{"id":750,"date":"2016-06-26T14:56:06","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T18:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lisaduffy\/?p=750"},"modified":"2016-06-27T07:44:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T11:44:30","slug":"dori-and-pope-francis-making-waves-and-scaring-catholics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lisaduffy\/2016\/06\/dori-and-pope-francis-making-waves-and-scaring-catholics\/","title":{"rendered":"Dory And Pope Francis: Making Waves And Scaring Catholics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Pope Francis recently stated the majority of Catholic marriages are null. While I don\u2019t agree \u201cmost\u201d are in fact null, based upon my expertise I do believe a huge\u00a0portion of marriages are<\/span>. Pope Francis is not really that far off the mark and that\u2019s what is really scary.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by PublicDomainPictures.net, CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Can I help you?<\/em><\/p>\n

This question reveals one of the most endearing qualities about Dory the blue tang fish from the popular Disney movie Finding Nemo<\/em><\/a>; her sweet sincerity amid her perpetually crippled short-term memory. Finding Nemo<\/em> has long been our family\u2019s favorite kid movie and my teenagers were very excited about the release of Finding Dory<\/em><\/a>, so I was naturally upset when I read about the inclusion of a transgender fish character<\/a>, which was reported as \u201ca stingray [who] will become \u2018sting-Rhonda'\u201d and an alleged focus on a gay couple with a baby.<\/p>\n

I was pretty worked-up over the fact that such blatant indoctrination of children would be present in the film and I seriously contemplated not taking my kids at all, which was an announcement I wasn\u2019t looking forward to making. But after I calmed down a bit, I decided to do some further investigation.<\/p>\n

I looked around to see what the reviews were saying and I didn\u2019t hear anything about \u201csting-Rhonda.\u201d I absorbed the trustworthy opinions found in Stephen Greydanis\u2019 review<\/a> of the movie and found no mention of a transgender fish there either, which gave me more confidence. In the end, I took my kids to see the film and was happy I did, because it is a sweet, delightful movie that we all thoroughly enjoyed.<\/p>\n

Lesson learned<\/span>: Don\u2019t let sensationalism steer you in the wrong direction; do a little homework and check it out, first.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis Scaring Catholics<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In the time that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio has been Pope Francis, I\u2019ve come to rely on the fact that the same sort of media-sensationalism follows nearly every statement he makes. Recently, of course, he stated in an interview<\/a> that the majority of Catholic marriages are null because the engaged couple has little to no understanding of what marriage is about.<\/p>\n

The uproar caused by these comments made me stand back and hold my breath until the dust settled, and in the meantime I did some investigation. But while I don\u2019t agree that most<\/em> marriages are in fact null, I do believe a large portion of marriages are. And I am not just a bystander in this arena, I have some expertise to lend to the conversation, and I can tell you as much as people may not like what he said, Pope Francis is not really that far off the mark. <\/p>\n

For more than 15 years, I\u2019ve worked extensively with divorced men and women to help them find hope and healing and have heard their stories. Many of these people admittedly were not at all prepared for marriage at the time of their wedding. Much to my dismay, many of them have gone on to wed again without due preparation or proper consideration of things they should do differently so as to avoid another disaster, and have ended up divorced again.<\/p>\n

But, it\u2019s not just in that section of society that we have a problem. Our dating and engaged couples are generally not well-prepared for marriage. With the legacy of divorce our older generations have passed down, the utter lack of many parents\u2019 support of catechesis for their children, the hook-up culture and wide acceptance of cohabitation, future generations of couples will have a difficult time entering into valid marriages.<\/p>\n

There are some real Catholic powerhouse speakers out there who are doing as much as they can to help teenagers and young adults prepare for future marriages, thank goodness, but by-and-large, parents are dropping the ball. We need to take our responsibility for our children\u2019s formation seriously.<\/p>\n

Straight From the Horse\u2019s Mouth<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There is a wonderful priest, Father Peter, who has facilitated the Three To Get Married<\/a><\/em> pre-cana program in his diocese for many years and has helped hundreds of engaged couples prepare for this very important event in their lives; their wedding day and life together. After each program concludes, he has participants fill out an exit survey so he can collect feedback on the program.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s admitted at times that it is a frustrating process. He says that, despite his best efforts to inform these couples of the important issues involved in getting married, a lot of them don\u2019t really seem to care. The majority of the couples, according to Father Peter, state the only reason they attended the program was at the behest of their parents or parish priest so they could be married in the Catholic Church. He states that a common response would be:<\/p>\n

We appreciate your efforts but we feel the Church\u2019s attitude toward contraception and co-habitation is outdated and not inline with our lifestyle.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the end, he knows that all he can do is try his best to impress the sanctity of marriage upon these couples and then let them go their own way. Many of these same couples come back for counseling when their marriages start to fall apart.<\/p>\n

We have a crisis in the Church and in our society that will take effort on the part of every Catholic to curb and hopefully reduce. It\u2019s not just a matter of the US Church cranking out annulments willy-nilly as many finger-pointers insist, it is a cancer that is eating away at the very core of the gift that marriage is intended to be. It destroys the beauty of a committed, exclusive, happy relationships.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis is not far off the mark, friends, and in my opinion, that is what is really<\/em> scary.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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