It is honestly difficult to image a more effective way to push lukewarm Catholics away from marrying in the Church while outright antagonizing devout Catholics. It is sometimes necessary to wait more than a year to marry for various reasons, but indiscriminately forcing couples to wait so long is just obnoxious.
It is honestly difficult to image a more effective way to push lukewarm Catholics away from marrying in the Church while outright antagonizing devout Catholics. It is sometimes necessary to wait more than a year to marry for various reasons, but indiscriminately forcing couples to wait so long is just obnoxious.
If some "devout" Catholics are going to be antagonized because they have to go through additional preparation to receive a sacrament which is so often received invalidly, I would question their devotion.
I think there's a reasonable worry being expressed here that the preparation on offer, because it would have to serve the full spectrum of couples seeking marriage in the church, would in fact serve almost nobody particularly well. The lukewarm Catholics would have to sit through a year of (possibly) earnest discussion of doctrines that they have no intention of living by, while many of the devout would have to spend a year hearing doctrines they know well (and fully acceded to when they decided to wed) taught in an introductory, perhaps frustratingly apologetic way. I'm with Stenny. It's hard to see a way to practically implement any sort of enhanced marriage prep (especially if it involves an inflexible long wait) without antagonizing nearly every hypothetical participant.
I don't think the intention is to "serve" those who do not have the proper disposition for marriage because they do not believe or want to live Catholic teaching with regards to marriage. Those people should not be attempting to marry anyway without a change in their understanding, so it is of no moment if that puts some off.
As to concerns about being inflexible, I think deciding that before reading the document would be rash.
I am in full agreement with your first paragraph, and I can only hope that those implementing the marriage catechumenate on a parish level would agree as well. And perhaps the implementation need not be inflexible (and perhaps the document will become available in English), but the translated sections in this article do seem to all but call for a longer time of preparation becoming the norm. Now, centralized decision-making has become a hallmark of this papacy, but perhaps that time period could still be dispensed with on a flexible basis responsive to the circumstances of individual couples.
As devil's advocate, I will argue that some hypothetical participants actually *should* be antagonized, and that (on grounds of human dignity) the enhanced marriage prep should begin with a lecture on relationship red flags and how to know that you should break up and move out and pursue individual therapy for some length of time (so that you do not immediately repeat the same error simply because it is how you are used to being treated) before dating again.
I was and am a devout Catholic, and I married a now converted Baptist. If I had suggested a years long catechumenate, I would not be validly married now.
It is honestly difficult to image a more effective way to push lukewarm Catholics away from marrying in the Church while outright antagonizing devout Catholics. It is sometimes necessary to wait more than a year to marry for various reasons, but indiscriminately forcing couples to wait so long is just obnoxious.
If some "devout" Catholics are going to be antagonized because they have to go through additional preparation to receive a sacrament which is so often received invalidly, I would question their devotion.
I think there's a reasonable worry being expressed here that the preparation on offer, because it would have to serve the full spectrum of couples seeking marriage in the church, would in fact serve almost nobody particularly well. The lukewarm Catholics would have to sit through a year of (possibly) earnest discussion of doctrines that they have no intention of living by, while many of the devout would have to spend a year hearing doctrines they know well (and fully acceded to when they decided to wed) taught in an introductory, perhaps frustratingly apologetic way. I'm with Stenny. It's hard to see a way to practically implement any sort of enhanced marriage prep (especially if it involves an inflexible long wait) without antagonizing nearly every hypothetical participant.
I don't think the intention is to "serve" those who do not have the proper disposition for marriage because they do not believe or want to live Catholic teaching with regards to marriage. Those people should not be attempting to marry anyway without a change in their understanding, so it is of no moment if that puts some off.
As to concerns about being inflexible, I think deciding that before reading the document would be rash.
I am in full agreement with your first paragraph, and I can only hope that those implementing the marriage catechumenate on a parish level would agree as well. And perhaps the implementation need not be inflexible (and perhaps the document will become available in English), but the translated sections in this article do seem to all but call for a longer time of preparation becoming the norm. Now, centralized decision-making has become a hallmark of this papacy, but perhaps that time period could still be dispensed with on a flexible basis responsive to the circumstances of individual couples.
As devil's advocate, I will argue that some hypothetical participants actually *should* be antagonized, and that (on grounds of human dignity) the enhanced marriage prep should begin with a lecture on relationship red flags and how to know that you should break up and move out and pursue individual therapy for some length of time (so that you do not immediately repeat the same error simply because it is how you are used to being treated) before dating again.
I wouldn't.
I was and am a devout Catholic, and I married a now converted Baptist. If I had suggested a years long catechumenate, I would not be validly married now.