Why do so many Catholic women marry non-Catholic men?
And the corollary: Why do so many Catholic men marry non-Catholic women?
Here’s why.
One: While the six precepts of the church (now five) strongly discouraged marriage outside the church, the last 50 years have seen this discouragement lifted. . .by the Church. It is no longer strongly discouraged. We may agree or disagree with the reasons, but fact is, we are not ‘discouraged’ from intermarriage.
Two: Because of #1 we see a sort of ‘rebound’ effect. I have read that, after WW2, when GIs were stationed in Japan (or in Germany, or Italy), a larger than normal percentage of them married the ‘native’ women; the theory was that the GIs had, over the war years, been conditioned to think of ‘the enemy’ in the worst possible terms. On actually MEETING ‘the enemy’, they found them to be by no means the ‘demons’ that they had been presented to be. In a ‘rebound’ effect, that made the women appear more attractive as being ‘nicer’. Thus, a lot of marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics occurred because, on the ‘one’ group meeting the other group, they found themselves to superficially have a lot more in common than they had thought, and the perception that they were not ‘so evil’ made them appear more attractive.
Three: Depending on the area, there are sometimes far many more of one ‘religious’ group available for dating than the other group. Factor in that many more women in the last 50 years have been going away to colleges. . .and there were more ‘non Catholics’ in the dating pool for many. . .or vice versa.
Four: Dwindling ‘cultural Catholicism’. Even a person going to a ‘good Catholic college’ in the last 50 years was more likely to be exposed to lots of ‘error’ in the Catholic teaching. Relativism and indifferentism made the notion of specifically looking ONLY at ‘one’ religious group appear to be intolerant bigotry at worst; at best it was considered a quaint sort of practice. Lots of priests and religious at the time would pooh-pooh the idea of marrying ‘like’ as well.
Five: Coupled with #4, from 20-50 years ago (pre internet) there was simply a HUGE dearth of authentic Catholic teaching material, and a HUGE inundation of various PROBLEMATIC works (Fr. Greeley, Fr. McBrien, etc.) Even if you were TRYING to follow your faith teaching, you had very little opportunity, depending on your location, of finding supportive FAMILY, supportive PRIESTS, supportive BOOKS, supportive GROUPS, etc. You were far more likely to find people encouraging you to ‘go outside the box’.
Six: Along with all the above, the sexual revolution encouraged the ideas of marriage and ‘womens’ liberation’ to be ‘liberating’ on ALL fronts. No longer bound to the ‘old’ ideals, women were encouraged to do all, and be all. Rather than looking to the one , so -called intolerant and bigoted idea of marrying ‘in the faith’, we were encouraged to explore our ‘whole identity’, to marry for ‘love’ and to trust that, since “God is love”, HE would be guiding us. Not some silly old church with its celibate men!!
Seven. . .eight, nine, etc.: Various other ‘reasons’ depending on individuals. Some married men who had said they would convert – then didn’t. Some went into marriage not realizing what marriage was truly all about. Some were deceived; some deceived others. There are thousands of reasons WHY a given man married a given woman --and vice versa.
Yea… I know what ya mean!
) but fell away once he was an adult. He bad-mouthed the Catholic Church, and so my husband does have some concerns (b/c of those faulty comments), but not enough to cause a problem with our daughter being raised Catholic. I pray that I can be the counter to my father-in-law’s damage, in showing my husband the wonderful truth of our Catholic Church.
**
**
**
And so blessed.