Getting married in the Cathollic church

 Two articles this week caught my attention.  As is well known, marriages in the church have plummeted in the last 25 years.  As a result, so have infant baptisms, and also adults received into the church via RCIA.  Since most converts become Catholic to please a spouse, this drop isn't anymore surprising than is the fall in the numbers of baptized infants.  In my reading during recent years, and because my children and their friends, and my Catholic friends' children, have married during this same time period, I have noted the trends.   The church has created a lot of hoops for young couples to get through before they will allow them to marry in the church. The costs of a church wedding have soared in some places, and the restrictions have tightened.

 I am personally aware of a number of Catholic couples who decided that they would go elsewhere, including to more welcoming Protestant churches.  Some marriage prep makes sense, but a lot of it doesn't.  From reading this article at NCRonline, it seems the situation has almost reached a ludicrous level of nonsense. I've never heard of witness affadavits before.  When did that start?  My middle son and his wife married in the church 10 years ago - the most recent Catholic wedding I've been to. They had to go through a lot of hoops, but not as bad as this. And a whole lot more hoops when they had their children baptized.

https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/marriage-prep-ministries-should-trust-engaged-couples

The years I was engaged brought the most change my family had experienced in at least a decade. Loss, job changes, moves, retirements, medical diagnoses: All this, and we weren't even married yet! 

But the straw that broke the camel's back came from an unlikely place: witness affidavit interviews. Witness affidavits are forms containing interview questions to be asked of two people who can attest to each partner's freedom and fitness to marry as well as their sacramental history. For some reason, my now-husband and I were told ours had to be completed in person (during the pandemic) by either our parents or godparents. For two people whose parents, godparents and friends are for the most part not local, not practicing, not present or not alive, this was exceedingly challenging. We had to schedule an extra trip across the country, scrounge up trustworthy witnesses and catechize them as to the reason for the interviews. Our paperwork was set back by months. 

What's worse, my husband not being Catholic led to rigorous questioning. My mother-in-law was asked multiple times to prove how she knew my husband and for how long —  "Well, I gave birth to him?" When it came time to discuss my husband's baptism, she attested to its Trinitarian form. She was again subjected to repeated questioning, as the deacon was suspicious of the authenticity of her testimony as merely a witness to the ceremony. My father-in-law, who performed the baptism, had died three years before our engagement. 

In the context of our family's many changes, this could all seem like a very small straw. Yet it highlighted a lack of trust and pastoral sensitivity that nearly ruined our sense of belonging.

Then there is the issue of where couples wish to exchange vows.  Many prefer non-church  sites, often outdoors.  But that has always been a No-No, for no discernibly valid reasons.  This is important also because since at least half of all Catholics now marry someone who isn't Catholic, the church has (unwisely) decided that there should be no eucharist during the wedding ceremony, even in a church.  They seem to be going overboard to push young couples as far away from the church as they can.

But it seems Baltimore (Baltimore!   Lori!!) might be wising up a bit as far as where people have their marriage ceremony.  I know that Jim is not a fan of non-church weddings, especially outdoor weddings. But apparently loosening that restriction is helping to slow the exodus of young couples in Baltimore at least a tiny bit, keeping a connection, even if hanging by a slim thread. 

 https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/05/02/outdoor-catholic-wedding-245195

In 2018, the Archdiocese of Baltimore announced that it would launch a three-year trial period that permitted Catholics who wished to hold a wedding ceremony outdoors or in secular spaces to keep their special day sacred. Previously, like in most U.S. dioceses, Catholic weddings in Baltimore could usually only take place in churches and chapels. With changing attitudes toward religion, and the popularity of outdoor ceremonies growing, that meant fewer Catholic weddings.

The Rev. Steven Hook was one of a handful of priests in the archdiocese who initially pushed for the change. He told America that he had noticed the increasing numbers of young couples, even some with strong connections to the church, choosing to get married outside the institution.

“The younger generation is disenfranchised, or disconnected,” Father Hook said.

Weddings historically had served as an opportunity to “evangelize and re-engage” young couples, he added, but that chance was being lost when brides and grooms bypassed the church altogether when planning their ceremony.

Father Hook said he had heard of couples who were not opposed to a Catholic wedding but who preferred to exchange vows outdoors, perhaps along the nearby Chesapeake Bay, at a beloved family home or even in the same venue that would host the reception. He felt the church was losing an opportunity to engage with these couples.

“They never even called the church to inquire,” he noticed.

Data backed up Father Hook’s observations.

 More than 425,000 couples married in the church in 1969. By 2014, even though the population of Catholics had increased significantly, that number was down to about 148,000. During the first year of the pandemic, it fell further, to under 100,000.