It May Take the Entire Church to Save a Catholic Marriage

“The Road to Family Missionary Discipleship”
Ryan and Mary Rose Verret with Peter Jesserer Smith, Witness to Love (2023)
203 pages, $19.95.

“Current efforts at standard (Catholic) marriage preparation are not working,” write Ryan and Mary-Rose Verret in The Road to Missionary Discipleship: Forming Marriages and Families to Share the Joy of the Gospel.

It’s hard to imagine anyone disagreeing.

Over the past decade, my husband and I have attended nearly a dozen wedding celebrations of Catholic couples. Only three of them took place in the church – two marriage masses and one Liturgy of the Word.

The rest took place in public catering areas – outdoors, weather permitting. Curious journalist, I’ve always wondered to couples (or their parents) why the sacrament is so easily sacrificed?

The answers varied, but most included a combination of outdoor preferences coupled with personal or political grievances with the church or an eye-rolling reluctance to “jump through Catholic hoops” and attend the multi-session marriage preparation required by their diocese.

Many couples had already lived together for years before getting married, and Catholicism had made no sense to them since they left the pews after Confirmation. To them, Pre-Cana (or other programs seemingly unchanged since the 1970s) were seen as useless, an unnecessary time-waster, and an intrusion into their busy lives.

The decline of Catholic marriages is a worldwide problem. Of the three main objections raised in my random research, the social and political tensions (women’s ordination, sexual abuse of clergy, same-sex marriage, etc.) were large, complex and sincere, and should be an ongoing concern for teachers of the church. But outdoor weddings are a topic some U.S. bishops are already working on.

In 2021, after a three-year experiment with the chancellery approving outdoor weddings, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Laurie allowed them permanently. “(The couples) did not come for any preparations or even to talk about getting married when they learned that the location they had chosen was ‘not permitted,’” the diocese explained. In St. Augustine, Florida, Marywood Retreat and Conference Center is a dedicated diocesan venue for outdoor weddings.

Thus, as such weddings gradually become available, there remains a need to evaluate and improve the spiritual and social relevance of the necessary diocesan wedding preparation programs. In The Path to Missionary Discipleship, the authors argue for a full-fledged marriage catechumenate—an in-depth formation of discipleship that takes years, not weeks: With a priest, we would see more than a negligible impact on the divorce rate among Catholics and we would see more couples in the church after the wedding.”

The idea of ​​a marriage catechumenate is not new—Pope John Paul II envisioned such a program in his 1981 “Familiaris Consortio” call, writing: “Only by accepting the Gospel can a person legitimately have hope for marriage and for a family capable of being complete.”

Pope Francis breathed new life into the topic in Amoris Laetitia in 2016, after which the Vatican released “Itineraries of the Catechumen for Married Life,” a comprehensive presentation on “the need for a new catechumenate that includes all stages of the sacramental life.” journey: the time of preparation for marriage, its celebration and subsequent years.”

In The Path to Missionary Discipleship, Ryan and Mary-Rose Verret, along with Catholic journalist Peter Jesserer Smith, national editor of OSV News, do an excellent job of exploring all the ways in which the marriage catechumenate can respond to and express a continuum of ideas. wishes from our last three dads and they really make it very appealing.

Who would not want our young engaged couples to be blessed with the Rite of Betrothal and have their faith nourished and strengthened by their parish community; was their marriage nurtured and sustained for literally years by the constant presence and prayerful support of others?

But wow, that sounds like a huge investment of time and opportunity on the part of all concerned, doesn’t it?

The authors do not deny this; they realistically and thoughtfully address the truth that for a successful marriage ceremony, the church must have a well-catechized flock of believers who, burning with the love of Christ, will agree to be not just six-week volunteers, but Christians. a community of comrades and role models willing to go some distance on life’s journey, with family in their most tender years.

The Catechumenate of Marriage is an ambitious concept that, given the roots it must take and grow within the Church, will take decades, not years, to fully realize.

This sounds like a necessary undertaking for the people of God, and it will require rebuilding all of our religious education programs from the ground up.

Elizabeth Scalia is the editor-in-chief of OSV. Follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) @theanchoress.