Preparing Millenials For Marriage

[Maximilan_Kolbe]

I understand some of what you mean, but you have to see the spot the Church is in. It is no longer possible to assume that Catholics approaching the Church to marry have been catechized concerning the Church’s teachings and what it is that they are taking on. Marriage preparation has to cover a lot of ground that used to be assumed was common knowledge, knowledge commonly accepted to be the truth. Even among Catholics, however, the teachings of the Church are not common knowledge.

You’d like to think marriage preparation could presume basic catechesis and concentrate instead on making certain the couples have properly considered their particular relationship and whether or not they are properly disposed to receive the sacrament and prepared (as much as it is possible) for the trials of marriage. There are unfortunately and unavoidably other fish that need to be fried, too.

You have also put your finger on another problem, however: the need for professionals to guide this process and the practical necessity to use volunteers. Volunteers can be the best and most selfless instructors possible, but other times you get what you pay for. Sometimes, you pay nothing in money but have to endure someone else’s private gospel-according-to-Jane-and-Joe-Catholic. The truth is that most couples can’t afford to pay for what these days call for. Even if they could, there is a limit to the expense the Church can attach to preparing for the sacraments.

You’re not going to get much sympathy here on one count, though. No one here at Catholic Answers is going to give other Catholics a pass on knowing *and fully intending to live *the faith as the Church teaches it. Once someone has approached the Church for the sacrament of marriage, it is by no means “indoctrination” to go over all the relevant Church teachings with regard to marriage and to expect that all who want to be married in the Church will accept those truths as truths and not as guidelines. That is required in order to make certain the couple is properly disposed for the sacrament.

Someone who resents hearing the teachings of the Church prior to the marriage already has one foot out the door. Enlarging the building to include property foreign to the thinking of the Church is not an acceptable solution to that. But yes: There are better and worse ways to approach that increasingly common problem. “This way or the highway” presentations are not one of the better ways, let’s just say that.

There is also a reason the Church teaches the need for being “equally yoked.” This includes their faith (ideally Catholic), but includes much more.

When we begin by saying Pre-Cana doesn’t address the needs ot mixed-faith couples, we are already going down thw wrong path. Mixed faith and non-practicing Catholic couples are a reality, but not the ideal. Ideally, the Church would see every person on earth a faithful Catholic. Thus, one can imagine the Church’s desire to see a Catholic marry another Catholic, and to embrace their faith.

When non-Catholics or disinterested Catholics approach Pre-Cana classes, it is likely too late. One cannot do in a few weeks what has taken many of us 20-30 years of effort and education to accomplish. I believe the problem is indifferent Catholics, or Catholics marrying outside their faith (which, while tolerable presuming the appropriate dispensations and the like), because that is not the ideal the Church strives for. The problem is a general lack of catechsis for the last forty or so years, where a generation or more has been lost, and that isn’t something Pre-Cana can magically fix.