Being good Catholics they delayed the marriage for 10 years! waiting for the Vatican to annul a marriage that only lasted 4 months and during which my dad was 18, a cocaine addict, and committed to an asylum for psychiatric evaluation. (anulments are easier now than they were in the 1950s)

I don’t have a problem with the church requiring their course. If you want to get married in their facility under their traditions then you should be willing to play by their rules. If you don’t want to play then you can just as easily get married at the courthouse. Remember, catholics don’t just call it marriage. They call it the sacrament of matrimony and they place a great deal of spiritual meaning in the union.

We were both skeptical of the NFP program but after hearing that it was backed up by scientific studies and education about fertility we both saw it as a benefit. It has an extremely high success rate if used correctly and you don’t have to worry about introducing hormones into her body with birth control. I would also like to see a secular institution pushing this education without the religious slant. It’s a good option for anyone willing to try.

The pre-cana class itself was good for us. They weren’t that preachy and the questions and activities did force us to take a look at ourselves and what getting married meant. We were on the same page 95% of the time so we felt reassured by the class. What worries me is that so many people get married without ever thinking about those questions. Not about religion but on finance, raising children, resolving disputes.

I went through pre-Cana myself, and I also feared the worst. (Background: culturally Catholic; my wife and I couldn’t care less, but we had to make the marriage “official” for the family.)

But the facilitators were quite easygoing – the natural family planning lecture wasn’t phrased as if “if you don’t do this, you’re going to Hell!”. We freely admitted that we lived together before getting married, and this didn’t bother anyone. (There were a few heavily pregnant brides-to-be in there with us, too.)

true enough. I had some friends who went through it to please their families, and they basically said the same thing. I don’t think people should be required to go through it to get married in the church though. It should be optional, or at least parts of it should be.

Catholicism isn’t uniformly a monolithic you-must-have-babies damn-the-fornicators judgmental church – the Jesuits are famously liberal, and a lot of Catholic organizations are run with far more understanding and tolerance than we often give them credit for. I had a good Jesuit education, and I might still call myself a Catholic if that it weren’t for that little thing about not believing in God

that’s true, I had a pretty liberal upbringing in it too. ironically that made it easier to leave in some ways. there are some very liberal spots in it, but there are unfortunately more conservatives than liberals-and I see the conservatives growing. it scares me.

there were all sorts of nasty ways they shut down students from expressing themselves in ways that violated the church.

My experience there was mixed – we staged Waiting for Godot and replaced one insult in the script with “Jesuit!”; after I graduated, the dramatics org staged Lysistrata with big penises and vaginas onstage with no problem. But a few years after that, one spinster Theology teacher (not a Jesuit) shut down a planned staging of The Vagina Monologues. So I can’t really claim their record is perfect – but I’m happy with the education I got.

Ohh, and one priest said I was in league with the devil.

Who knows, maybe the priest was on to something? I keed, I keed !

This means classes with a priest regularly. We had to fill out a questionnaire that was meant to evaluate how compatible Julia and I are. It asked questions like “I am comfortable asking my future spouse to pray with me” and “I believe God’s power can help us through difficult times” with agree/uncertain/disagree as options.

I haven’t told the guy I’m an atheist (since he probably just wouldn’t allow the marriage), but I’ve been approaching the questions/process as the version of me that I was in high school – someone who still calls himself ‘christian’ but doesn’t follow nearly any of the tenets of the religion. I spent a long time in that stage, so I have a good handle on how I’d respond to things.

What cracked me up was that recently we went through the questionnaire answers, and he told us we scored poorly on “sanctity of marriage” questions. The questions above were within that category. He asked us to reveal how we felt about God helping us through arguments and stuff, and I said I disagreed, and asked, somewhat surprised, if Julia put a different answer. He said “oh no, you both put disagree, but that’s the wrong answer.”

The whole time, I had been expecting the ‘compatibility’ to be based on if she and I gave the SAME answers, but it was actually based on if we gave the SAME ANSWERS AS THE QUESTIONNAIRE WANTED. So naturally we did poorly on the religious sections.

We have more meetings with the guy coming up. It’s a real pain in the ass.

The whole ‘point’ of this process is to facilitate communication between my fiancee and I, but he basically spent the whole time arguing with me when I explained that I don’t believe God interferes with the actions of people, as that violates free will. I shut him up by just saying “well that’s really interesting to think about” whenever he would talk, which seems to keep him satisfied enough to allow us to continue with this obnoxious formality.

I’m a computer scientist and software developer. Julia has a master’s in applied mathematics and a business degree. We’re both extremely mathematical, logical, rational people. The priest essentially told us that he’s never dealt with people like us before.

I believe it. He probably gets normal, every-day folk parishoners who just want to get hitched, and now he’s dealing with people who can dance circles around him logically and philosophically. The guy paints. He’s so screwed.

Anyway, yeah, the process sucks and I can’t wait until it’s over.

Christian Sexuality class

Don’t do it, Mary! Or go, and then report all the details to us so we can giggle.

I plan to have an army of little Hemants.

And this is, of course, right after the list of birthday wishes. Hmmm…

the Jesuits are famously liberal… I had a good Jesuit education,

So did I. They are liberal only compared to other Catholics. It was a great educational experience, but there were all sorts of nasty ways they shut down students from expressing themselves in ways that violated the church. Ohh, and one priest said I was in league with the devil.

But the facilitators were quite easygoing – the natural family planning lecture wasn’t phrased as if “if you don’t do this, you’re going to Hell!”. We freely admitted that we lived together before getting married, and this didn’t bother anyone. (There were a few heavily pregnant brides-to-be in there with us, too.)

Catholicism isn’t uniformly a monolithic you-must-have-babies damn-the-fornicators judgmental church – the Jesuits are famously liberal, and a lot of Catholic organizations are run with far more understanding and tolerance than we often give them credit for. I had a good Jesuit education, and I might still call myself a Catholic if that it weren’t for that little thing about not believing in God.