C
CapeWind
Guest
I am a practicing Catholic coming from a family deeply involved in the Church. My uncle is a Franciscan Novice Master, my aunt is an Augustanian nun. My mother has served several terms on our parish pastoral council as well as on the governing board of the Catholic school affiliated to our parish. I am 34, I have spent the better part of my youth building a solid professional career. This has seen me living in nine different cities (on three different continents) over the past sixteen years. I have followed Catholic teaching that the only purpose of dating (or to use the more appropriate term courtship) is to find a wife and other than that all other women are to be treated as sisters in all holiness.
I am now at a point in my life where I am prepared to answer God’s call to marriage and am looking around and finding that the pool of available women is uninviting. I should pick someone from the faith and I may not become involved with someone who is divorced. The problem is that the Catholic Church is so desperate to keep young people in its seats that there is very little teaching about courtship that happens and all the young people in my parish are dating, from as early as sixteen. The Catechism teaches that we should not set out looking for girlfriends/boyfriends but when we are ready for the responsibilities of marriage should court with the purpose of finding a partner, but how many Catholic young people follow this teaching today? [In my present parish we have a young man (27) who is in charge of faith-sharing groups and an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist who has a “girlfriend” who has been baptized in another Christian church (although is not actively practicing any faith) with whom, he has privately told me, he is sexually active and because of that uses condoms and has no intention of marriage right now because he is still building his career]. I mention this example only to show the kind of behavior that is considered normative by young Catholics.
If this is normative, where do I, never having had a “girlfriend” and waiting for marriage, fit? The moral scandals that have affected the Catholic Church seem to prevent it from teaching its own principles because these may seem heavy or rigid to people it desperately wants to keep in the flock. I haven’t heard a minister preach about sin directly in a very long while! The message is always delivered in such a “user-friendly” manner that: we should put other people before ourselves; we should help those less fortunate; we must forgive (a “social gospel” if you like) that very little attention is given to helping people understand that their actions have consequences. So the young Catholic thinks he can start dating when he is in high school, have a series of monogamous sexual relationships during college, decide on “the one”, receive the sacrament of reconciliation for not following church teaching and then have a nuptial mass, even if “the one” is not Catholic herself…and all this with the full knowledge of his parish priest. So yes I can agree with the view that Catholic teaching has destroyed my dating life and has now placed me in a very awkward position. Actually I am also beginning to wonder if I need to broaden my search to other countries. **
I am now at a point in my life where I am prepared to answer God’s call to marriage and am looking around and finding that the pool of available women is uninviting. I should pick someone from the faith and I may not become involved with someone who is divorced. The problem is that the Catholic Church is so desperate to keep young people in its seats that there is very little teaching about courtship that happens and all the young people in my parish are dating, from as early as sixteen. The Catechism teaches that we should not set out looking for girlfriends/boyfriends but when we are ready for the responsibilities of marriage should court with the purpose of finding a partner, but how many Catholic young people follow this teaching today? [In my present parish we have a young man (27) who is in charge of faith-sharing groups and an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist who has a “girlfriend” who has been baptized in another Christian church (although is not actively practicing any faith) with whom, he has privately told me, he is sexually active and because of that uses condoms and has no intention of marriage right now because he is still building his career]. I mention this example only to show the kind of behavior that is considered normative by young Catholics.
If this is normative, where do I, never having had a “girlfriend” and waiting for marriage, fit? The moral scandals that have affected the Catholic Church seem to prevent it from teaching its own principles because these may seem heavy or rigid to people it desperately wants to keep in the flock. I haven’t heard a minister preach about sin directly in a very long while! The message is always delivered in such a “user-friendly” manner that: we should put other people before ourselves; we should help those less fortunate; we must forgive (a “social gospel” if you like) that very little attention is given to helping people understand that their actions have consequences. So the young Catholic thinks he can start dating when he is in high school, have a series of monogamous sexual relationships during college, decide on “the one”, receive the sacrament of reconciliation for not following church teaching and then have a nuptial mass, even if “the one” is not Catholic herself…and all this with the full knowledge of his parish priest. So yes I can agree with the view that Catholic teaching has destroyed my dating life and has now placed me in a very awkward position. Actually I am also beginning to wonder if I need to broaden my search to other countries. **
). Michael Moore has some pretty obtuse and stupid things to say… but not always, some of the stuff he says is right on target, maybe those are the only things she has heard him say… did you ask? I assume not.
), I thought, “He’s totally married now, with at least a kid or two…” You poor guy, for some strange reason, this thread just won’t die! (Maybe a mod can close it for you? 
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