Change happened, and Catholic couples in Sebastián de los Reyes are now lining up for a "macro wedding".

It is a new option for the parish, and local priest Fr Javier Sánchez-Cervera says the new approach to weddings is a great success.

The idea has met people where they are.

The first wedding

The Church of San Sebastián Martír has just celebrated Spain's first macro wedding, with 36 people exchanging vows.

Arranged by the parish, the aim was to create a stress-free wedding celebration.

"We wanted to arrange everything, and for the 18 couples to "concern themselves only with saying yes to God" says Sánchez-Cervera.

During the Mass, he told the couples "God is going to come and sanctify your relationship.

"The bride and groom at Cana, like you, invited Christ to their wedding."

Gifts arrived for each couple.

Each received a special blessing from Pope Francis.

In addition, the Poor Clares of Salamanca made each couple a pair of sandals.

Each pair was hand-stitched with the name of the bride and groom "to help them walk together".

Cost-sensitive pastoral outreach

Sánchez-Cervera says he was inspired to hold the "macro wedding" when he realised about 80 percent of parents in his parish requesting baptism or First Holy Communion catechesis for their children were unmarried.

When he asked them why they weren't married, Sánchez-Cervera says "their faces looked sad".

"They spoke of the cost, the logistics, and being alone - some are from other countries including Latin America. Others, being older, felt a bit embarrassed.

He could see something had to be done to change this, enlisting the help of parishioners in his quest.

"We began with a team of 10-15 parish volunteers. But as the ceremony drew near, we ended up with 40-50."

One was that each of the 18 couples was assigned a parish "tutor" to guide them through a Catholic marriage preparation course and the necessary paperwork.

Then - almost unheard of in this day and age - everything about the wedding ceremony and feast was free of charge. Not a centimo was paid.

Local residents donated dresses for brides. Sánchez-Cervera supplied champagne and cake for toasts after the nuptial Mass.

Local hairdressers and beauticians prepared the brides for the wedding for free. Local residents tailored the wedding dresses.

Timed to coincide with local fiestas, the newly married couples were given tickets for a fair where they could enjoy a first dance at a free concert.

"Associations occupying booths at the fiestas offered the newlyweds and their children free food and drinks" Sánchez-Cervera says.

More couples are signing for a "macro wedding" next year he adds. "There are lots of couples in similar situations."

Source

• The Tablet

"I didn't expect to be single into my 40s. That was not my plan," said Anastasia Northrop (pictured), a Catholic woman who founded the National Catholic Singles Conference.

Marriage rates plummet

A quarter of 40-year-olds in the U.S. had never been married, Pew Research found in 2021.

Meanwhile, the Catholic marriage rate has plummeted by about 70 perecent between 1969 and 2019, according to a recent report from Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

There are just over six marriages for every 1,000 people in the United States, compared with a record 16.4 in 1946 after World War II, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Childless cat ladies

Amid the difficult dating situation, a resurfaced comment Republican candidate for vice president J.D. Vance made in 2021 about "childless cat ladies" sparked an outcry from single women who feel they aren't to blame for their unmarried status.

"We're effectively run, in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too," Vance had said on an appearance on Fox News with Tucker Carlson,.

He also suggested to Tucker that politicians without kids have less of a stake in the country's future.

"If we're not pursued, then there's not a lot we can do," said Sara Perla, the communications manager for the Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America, in response to "the whole childless cat lady thing."

"It's interesting that women are blamed for the situation in a way that I think is very unfair because we still want to be pursued," Perla explained.

Modern dating

Hundreds of people attended a panel on the challenges of modern dating hosted by the Catholic Project at the recent National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

"I did a survey both before and after [the panel], and the No. 1 challenge that the single people were complaining of is just meeting someone," Perla said.

"You can't just be Catholic. I can't just meet a Catholic guy. I have to meet a Catholic guy who is interesting and who is interested in me."

Perla says one of the greatest challenges to Catholic dating today is finding someone who is both a well-formed Catholic and someone you can connect with — it's not just about having the same religious beliefs.

"It's a mistake that some people make when they try to set people up and they say, ‘Oh, he's Catholic,'" said Perla, who is a single Catholic woman in her early 40s.

"And you're like, that doesn't tell me much at all. Is he funny? Does he have interests? Does he do anything outside of reading theology? Because if not, then we're not going to have anything to talk about." Continue reading

• Kate Quiñones is a staff writer for Catholic News Agency.

Recently, fifteen couples marked the end of their transformative journey as they received blessings and celebrated the culmination of the seven-week course at Ryde Gladesville Catholic Parish near Sydney, Australia.

Led by parish priest Fr Greg Morgan and assistant priest Fr Dan Drum, the Mass and dinner honoured the couples' commitment to revitalising their relationships through The Marriage Course.

The marriage boot camp, developed by Alpha International, originates from the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation's Life, Marriage and Family Team and aims to reignite marital bonds.

Fr Dan commended the couples for investing in their marriages, stating "It's wonderful that these couples are making this investment into their marriage so that it can be all they want it to be and all God wants it to be".

Refocus on reshaping marriage

44-year-old Phillipa Manley shared her motivation for bringing the course to her parish. "Steve and I have four kids aged 10 to 18 and were so busy being mum and dad we had forgotten how to be husband and wife. That's the basis of this course—that prioritising your relationship is the best thing for your family" she explained.

Participants experienced transformative discussions during the course's "date night" where they engaged in intimate conversations facilitated by thought-provoking videos.

Mandy (62) and Richard (66) Cuneo have been married for 39 years. Now both retired, they realised they "had to refocus on reshaping our marriage" said Mandy.

"It fit where we were in our lives. There was just the two of us at home. It was worth a try" said Richard.

"It wasn't what we expected, it wasn't lectures" said Mandy. "The course makes each of our relationships the focus and that is what we lose in the busy-ness of modern life. The date-night is a big part of the course" said Mandy.

Reflecting on the course's impact, Fr Dan emphasised the growth he observed in the couples attending.

"Before the course I spoke to the couples and got to know them. After it ended, I could see the change and the growth in them" he said.

Fr Dan also found the marriage boot camp helpful, as priests are often consulted by couples.

"It's always good to know the elements of a good Catholic marriage, the challenges couples face and how to deal with those challenges. It helped me better accompany them on their journey" he said.

Sources

The Catholic Weekly

The Marriage Course

CathNews New Zealand

In his analysis, he connects the term "weird" to a significant event in global history - the implementation of the "Marriage and Family Programme" by the Catholic Church starting in the 6th century. The Catholic teaching held to the free consent of both parties to marriage. It forbids marriages between close relatives.

Limiting eligible marriage partners resulted in people having to search for spouses outside their extended clan. This increased relational mobility, which weakened the power of patriarchs in arranging marriages to foster clan alliances. With weakened clans, there was greater commerce, capitalism, free markets, inalienable rights, and democracy. Read more

The Spanish priest from the city of Valencia has been dubbed the "Tinder Priest" because of his impressive matchmaking record - 270 marriages and no divorces.

Fernando claims that the two most essential factors to a successful match are height - the man has to be taller than the woman - and place of residence.

No matter how good a match looks on paper, the relationship is unlikely to work if the candidates live far away from one another. Read more

The 2021 social profile of the Catholic community in Australia, prepared by the National Centre for Pastoral Research from census data released last year, gives a bird's eye view of Australia's Catholic population.

It also charts how much has changed in the last quarter century. In 1996, Australia's 4.8 million Catholics were 27 per cent of our total population.

In 2011 our population peaked at 5.4 million, before falling to 5.07 million in 2021—only 20 per cent of the country.

The median age has also risen significantly in the same time period, from 33 to 43 years, and the Catholic population is now slightly more female than male, at 53 per cent.

The days of large Catholic families are also behind us, with around 2 per cent of married couples having four or more children, and only 10 per cent with three or more.

The number of people never married has remained stable for the last 25 years, at around 33 per cent, as has the number of single parent families, at around 11 per cent.

But the divorce and separation rate among Catholics has risen from 8.9 percent to 11.7 percent in 2021, ironically higher than the national average of 10.6 per cent.

The number of de facto couples in which at least one person identifies as Catholic has risen from 10.1 to 17.7 per cent since 1996, as has the percentage of couples of mixed religion, from 53 to 58 per cent.

Australia's Catholic population has become much more diverse, with a fifth of all Catholics in Australia born in a non-English-speaking country.

The top five overseas birthplaces for Catholics were the Philippines, Italy, the UK, India and NZ; recent arrivals were most likely to come from Colombia, Iraq, the Philippines, Brazil and Argentina.

One in five Catholics spoke a language other than English at home, and three per cent aren't proficient in English at all.

We are receiving more education than ever before, with the percentage of Catholics with a university education rising from 9.7 to 24.6 per cent in the last 25 years.

Our educational profile is reflected in the prevalence of women in "white collar" management or professional jobs (39 vs 35 per cent of men), while men still fill the bulk of "blue collar" trades jobs (45 vs 12 per cent).

Nearly 21 per cent of all Australian school students attend Catholic schools. Catholic students make up 63 per cent of Catholic primary, and 58.7 per cent of secondary students.

"Knowing the people who make up the Catholic population helps dioceses, parishes and other Catholic ministries better understand and serve their communities," said Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB.

"The statistics in this report confirm what we are seeing in our parish communities - that they are becoming more and more culturally and linguistically diverse.

The census statistics, from which the report was compiled, only measure religious identification and not practice or belief.

In 2021 the Catholic Church was the single largest religious affiliation in Australia, at 20 per cent.

Christianity as a whole fell below 50 per cent for the first time at the 2021 census, and "no religion" rose to a new peak of 38.9 per cent.

• Adam Wesselinoff is Deputy Editor of the Catholic Weekly.
• First published in The Catholic Weekly. Republished with permission.

She told the BuzzFeed political podcast Is It On? she is perplexed by the prominent role of the Catholic Church and its leaders in Australia's same-gender marriage survey.

"I can't understand why they haven't been told not to lead the 'no' campaign," Wall said.

"They don't have any moral authority."

"How can it, as an institution which has actively covered up the sexual abuse of children for over 70 years?"

Wall was surprised more Australians hadn't told the Catholic Church to refrain from getting involved in the same-sex marriage debate.

"I wish you'd talk about it and say to them, 'If you want to be a moral crusader, why don't you eliminate child sexual abuse? And be a leader in that?'" she said.

"Not against human rights, and especially in a process where young Australians are being so adversely affected."

"I find it absolutely appalling that they've come out and been so vigorous in their opposition."

Three Catholic archdioceses — Sydney, Hobart, and Broken Bay — are listed as official partners with the Coalition for Marriage.

Last month, Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart wrote an open letter to Catholics urging a "no" vote and asking them to consider the consequences of legalising same-sex marriage. A similar directive was issued by the Archbishop of Perth, Timothy Costelloe.

Wall authored the same-sex marriage bill that was passed into law by the New Zealand parliament in 2013.

Listen to a discussion on RNZ's the Panel.

Source

• Buzzfeed
• RNZ
• Image: The Guardian

Last year they moved from Takapuna into a retirement village in Birkenhead; Madeleine's dementia was getting worse, and Kevin's own health was frail. They would die within 30 hours of each other.

Earlier this year, 93-year-old Kevin got a chest infection that morphed into the flu before becoming pneumonia.

Family members rushed home from around the world, to be by his side for what were expected to be his final moments.

But on July 30 they got a call to say it was their mother and grandmother, Madeleine, 88, who had died.

The couple's son Paul Feeney — assistant coach of the Stormers Super rugby team in South Africa — broke the news to his father.

Kevin was in a non-responsive state, but Paul reckons he understood: 45 minutes later he passed away himself.

"It was quite romantic," said Paul. "I told him he didn't have to worry about mum any more, that she was waiting for him in heaven."

Feeney described his parents as quiet, family oriented people who lead by example and were "good Catholics". They had three children and nine grandchildren.

While Madeleine had been unable to recognise family for about four months, it was "still a massive shock" when she died, said Paul.

"But in the end you couldn't have scripted it better," he said. "They adored each other and were a great team, so for us it was just meant to be."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Stuff

My Sunday column talked a bit about the way in which varying interpretations of "Amoris Laetitia," Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation on the family, have produced variations in official Catholic teaching on marriage from diocese to diocese, region to region - a "submerged schism," to borrow a phrase from the Vatican-watcher Andrea Gagliarducci, which thanks to the astringent words of certain bishops is no longer even that submerged.

One reading of Pope Francis's intentions is that this is roughly what he wanted - a decentralized, quasi-Anglican approach to questions where the church and the post-sexual revolution culture are in conflict, in which different parts of the Catholic world could experiment with different doctrinal pastoral approaches to confession and communion for the remarried-without-annulment.

But at the same time, he and his allies have consistently - if not yet magisterially - expressed their strong preference for the more liberal side of the debate, suggesting that if they imagine a decentralization of doctrinal pastoral practice, they also imagine it being temporary, with any differences ultimately resolved in favor of a reformed approach to divorce, remarriage and the Eucharist.

And what is that approach? From the beginning of this controversy there has been a stress, from Cardinal Walter Kasper and then from others, on the idea that the reform being proposed is modest, limited, confined to a small group of remarried Catholics, and thus in no way a public sign that the church no longer believes marriages indissoluble in general.

More recently, among those Catholics proposing a hermeneutic of continuity between "Amoris" and the prior papal documents that it kinda-sorta-maybe contradicts, this stress on the rarity of what the reformers have in mind, the extremities involved, has become crucial to the case for continuity. For instance Rocco Buttiglione, an ally of John Paul II and now a prominent defender of Pope Francis, recently responded to the four conservative cardinals questioning "Amoris" with the following comments: Continue reading

• Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009.

Middle daughter, knowing there had been two miscarriages, corrected little sister. "No! They had sex five times."

Eldest daughter reacted. "Stop talking about sex! It's yuck! It's gross!"

Dad held on to the steering wheel, eyes on the road, while Mum turned in her seat. She explained to her daughters, "Sex is a bit like broccoli. It may seem yuck when you are young, but when you grow up you might enjoy it."

This story created some food for reflection. We all know 'broccoli' is not on the Vatican menu, and its absence can create speculation ranging from 'yuck' to the notion that married couples are addicted to it.

Many years ago, I was at a parish gathering where the seventh sacrament was being discussed. One man said in a weary voice, "Priests think married couples spend all their time in bed." There was a wave of laughter mixed with good-natured groaning. I was a new Catholic, and it was a while before I saw the gap between the ideal and the reality. The bridge over that space was often laughter.

I'm sure, however, that none of us would want Church teaching on marriage to change. Certainly the rigidity of applied ideals needs to be softened. Pope Francis has done a lot towards this. The Holy Father's book Amoris Laetitia is warm, compassionate and begs for understanding of family life that is irregular. But while the book is wholly supportive of parents, it does not give them a voice. All the quotes come from celibate men.

Most Catholic women accept this is the way the Church works. Like Mary, women tend to flow around masculine structures, filling the gaps in a fluid way. They have a lateral outreach, and relationship is the woman's gift to the Church.

Women are also aware that the Church is in a tight corner regarding the legality of gay marriage. How can we hold on to a cherished tradition and at the same time recognise the validity of the loving commitment of a same-sex Catholic couple?

I believe any new situation calls for a return to the Gospels and to Jesus who never turned anyone away.

Surely the way forward will be a service of blessing for Catholic couples who've had a civil wedding for whatever reason.

In the Church we bless all manner of things: boats, houses, schools, religious artefacts, icons, animals, each other. Do we dare to refuse a blessing to people of faith who are living the spiritual fertility of love?

As a postscript, I admit to being one those people who want to see 'broccoli' back on the Vatican menu. That will address a number of concerns and make us all more real.

God bless 'broccoli'.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

This means that the Church will need to ask great things of Catholic spouses in order that they become what they already are sacramentally; united with Christ and holy. Trials are in worldly terms failures we can't make sense of; but in the Catholic faith trials are means by which saints might be made.

The truth is marriage comes with the Cross. For the world Crosses are meant to be overcome by elimination. For the Church Crosses are overcome by embracing them.

How spouses think about Crosses manifests a completely different set of outcomes for a marriage experiencing trials. But surely there is a Cross that is too hard? Not according to Chiara.

No one today illustrates the challenge of the Cross in marriage and family more than Chiara Corbella Petrillo.

What Chiara and Enrique each brought to their union was not only love for each other but most importantly their personal foundation of commitment in relation to Christ in His Church. Therefore they turned to God every day throughout their married life. In this way God was able to lead them through the challenges which befell them.

Chiara and Enrique met when Chiara was 18. They were engaged for 6 years. It was a difficult engagement as they fought and broke up many times.

In hindsight Chiara felt that their difficult engagement had prepared them for the trials ahead. Eventually they married and shortly after Chiara was pregnant with their first baby.

What followed for Chiara and Enrique was devastating. Their first two unborn babies were diagnosed with conditions incompatible with life. There was no medical explanation why this should have happened to these young parents.

Both babies, named Maria and Davide, died very shortly after each was born, Baptised and loved. Despite this Chiara and Enrique strangely experienced a great joy in being parents even through such a double trial.

They continued to trust in God's plan for them. Maria and Davide were a blessing; a life once begun never ends.

Again Chiara became pregnant. This time the baby boy was well but Chiara was not. She presented with a ravaging cancer during her pregnancy and only permitted the doctors to give her a little treatment with very little pain relief. She suffered a lot.

Sadly Chiara lived for only a year after their son was born. During her final hours she told her husband that the Cross was truly ‘very sweet'.

Chiara's testimony regarding their difficult journey was this; that they took small steps at a time and God gave them the grace to persevere.

There is no doubt to those who knew Chiara that those trials brought about a profound witness of great holiness to which many are drawn today.

What would the Church's witness of marriage and family be like in the world today if through a deeper conversion to Christ in the Church spouses were able to make sense of their trials and persevere.

The Church is able to help spouses through to the greater joy beyond the Cross which comes with marriage. The Church is the witness to joy by encouraging its people not to abandon the Cross but find through it Christ Risen even as Chiara teaches it to be ‘very sweet'.

• Lynda Stack graduated as a distance student with a BTh from Good Shepherd College. She is now studying for a Masters at the JPII Institute in Melbourne. Lynda is married. She and her husband have two adult children who are living overseas.

"With regards to same sex marriage over it is still, culturally not yet even accepting that."

"The culture and religion is strong here. It is going to, it will happen but I do not think it is going to happen in a very fast pace in the way it is taking place overseas."

Following America's legalisation of same sex marriage in July Loy Chong said, "The union between a man and a woman and its definition predated the State and church but now the bond had been defined as marriage.

"Firstly, it's for their own good, because of the complementary nature of the two sexes they bring wholesome to the other."

"Secondly its open to procreation and because of that their love overflows into the wider society; according to the church this is what we understand by marriage, any relationship that falls short of this cannot be called marriage."

Loy Chong is one of two Pasifika bishops representing the region at the Fourteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome next month.

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• fijitimes.com
• Image: fijione.tv