Catholic Proprietors

[monina]

My husband and I just came back from our first visit to a Bed and Breakfast–it was fabulous.

But the question occurred to me as to how Catholic proprietors would operate a Bed and Breakfast. There were 7 other couples at the Bed and Breakfast and it was very obvious who were not married. The proprietors stated that they would not return any items left behind because it “may be an invasion of privacy” i.e. hinting that they acknowledged that adulterers could be staying there.

Would a Catholic proprietor be sinning if he rented a room to unmarried couples? Of course, my initial thought is that the owners have no idea what the relationship is of the couple. And they don’t know what the couple does in the privacy of the room…but, I think that’s a very disingenous philosophy. Couples today readily and cheerfully admit they’re not married, or living together. You can’t avoid knowing that they’re sinning!

Do you think providing them with an occasion of sin is wrong?

 

[Minerva]

if they refused to rent to unmarried couples, they’d be sued as violators of anti-discrimination laws, which include marital status. Are they sinning by renting to unmarried couples? Good question, I honestly don’t know. I guess if it troubles a Catholic that much, maybe they shouldn’t get into the renting business to begin with.

 

[Lourdes]

I don’t believe they’d be sinning unless they did something to specifically encourage non married couples to frequent them. However, it would be just as illegal for them to refuse to rent rooms to unmarried couples (How would they tell anyway? Make couples present their marriage license at check-in? Not all married couples wear rings, or share the same name nowadays, for various reasons) as it would for them to refuse to rent rooms to Jews, or African-Americans, or the disabled.

Morally right or wrong, if an American business proprietor doesn’t want to serve a segment of the population they disagree with/don’t want to come into contact with, they need to rethink their business. They could easily lose their license.

Perhaps they could advertise themselves specifically towards marrieds - attract more of their preferred clientele that way (and quietly pray for visitors they know aren’t) - but they couldn’t legally turn unmarrieds away.

 

[chimakuni]

My husband and I owned and operated a bed and breakfast for four years…it was a lot of fun, it was a lot of work and we met some very interesting characters!

We did rent to those who were not married…unfortunately, we could have been sued had we not done so. Were we comfortable with it? No - but we could not ask them over the phone when they called for reservations if they were married or not. We also had some wonderful married couples that stayed with us - and actually, the majority of the couples that stayed were married to one another.

The good part about being a b and b owner is that we were able to share our faith with the people who stayed. They would bring up the subject because we made it a point of going to Mass on Saturday evening, usually right after they arrived. They had the run of the house…and no, we never lost one thing! We needed them to know where we were going in case they needed us.

Anyway - one guest asked me how the “Catholics felt about you loving Jesus”. He had been Catholic, and of course, was now a “Christian”. I told him that Christ was central to Catholic teachings and we had a little conversation regarding the Church. Who knows, perhaps he came back to the Church after that!

Pray God that he did return home to Rome.

God Bless