Catholic weddings drop 71 percent in R.I

[JaredM]

projo.com/news/content/MARRIAGE_DECLINE__03-20-11_GNM15D3_v97.14f459b.html

While the overall number of marriages slipped by 17 percent in Rhode Island between 1969 and 2009, the number of Catholic weddings in this most heavily Catholic state dropped far more severely. It plunged 71 percent — from 4,452 a year to just 1,300.

The numbers are nonetheless startling. In 1980, 43 percent of all marriages taking place in Rhode Island were under Catholic Church auspices. The share fell to 37 percent in the early 1990s, and dropped to about 27 percent by 2000. In the last five years, the share is down to about 21 percent, or one in five.

“It’s not so much that Catholics are getting married someplace else,” he says. “They are not getting married, period.

 

[PatrickSebast]

They seem to have left out a very important figure of how the Catholic population of RI has or has not changed in this time period. While I am sure that with such a large drop some of it is people simply choosing not to get married, or at least not in a Church, the number may be a little inflated if the percentage of Catholics changed significantly. In a small state like Rhode Island it doesn’t take as much for demographics to have major shifts.

 

[Dale_M]

They seem to have left out a very important figure of how the Catholic population of RI has or has not changed in this time period…

Yes, I was thinking along those lines, too. Granted, Rhode Island is overwhelmingly Catholic, however, I wonder if there has been an age shift with the percentage of Catholics becoming older (and thus already married or not going to marry) compared to members of other faiths.

And, of course, there is the known phenomenon that persons raised Catholic tend to continue to identify as such, even if they never attend Mass.

 

[odile53]

Maybe that figure represents people who never should be getting married in the first place! Also, I wonder if some of these people are postponing marriage until the economy improves. So It might reflect more thought before marriage, which could be a good thing.

I wonder what the divorce statistics over the same period look like.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

As others have correctly pointed out, the Catholic population in New England has been diminishing over the decades and is decisively older than in previous decades. However, Church weddings are indeed also in decline. There’s a combination of circumstances that make it look worse than it is, but its not good either.

As for the article, I call balderdash on the claim that her parish “asked if I was registered in the parish, which I was not. Then they told me we needed to be engaged and be coming to the church for at least six months to a year. I started calling other parishes, and got the same thing…”

Perhaps her home parish said that, but to claim that every other parish she called said the same thing I think is a lie. Those kinds of rules and regulations for marriages are essentially a thing of the past here in New England. You can still occasionally find them but ramdomly calling 5 parishes would probably only result in 1 such situation.

And, of course, she later says in the article that she and her husband were “so upset when they couldn’t find a parish to marry them right away that they stayed away from church for another four years.”
It appears they wanted to get married “right away” but realized that they had to go through marriage preparation like everyone else and they got upset. It seems to have had nothing to do with their parish registration or mass attendance but with their absurd request to be married ASAP, which no minister would do without a justifiable reason.

 

[odile53]

In the Buffalo NY diocese, the parish registration requirement is more the rule than the exception, and I’ve seen “those planning marriage must be parishoners for six to nine months (etc.)” clearly emblazoned on the Sunday bulletins of at least seven local churches. My own parish additionally goes through contribution records; if you regularly contribute to the parish, the charge for the church is $100 for a wedding, if not, it is $300. Since I’m not planning a wedding, I have no idea if that figure represents a stipend for the priest or a charge for music in addition to the use of the church.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

In the Buffalo NY diocese, the parish registration requirement is more the rule than the exception, and I’ve seen “those planning marriage must be parishoners for six to nine months (etc.)” clearly emblazoned on the Sunday bulletins of at least seven local churches.

That’s why I was careful to limit my comments to New England. Very few parishes have those rules around these parts unless they are a tourist town or “destination wedding town.” (i.e. Boston, MA; Cape Cod, MA; Newport, RI; ski towns in VT and NH) In those cases the rules are there to prevent outsiders from taking all the wedding dates away from parishioners.
However in the case of this news story, it was Cranston, RI. Trust me, no one is making Cranston, RI a destination wedding location… LOL.

My own parish additionally goes through contribution records; if you regularly contribute to the parish, the charge for the church is $100 for a wedding, if not, it is $300/

Most parishes have some kind of “sliding scale” of price depending on whether someone is an active parishioner, former parishioner, or no connection.

Since I’m not planning a wedding, I have no idea if that figure represents a stipend for the priest or a charge for music in addition to the use of the church.

Depends on the diocese. In some diocese the priest gets the wedding fee, in other diocese it goes to the parish.

 

[estesbob]

projo.com/news/content/MARRIAGE_DECLINE__03-20-11_GNM15D3_v97.14f459b.html

While the overall number of marriages slipped by 17 percent in Rhode Island between 1969 and 2009, the number of Catholic weddings in this most heavily Catholic state dropped far more severely. It plunged 71 percent — from 4,452 a year to just 1,300.

The numbers are nonetheless startling. In 1980, 43 percent of all marriages taking place in Rhode Island were under Catholic Church auspices. The share fell to 37 percent in the early 1990s, and dropped to about 27 percent by 2000. In the last five years, the share is down to about 21 percent, or one in five.

“It’s not so much that Catholics are getting married someplace else,” he says. “They are not getting married, period.

pPercnetages can present a misleading picture. i remeber when the Heterosexual aids hysteria was rampant seeing statistics showing it had increase 300%-turned out in a country of 300 million(at that time ) it had increased from 100 cases to 400 cases. in this case we are looking at a decrease of 3,100 weddings a year over 41 year period-hardly something to get excited about.

 

[JRRTFAN]

In the Buffalo NY diocese, the parish registration requirement is more the rule than the exception, and I’ve seen “those planning marriage must be parishoners for six to nine months (etc.)” clearly emblazoned on the Sunday bulletins of at least seven local churches. My own parish additionally goes through contribution records; if you regularly contribute to the parish, the charge for the church is $100 for a wedding, if not, it is $300. Since I’m not planning a wedding, I have no idea if that figure represents a stipend for the priest or a charge for music in addition to the use of the church.

The fact of the matter is that churches are (generally) big, costly, buildings. It costs a lot of money to hire a person to open the church, turn on the lights, the a/c - heat, clean up afterwards, etc. The stipend for the priest and musicians is normally in addition to the “church fee” Frankly, if a person has been a member of a family of parish members for more than 6 months (and has contributed to the support of same) everything but the stipends should be gratis. Same way for a funeral. If they signed up to put in their 6 months so they qualify $300 is a good deal. The Marriott will charge a lot more than that.