I’m glad I’m not a parish priest! I think they are in a no-win situation with many marriage candidates these days (not to mention baptisms)
When DH and I did our pre-marriage course, which was a requirement for getting married in our Deanery, we were in a minority as we did not cohabit, or use ABC. Around our table, other couples discussed how their Parish Priests had advised them about cohabitation and ABC and they laughed about it and said how ‘in this day and age’ it just isn’t a big deal.
Many couples, after being married for some time, mature emotionally and spiritually and begin to seek answers through their faith, so one could argue that they ought to be able to receive the sacrament of marriage, even if they don’t really appreciate what they are getting at the time (a bit like a baby being baptised) in the hope that it will act like a catalyst to bringing them a deeper faith.
On the other hand, none of these couples could complain that they were not aware that cohabitation (as in living as man and wife, not just house-sharing) is a grave sin, because they had all come to the course via their Parish Priest and were recounting what they had been told and just refused to believe.
There is a knock-on problem with baptism. My brother married a non-Catholic whose reason for saying ‘yes’ was, “I thought it was safe to marry a Catholic as they take marriage seriously so he’d be more likely to stick around”
She went through all the pre-marriage instruction and said her vows. She allows their child to attend Mass but does not come herself and has in the past few years, just when their child had started getting to the age where his peers have started to not attend, she’s started to tell him Catholics have silly rules; they are hypocrites obsessed with keeping up appearances and that there is no real point to attending Mass. In fact, she’s advised him that her childhood faith is much better - even though she doesn’t practice that either.
At his Christening, she chose a non-Catholic Godmother which the PP allowed, so there’s no spiritual dimension there either.
Most recently, he’s explained to the rest of the family that the Real Presence is a myth and the bread and wine remain as they are and are just symbols. This came from his Catholic school, because they don’t want to alienate the non-Catholic pupils!
I hate to use the term ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ but aren’t we just brewing up a whole Cafeteria full of them by being so lax at every vital stage of a young person’s life? It’s sad that converts or former lapsed Catholics are so full of zeal and enthusiasm for a faith that has clear moral guidance and rules…and yet we seem afraid to share that same faith with people already in the fold.
