Pre-Cana Class Rant

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mandajane

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I am at a loss for words. Today my FH and I took our all day pre-cana class and I am flabbergasted by the amount of misinformation and reinforcement of horrible catechization that went on.

This class was listed as being for “non co-habitating couples”. My FH and I were the only couple there that were not co-habitating. Whatever, no real big deal in my opinion. We all need a pre-cana class requirement. So most of it was basic stuff we expected, until they got to the co-habitation, pre-marital sex, and NFP portion. I’m just going to list off the things that shocked me.

Cohabitation:
-The class was told that the church didn’t like it if you co-habitated, but you do what you have to do.
-They spent a lot of time recommending ways to make co-habitating more like living apart (seperate bedrooms, do something different to denote the change when you’re married, etc)

Pre-Marital Sex
-This entire section was passed off as a joke. The male pre-cana instructor said “The Church frowns on pre-marital sex, but…” then he laughed, and half the room laughed too.

NFP
-The female pre-cana instructor spent 20 minutes trying to explain the Sympto-Thermal Method, the whole time referring to it as “the Rhythm Method” and the hand out she gave us was about the Billings Method.
-English was not her first language, so I get how she might be confused, but I feel like this is something that should have been like… 1000% clear.
-She then said “It’s against Church teaching to use birth control, but you do what you have to do to make sure you decide how many children you have and when. The Church understands.”

I was flabbergasted. They spent more time on fun little “getting to know you” games, than they did on anything of substance. How can we be surprised when people don’t follow Church teaching if, even in the PRE-CANA CLASS, they are not being given correct information. It was clear a lot of these couples were very poorly catechized. Quite a few at my table were saying how they were only having a Catholic wedding because mom/grandma wanted one, and they didn’t believe in this stuff. (insert laugh from rest of the table while FH and I look on in shock)

I don’t know what to do. On the feedback form I wrote about the inaccuracies that were presented, but the pre-cana coordinators collected them, and apparently take them home, so who knows if anyone in charge of the program will hear anything.
 
mandajane said:
I am at a loss for words. Today my FH and I took our all day pre-cana class and I am flabbergasted by the amount of misinformation and reinforcement of horrible catechization that went on.

This class was listed as being for “non co-habitating couples”. My FH and I were the only couple there that were not co-habitating. Whatever, no real big deal in my opinion. We all need a pre-cana class requirement. So most of it was basic stuff we expected, until they got to the co-habitation, pre-marital sex, and NFP portion. I’m just going to list off the things that shocked me.

Cohabitation:
-The class was told that the church didn’t like it if you co-habitated, but you do what you have to do.
-They spent a lot of time recommending ways to make co-habitating more like living apart (seperate bedrooms, do something different to denote the change when you’re married, etc)

Pre-Marital Sex
-This entire section was passed off as a joke. The male pre-cana instructor said “The Church frowns on pre-marital sex, but…” then he laughed, and half the room laughed too.

NFP
-The female pre-cana instructor spent 20 minutes trying to explain the Sympto-Thermal Method, the whole time referring to it as “the Rhythm Method” and the hand out she gave us was about the Billings Method.
-English was not her first language, so I get how she might be confused, but I feel like this is something that should have been like… 1000% clear.
-She then said “It’s against Church teaching to use birth control, but you do what you have to do to make sure you decide how many children you have and when. The Church understands.”

I was flabbergasted. They spent more time on fun little “getting to know you” games, than they did on anything of substance. How can we be surprised when people don’t follow Church teaching if, even in the PRE-CANA CLASS, they are not being given correct information. It was clear a lot of these couples were very poorly catechized. Quite a few at my table were saying how they were only having a Catholic wedding because mom/grandma wanted one, and they didn’t believe in this stuff. (insert laugh from rest of the table while FH and I look on in shock)

I don’t know what to do. On the feedback form I wrote about the inaccuracies that were presented, but the pre-cana coordinators collected them, and apparently take them home, so who knows if anyone in charge of the program will hear anything.
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I would discuss it with your pastor and the Bishop.
 
Definitely talk to your priest. I think I’ve written volumes about how bad our pre-Cana was. Our half-day session was cut by another half due to presenters not showing up. This included the NFP instructor. We were told that artificial birth control was okay in the eyes of the Church, but if we had problems with it there was this thing called NFP we could read up on, and we were given a pamphlet to reference. We were told that anything that goes on behind closed doors between a married couple is A-OK, however many kids we had was up to us, and if we wanted to avoid having them, that was fine, too. There was virtually nothing of substance and when we went back to the priest to review everything, he said he couldn’t determine if we were a good match since half our workbooks were blank and he’d only met with us for about 15 minutes prior to that. He finally said, “Do what you want to do,” and said he wouldn’t stand in the way. I couldn’t tell you the priest’s name if you held a gun to my head, and I suspect he wouldn’t have been too concerned about the inadequacies of our class. It didn’t bother me at the time, but it’s not something I’d put up with now.
 
Absolutely mention the flippant manner that pre-marital sex was discussed to the bishop…
 
My wife and I really enjoyed our pre-cana weekend retreat in my home parish. The speakers were very dedicated, educated, and helpful. I’m sorry that you had a bad experience. I would certainly second (or third, whatever) the decision to talk with your bishop about these issues.
 
My husband and I did Pre-Cana in our group, but it was never like that. I would call the parish and ask for the priest that oversees the pre-Cana team. This is pool evangelization at best.
 
I agree: talk to the bishop. Then go and find a traditional group Latin Mass group and enjoy being around Catholics again. God bless you both.
 
Our deanery doesn’t call it pre-Cana, so I’m not sure if it’s the same program, but we didn’t even get a mention of NFP or birth control at ours. They didn’t address cohabitation or knocking off the premarital if you were having it. What they talked about was, “Who will pay the bills? What is one thing that bugs you about your future spouse?” It was a complete waste of time.

In many areas, we simply cannot count on these classes to offer more than a rubber stamp on a paper.
 
JackieMom said:
Our deanery doesn’t call it pre-Cana, so I’m not sure if it’s the same program, but we didn’t even get a mention of NFP or birth control at ours. They didn’t address cohabitation or knocking off the premarital if you were having it. What they talked about was, “Who will pay the bills? What is one thing that bugs you about your future spouse?” It was a complete waste of time.

In many areas, we simply cannot count on these classes to offer more than a rubber stamp on a paper.
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At my church, there is a six page test that you both take that shows your areas of agreement, disagreement, and willingness to negotiate; it is a good objective tool and it brings up real questions that need to be addressed.

I am sorry that some churches have been so neglectful.
 
Auntie_A said:
At my church, there is a six page test that you both take that shows your areas of agreement, disagreement, and willingness to negotiate; it is a good objective tool and it brings up real questions that need to be addressed.

I am sorry that some churches have been so neglectful.
Click to expand...
We did that too, but not at the engaged encounter. That was done via the deacon who married us.
 
Auntie_A said:
I agree: talk to the bishop. Then go and find a traditional group Latin Mass group and enjoy being around Catholics again. God bless you both.
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Sorry, but Catholics also attend the Ordinary Form.
 
I would definitely discuss with my pastor. And, assuming the class was not only for your parish, also with the bishop. He needs to know about this asap.
mandajane said:
I am at a loss for words. Today my FH and I took our all day pre-cana class and I am flabbergasted by the amount of misinformation and reinforcement of horrible catechization that went on.

This class was listed as being for “non co-habitating couples”. My FH and I were the only couple there that were not co-habitating. Whatever, no real big deal in my opinion. We all need a pre-cana class requirement. So most of it was basic stuff we expected, until they got to the co-habitation, pre-marital sex, and NFP portion. I’m just going to list off the things that shocked me.

Cohabitation:
-The class was told that the church didn’t like it if you co-habitated, but you do what you have to do.
-They spent a lot of time recommending ways to make co-habitating more like living apart (seperate bedrooms, do something different to denote the change when you’re married, etc)

Pre-Marital Sex
-This entire section was passed off as a joke. The male pre-cana instructor said “The Church frowns on pre-marital sex, but…” then he laughed, and half the room laughed too.

NFP
-The female pre-cana instructor spent 20 minutes trying to explain the Sympto-Thermal Method, the whole time referring to it as “the Rhythm Method” and the hand out she gave us was about the Billings Method.
-English was not her first language, so I get how she might be confused, but I feel like this is something that should have been like… 1000% clear.
-She then said “It’s against Church teaching to use birth control, but you do what you have to do to make sure you decide how many children you have and when. The Church understands.”

I was flabbergasted. They spent more time on fun little “getting to know you” games, than they did on anything of substance. How can we be surprised when people don’t follow Church teaching if, even in the PRE-CANA CLASS, they are not being given correct information. It was clear a lot of these couples were very poorly catechized. Quite a few at my table were saying how they were only having a Catholic wedding because mom/grandma wanted one, and they didn’t believe in this stuff. (insert laugh from rest of the table while FH and I look on in shock)

I don’t know what to do. On the feedback form I wrote about the inaccuracies that were presented, but the pre-cana coordinators collected them, and apparently take them home, so who knows if anyone in charge of the program will hear anything.
Click to expand...
 
Ours was similar. 11 years ago. There were 11 couples We were the only Catholic/Catholic couple. We were the only couple not cohabitating, we were the only couple interested in NFP. We were the only couple that did not meet while fall down drunk.😃
The only thing I liked about our program was that it was at a different families house each week so you got to see different aspects of marriage. Each week was a different topic. Finances, communication, parenting, NFP, etc.
The best week was the communication couple that hosted. The worst by far was the finance week. Nothing like a couple of millionaires telling you to save 40 percent of your income for retirement! Of course they had their 2 kids that they sent to private school and stated in the class that a married couple should not have more kids than you can pay for college for.
The NFP class was not informative and got some stuff wrong but it was the most “real” of all the classes. 4 rug rats running around!

Out of the 11 couples. 1 couple had one person convert and they have 4 kids. 5 couples divorced, the rest I never saw again.
Of the 5 divorced couples only one of the marriages produced a child. (I don’t know if that is a blessing or a curse)
 
Years ago, we were involved in a “sponsor couple” program that our parish added to the diocese pre-Cana requirement.

During one of the meetings for the married sponsor couples, one of the older couples started a discussion about how to talk to the engaged couples about “getting around” the no artificial birth control requirement. If I had been older, I would have confronted the couple. As it was, I was just simply shocked.

That is one of the biggest problems in the Church today - anti-Catholic guerrillas in positions of teaching or authority who undermine the Church’s teaching every chance they get. Well, there is a millstone around their necks for that, but it needs to be rectified. These loyalty oaths that people seem to be so against are a good start.
 
Auntie_A said:
At my church, there is a six page test that you both take that shows your areas of agreement, disagreement, and willingness to negotiate; it is a good objective tool and it brings up real questions that need to be addressed.

I am sorry that some churches have been so neglectful.
Click to expand...
We took a similar test and thought it was hilarious. The deacon joked that if we did not get a 75 percent we would not be married. I spelled my wife’s name wrong and had no idea when her birthday was or how long we had been dating.:eek: Probably would have scored better on the test with any one of the other 11 girls in our pre cana classes.;)😃
 
I would speak with the pastor. As much as people here apparently love to run to the Bishop every time someone does anything, there’s a reason we have pastors.
We left an NFP class after one meeting because the teacher was anti-Catholic, but otherwise our marriage prep was fantastic. We met one on one with a married couple who were both devout, and had been doing it for 11 years. We were the first non cohabiting couple they had experienced, and were thankful to not have to try to convince us it was a bad decision.
The benefit was that we met at their house, got to know the family, experienced their 5 kids and got to really know them as mentors and friends, which helped us REALLY talk about challenges. I’m sorry not everyone gets that.

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You can speak to your priest and find out who is in charge of the program for your diocese. Here NFP is a separate class and in pre-Cana they talk about being open to life without giving specific methods.

Maybe you and your husband should consider helping with the program. I am sure he office of family life (or whatever it is called in your diocese) would welcome you!
 
My Pre Canna experience was similar. There were 50 couples so no one got any one-on-one time with the deacon who ran it. (The priest was out of town that weekend.) At least you got some instruction on NFP. All we got was a flyer handed out. That was the extent of that.
We were told that co-habitation was discouraged, but that the Church would not refuse to marry you if you were. One of the first things they said was “Look around. Statistically, 50% of you here will end up being divorced.” It was very disheartening.
 
As a cradle Catholic who has discovered how poorly catechized I was even after 16 years of Catholic schooling I would like to urge you to take action. But, I would begin with the instructor(s) that presented the information that you felt was inaccurate. When I do or say something wrong I would appreciate having the opportunity to correct it myself. Your evaluations may have made the point but speaking with the individuals in person will let you make sure that they understand your concerns. After that, if you feel that you are still concerned that the information that is vital to a Catholic marriage is being presented in error, talk to the pastor. In my life the lack of proper formation has caused me to do many things wrong in my 40 year marriage. Eventually, if these people stay married and remain Catholic or attempt to be Catholic the correct Truths of our faith will become clear to them and they will see the error of their choices. Better to know it right the first time.
 
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