focus couple” to discuss issues pertaining to marriage that we might not have thought about or discussed yet. If that is daunting to anyone, they probably shouldn’t be getting married.

Yes, daunting. Particularly because my wife was baptized in another country. Turns out that the copy her dad had from decades ago was not good enough. It needed to be issued within the last 6 months, but that church was recently combined with another. Basically we had to call in a favor with someone who lived in that country to final get it.

Beyond that, was a 2.5 day weekend at Engaged Encounter along with getting my parents to compete a freedom to marry form, Focus, and a few other things. I realize the process is designed to reduce divorce and for other practical reasons but it comes off as a lack of trust in my wife (requiring 2 people to state she is free to marry plus a certified baptism cert) and a lack of trust in our ability to decide if we should marry each other.

 

[Allegra]

Yes, daunting. Particularly because my wife was baptized in another country. Turns out that the copy her dad had from decades ago was not good enough. It needed to be issued within the last 6 months, but that church was recently combined with another. Basically we had to call in a favor with someone who lived in that country to final get it.

Beyond that, was a 2.5 day weekend at Engaged Encounter along with getting my parents to compete a freedom to marry form, Focus, and a few other things. I realize the process is designed to reduce divorce and for other practical reasons but it comes off as a lack of trust in my wife (requiring 2 people to state she is free to marry plus a certified baptism cert) and a lack of trust in our ability to decide if we should marry each other.

Getting paper work together and attending a two and a half day class for your marriage is a daunting task? So much so that you would skip marriage altogether? I’ve spent more time and effort then that trying to negotiate a single hospital bill through the insurance company! Wait until you try to buy a house! Wait until you have a baby that has to stay in NICU for a month! Wait until one of your children gets diagnosed with a food allergy or autism or diabetes! Wait until your dog goes blind! Seriously, most couples spend twenty-times more effort than that planning the RECEPTION after their wedding!

It sounds to me like you are less daunted and more offended anyway.

 

[Adamski]

Yes, daunting. Particularly because my wife was baptized in another country. Turns out that the copy her dad had from decades ago was not good enough. It needed to be issued within the last 6 months, but that church was recently combined with another. Basically we had to call in a favor with someone who lived in that country to final get it.

Beyond that, was a 2.5 day weekend at Engaged Encounter along with getting my parents to compete a freedom to marry form, Focus, and a few other things. I realize the process is designed to reduce divorce and for other practical reasons but it comes off as a lack of trust in my wife (requiring 2 people to state she is free to marry plus a certified baptism cert) and a lack of trust in our ability to decide if we should marry each other.

Wait until you are married for 5 years or more that is daunting

 

[His_helpmeet]

Yes, daunting. Particularly because my wife was baptized in another country. Turns out that the copy her dad had from decades ago was not good enough. It needed to be issued within the last 6 months, but that church was recently combined with another. Basically we had to call in a favor with someone who lived in that country to final get it.

Beyond that, was a 2.5 day weekend at Engaged Encounter along with getting my parents to compete a freedom to marry form, Focus, and a few other things. I realize the process is designed to reduce divorce and for other practical reasons but it comes off as a lack of trust in my wife (requiring 2 people to state she is free to marry plus a certified baptism cert) and a lack of trust in our ability to decide if we should marry each other.

The reason you need a recent baptismal certificate is due to the fact that the reception of sacraments such as Confirmation and marriage are recorded in the parish where one was baptized. They are added to the baptismal records. Consequently, you needed the baptismal certificate to be certain that your wife was free to marry - had she ever been married in the Catholic Church, it would have been listed on her baptismal certificate.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

It sounds to me like you are less daunted and more offended anyway.

I suppose daunted might have been the wrong word for it. Yes, I was a bit offended too.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

The reason you need a recent baptismal certificate is due to the fact that the reception of sacraments such as Confirmation and marriage are recorded in the parish where one was baptized. They are added to the baptismal records. Consequently, you needed the baptismal certificate to be certain that your wife was free to marry - had she ever been married in the Catholic Church, it would have been listed on her baptismal certificate.

I’ll let this be for now. Otherwise i’d derail the thread even more.

But what I was getting to before that odd tangent I took (OP, I’m sorry) is that getting married in the Catholic Church requires more than what may be practiced by others. I’m convinced that part of the lower divorce rate is view that divorce isn’t an option plus I get the sense that there must have been a number couples who decided they shouldn’t marry somewhere during the process.

 

[Allegra]

I’m convinced that part of the lower divorce rate is view that divorce isn’t an option plus I get the sense that there must have been a number couples who decided they shouldn’t marry somewhere during the process.

So, your conclusion is that Catholics don’t get divorced because they don’t believe in divorce and because Catholics have an actual discenment process prior to marriage, some decide that they aren’t ready to get married. Sounds like a good setup to me. Sign me up to be daunted!

 

[Allegra]

So, your conclusion is that Catholics don’t get divorced because they don’t believe in divorce and because Catholics have an actual discenment process prior to marriage, some decide that they aren’t ready to get married. Sounds like a good setup to me. Sign me up to be daunted!

Better to be offended now and married ten years later then dauntless now and filing a restraining order later.

 

[KP3243]

Yes, daunting. Particularly because my wife was baptized in another country. Turns out that the copy her dad had from decades ago was not good enough. It needed to be issued within the last 6 months, but that church was recently combined with another. Basically we had to call in a favor with someone who lived in that country to final get it.

Beyond that, was a 2.5 day weekend at Engaged Encounter along with getting my parents to compete a freedom to marry form, Focus, and a few other things. I realize the process is designed to reduce divorce and for other practical reasons but it comes off as a lack of trust in my wife (requiring 2 people to state she is free to marry plus a certified baptism cert) and a lack of trust in our ability to decide if we should marry each other.

My best friend was baptized in Jordan in one of the Eastern Rite churches and her priest had to get permission from the Bishop to accept her Baptism in the Latin rite even though the Latin rite is all she remembers. Luckily he just did it and didn’t tell her it might be an issue. It is a process because people especially in the US don’t get married for the right reasons and don’t always realize it.

 

[His_helpmeet]

I’ll let this be for now. Otherwise i’d derail the thread even more.

But what I was getting to before that odd tangent I took (OP, I’m sorry) is that getting married in the Catholic Church requires more than what may be practiced by others. I’m convinced that part of the lower divorce rate is view that divorce isn’t an option plus I get the sense that there must have been a number couples who decided they shouldn’t marry somewhere during the process.

I agree with you - and I think this is a positive function of the discernment process. Marriage preparation is intended to prepare you for the reality of marriage. Your meetings with the priest are intended to insure that there is no reason the marriage should not be celebrated. (I suspect that if you looked at the declarations of nullity being given out now, many of them would be for divorced and remarried people looking to join the Catholic Church, divorced non-Catholics wishing to marry Catholics, and possibly poorly catechized Catholics.) Essentially, if the Church gives a declaration of nullity for a Catholic couple (who were married in the Church, or at least when through Catholic marriage prep) the Church is saying “We really dropped the ball somewhere and allowed a wedding which should NEVER have happened”.