This is what I "missed" when I was Mormon for 8 months... Holy Week and weddings

[utah_rose]

Could your children get out of school to attend the service?

I’m a señor and don’t have school age kids, but a neighboring district gave the kids off on Good Fridsy. I imagine though a lot of kids didn’t attend anyway, both for religious reasons and for outdoor activities. They once scheduled a prom for Good Friday and the bishop had to intervene, so they changed it,

 

[zaffiroborant]

To invite someone to a reception but not to a wedding would not make Miss Manners happy!

I don’t know about that, I doubt Miss Manners would approve of inviting people to a wedding they were excluded from, leaving them outside the wedding but available after for pictures.

 

[zaffiroborant]

I am sorry for the pain and discomfort that resulted from this. I truly am. I wish I knew a perfect solution (and truth be told, I wish the Pope and the Prophet would do what the Pope and the Patriarch have never succeeded at, but …). At our temple, there is an indoor waiting area, but I expect this is not universal. Many temples have a visitor center (ours doesn’t), but I know that is not universal.

It is precisely my position that the witnesses are not just “witnesses,” but are in fact participant who must be part of the faith community just as much as the Catholic priest must be part of the Catholic faith community (AND also ordained) to be involved in the marriage ceremony. The Catholic who is married (without a special dispensation from the Bishop) by a non-Catholic is not sacramentally married. The LDS should be sealed by a sealer and with witnesses who are in the faith community.
It IMO is critical for LDS and Catholics to recognize that marriage is not something two people do, but a covenantal relationship that includes God. To make changes in the LDS sealing procedures to the extent that it decreases the clarity of this truth (within a society that is RADICALLY decreasing this aspect of marriage) seems potentially unwise to me.
But, I see the perspective you offer and I have always been moved by this, just not to the point of advocating a change.
Charity, TOm

There seems to be no trouble in countries that don’t allow the LDS church to legally perform weddings. They have the wedding and later have the sealing, everyone gets to see the wedding if they want and the sealing is kept closed. But the LDS church doesn’t allow that in the US why?

 

[RebeccaJ]

I don’t know about that, I doubt Miss Manners would approve of inviting people to a wedding they were excluded from, leaving them outside the wedding but available after for pictures.

When I say to a wedding, I mean the wedding, not the sidewalk outside the building where the wedding is taking place.

 

[TOmNossor]

There seems to be no trouble in countries that don’t allow the LDS church to legally perform weddings. They have the wedding and later have the sealing, everyone gets to see the wedding if they want and the sealing is kept closed. But the LDS church doesn’t allow that in the US why?

I do not know. I have in the past been a proponent of aligning the US with such countries, but it is the devaluing of marriage in our culture (both US and worldwide) that results in my uncertainty about this course now.
Charity, TOm

 

[Miriam1947]

.

It is precisely my position that the witnesses are not just “witnesses,” but are in fact participant who must be part of the faith community just as much as the Catholic priest must be part of the Catholic faith community (AND also ordained) to be involved in the marriage ceremony. The Catholic who is married (without a special dispensation from the Bishop) by a non-Catholic is not sacramentally married. The LDS should be sealed by a sealer and with witnesses who are in the faith community.
It IMO is critical for LDS and Catholics to recognize that marriage is not something two people do, but a covenantal relationship that includes God. To make changes in the LDS sealing procedures to the extent that it decreases the clarity of this truth (within a society that is RADICALLY decreasing this aspect of marriage) seems potentially unwise to me.
But, I see the perspective you offer and I have always been moved by this, just not to the point of advocating a change.

Charity, TOm

But the Mormon couple covenant with the LDS church unlike the Catholic who covenant with each other. All are welcome to witness the marriage in the CC and do not need to be “temple worthy” as LDS insists and so separates families even though they say they’re so “family friendly”

 

[zaffiroborant]

I do not know. I have in the past been a proponent of aligning the US with such countries, but it is the devaluing of marriage in our culture (both US and worldwide) that results in my uncertainty about this course now.
Charity, TOm

So somehow the LDS in Europe and other countries that require a public civil wedding are deficient, and their commitment means less than those lucky US citizens who have a plus 10 for marriage?
Much better to continue a cruel practice.

 

[TOmNossor]

But the Mormon couple covenant with the LDS church unlike the Catholic who covenant with each other. All are welcome to witness the marriage in the CC and do not need to be “temple worthy” as LDS insists and so separates families even though they say they’re so “family friendly”

No, I did not say that. Perhaps you mean from your perspective the corollary of:
“Since Catholicism is not truly God’s Church, the requirement that Godparents be Catholic or that the Priest who performs a marriage ceremony is Catholic, is evidence that baptism and marriage are covenants with the Roman Catholic Church and not God.”
I specifically said:

It IMO is critical for LDS and Catholics to recognize that marriage is not something two people do, but a covenantal relationship that includes God. To make changes in the LDS sealing procedures to the extent that it decreases the clarity of this truth (within a society that is RADICALLY decreasing this aspect of marriage) seems potentially unwise to me.

I am not sure how you decided that LDS married couples “covenant with the LDS church.” Perhaps you recognize or anticipate that the sealing ceremony is about welding together the entire family of God. That the LDS vision involves you and I sealed as 23rd cousins (or whatever cousins we happen to be). So in addition to the marital covenant between husband/wife/God the sealing ceremony created familial linkages forward and backward through all generations. Still, that does not mean the covenant is between couple and church rather than couple and God!!!
BTW, I think the idea of Godparents is even easier to align with the LDS practice as I see it. I believe Catholic Answers would very clearly teach that Godparents MUST be faithful practicing Catholics (and my Parish priest would be fine with anyone being a Godparent, btw). Godparents are not ordained or somehow blessed to be Godparents, but they must be faithful Catholics. LDS witnesses to the sealing ceremony are actually endowed and faithful (not just faithful). The main difference is that the responsibility of the Godparent is more clearly defined than that of the LDS witness.
Charity, TOm

 

[Stephen168]

… Godparents…Godparents … Godparents … Godparent… Godparents … Godparents… Godparent …

Godparents are not required at a Catholic wedding. While the community is welcome to observe, a Christian wedding is a coventant between the two people getting married. The wedding can be observed by all members of the community regardless of religion. It is truly a family affair.

 

[TOmNossor]

So somehow the LDS in Europe and other countries that require a public civil wedding are deficient, and their commitment means less than those lucky US citizens who have a plus 10 for marriage?
Much better to continue a cruel practice.

No, the United States gets a +10 for religious freedom.
I am too tired to do the research necessary to place this in Catholic terms so it would cease to be only a stick to beat on the CoJCoLDS. But, I invite you to think about such things.
I will vote for Catholic rights that exist because the US gets a +10 for religious freedom while you disparage the practice of my church and call it “cruel.”
Charity, TOm

 

[Stephen168]

I am too tired to do the research necessary to place this in Catholic terms so it would cease to be only a stick to beat on the CoJCoLDS.

Finding a stick to beat the Catholic Church with does not make anything cease to be “a stick to beat on the” Mormon Church with. It is the “tu quoque” fallacy you use in most of your posts.
It is refreshing to see you explain Mormonism without such silliness.

So somehow the LDS in Europe and other countries that require a public civil wedding are deficient, and their commitment means less than those lucky US citizens who have a plus 10 for marriage?

Much better to continue a cruel practice.

 

[Miriam1947]

No, I did not say that. Perhaps you mean from your perspective the corollary of:
“Since Catholicism is not truly God’s Church, the requirement that Godparents be Catholic or that the Priest who performs a marriage ceremony is Catholic, is evidence that baptism and marriage are covenants with the Roman Catholic Church and not God.”
I specifically said:

I am not sure how you decided that LDS married couples “covenant with the LDS church.” Perhaps you recognize or anticipate that the sealing ceremony is about welding together the entire family of God. That the LDS vision involves you and I sealed as 23rd cousins (or whatever cousins we happen to be). So in addition to the marital covenant between husband/wife/God the sealing ceremony created familial linkages forward and backward through all generations. Still, that does not mean the covenant is between couple and church rather than couple and God!!!
BTW, I think the idea of Godparents is even easier to align with the LDS practice as I see it. I believe Catholic Answers would very clearly teach that Godparents MUST be faithful practicing Catholics (and my Parish priest would be fine with anyone being a Godparent, btw). Godparents are not ordained or somehow blessed to be Godparents, but they must be faithful Catholics. LDS witnesses to the sealing ceremony are actually endowed and faithful (not just faithful). The main difference is that the responsibility of the Godparent is more clearly defined than that of the LDS witness.
Charity, TOm

But if I don’t pay tithing then I don’t have the full blessings and therefore no Ck. Pay up or else.

 

[zaffiroborant]

No, the United States gets a +10 for religious freedom.
I am too tired to do the research necessary to place this in Catholic terms so it would cease to be only a stick to beat on the CoJCoLDS. But, I invite you to think about such things.
I will vote for Catholic rights that exist because the US gets a +10 for religious freedom while you disparage the practice of my church and call it “cruel.”
Charity, TOm

It has nothing to do with religious freedom. Both the Catholic church and the LDS church could quit participating in civil weddings and celebrate the sacrament of marriage or the sealing after a couple has obtained a civil marriage. Neither church would be hampered in the practice of their faith.

I call it cruel because that’s how non-member have described feeling after being excluded from the wedding of their children and grandchildren. Having it rubbed in their faces by the invitation to stand out side while the mother, father, grandparents and various other family members of the member blithely step inside to be included just adds to the hurt they experience. Since it is not required in the LDS church that the sealing ceremony be civilly binding the burden on US and Canadian non-member families is unnecessary. Willfully inflicting unnecessary pain on people is cruel.