Okay, so here’s the deal, and try to follow along because my brain is all over the dang place.
If you are pregnant and want to get married in the Catholic Church, the answer is a BIG FAT “NO”.
Makes sense to you, right?
Except that if you are shacking up, the answer is YES.
Don’t forget that couples VOW at their Catholic wedding to welcome tons of babies from God, but then they go the sterilization route once they realize what tons of babies actually looks like (which I totally get and I'm NOT judging those who stop having kids when they know they are done ... I think that's perhaps a good idea!).
So I’m thinking if you are ALREADY pregnant, you are ALREADY fulfilling the vow of having tons of babies, even more so than those who are simply shacking up.
I wish they’d take the vow out about having tons of babies … because you never know how you’re going to take to parenting until you’ve had a kid.
Back to the pregnant Catholics. So they go ahead and get married somewhere else. Then they have the baby. THEN the Catholic Church says, “Okay, we’ll go ahead and BLESS your marriage in a special ceremony.”
Why not just marry the pregnant couple in the first place in the Catholic Church and save the time and expense of the Blessing Ceremony later?
AND start teaching Natural Family Planning in the Catholic schools when children are young so they actually know what the hell it is and get themselves knocked up less often? You’re not handing out condoms, people, you’re just teaching girls and boys about how a woman’s body works so she can avoid pregnancy.
Clearly, I just need to be the Pope.
Well, I happen to think the "tons of babies" thing is a good idea. If all Christians truly practiced it, we might just take over the world... :]
ReplyDeleteThe blessing thing vs. marriage doesn't seem to make any sense, especially when you contrast it with the shacking up situation. Ok, actually it makes less than no sense.
Bummer for me I can't be Pope, what with being female and all. Oh! I think they also require that you're Catholic. :]
And I thought we trained you better than that. Before I get into my thought (and related rant)some clarification is needed:
ReplyDeleteAs cute as you would look in the miter and shawls, you will never be Pope due to the lack of "digit" between the thighs. Sorry, no women in the Gentleman's Club.
Second (seriously), the whole (not getting married in the church if you are pregnant thing? Really depends on the priest. We were waiting for the annulment process and were "shacking up" and Kris got pregnant... Hang on, I hate that mode of thinking... I got Kris pregnant and we went to talk to our priest. All he said was "Congratulations!! I'm so happy! OK, now serious Father, just abstain from Eucharist until you are blessed in the church and it will be OK." So it really depends on the priest as I know of priests who will rush the process to get a couple married before the birth of a child because HAVING CHILDREN IS ONE OF THE HOLIEST COVENANTS IN THE CHURCH!
As for Sex Ed? Yeah right. Good luck with that. Look how long it took the Catholic system to alter the whole "evolution vs. creation" thing.
Now MY issue which goes inline with yours, abortion.
I know the church is pro-life, as far as things go for me and mine, I am pro-life too. However, as a man who A) cannot adopt or afford to care for every kid that would come out of a pro-life only system and B) I do not have the right to order a woman as to what she must do with her body, I have no choice but pro-choice. This is where my arguement comes in for changing the ages old sex ed teaching of the church. Our media is inundated with it and as we all know, we only have full influence under our children when in our direct site line.
How many times have we had Ian go to someone's house where we knew the people were responsible only to hear he over heard and subsequently watched or did something we didn't want him exposed to?
So now we have boys being told condoms are "the devil's work, so they are afraid to keep them or buy them because it might get back to the folks, hormones take over and the next thing you know, you get "the line"...
"Mom, Dad, I think I'm in trouble." and then BOOM! Hello to your new title, grandma and grandpa.
I am so with you on this, but don't hold the church thoroughly responsible, there are some smarter clergy out there.
oh girlie...im a life long Catholic, remarried more than once, and can tell you HORROR stories!
ReplyDeletefunny...how even if you're fallen away, you are still a Catholic.
I can't believe they did away with Limbo....that was my only hope!
It started, this tornadic relationship with the church, when i was a senior in high school...i got expelled for 3 hours.
Father had finally agreed to let us have a marriage and family class, although there would be no birth control talk, and it would be taught by him.(3 out of 23 were already pregnant)
me: "so tell me Father, when did you enter the seminary?"
him: "at age 12"
me: "So.....howsabout we get a blind guy to teach driver's ed?"
YERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR OUTTA THERE!!
he got so mad he popped a nose bleed....dad drug me right back in,asked him what part of the question did he not understand and i made the final study hall. Dr Ford (Catholic Dr) was allowed to come in and talk, and a married couple actually taught the class.
Agreed. It is definitely a priest by priest and situation by situation basis. My DH and I were "shacking up" and we called my cousin who is a priest to marry us. He said no. Then we called a family priest we had know forever, he also said no. Finally we went to our local parish (in KC)priest. He said yes, but they have added a section to the marriage prep classes that deals with co-habitation. He even asked us to have separate bedrooms until the wedding.
ReplyDeleteThe whole issue is sex before marriage. With living together they assume you are, but with pregnant they can't ask you to share other rooms because OBVIOUSLY you have been having premarital sex.
Not a catholic, not gonna judge. I know I'm judged as doomed to fiery pits by all religions on the earth.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe in firey pits so much so I'm good.
Babies are a blessing. Dogma and judgement, not so much, Catholic or otherwise.
Great post.
Breeze
i love my bloggie readers. they set me straight ... i didn't know it was like a case by case thing ... which makes even LESS sense since the church is all about specific sets of rules (read the Catechism lately?)
ReplyDeleteI love God & Jesus & the Holy Spirit. It's his fan club here on earth I can't stand!
ReplyDeleteWe get caught up in all these nonsensical things that don't matter. If you take one thing from the bible into your heart to practice everyday, I believe it is Mark 12:28-31
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.
Mankind has mucked everything up. Listen to J, and you'll be fine K.
My mom grew up Catholic. She did not let me learn about sex ed in school. But was to afraid to teach me. I had to learn everything from my friends and TV. So as a parent if you do not have the balls to talk to your children about sex let someone who is a adult. They need the information and will be left with holes in their information. I always felt like it is our body we should know as much as we can about it.
ReplyDeleteTo answer you questions I wrote a blog post a few days ago on free and nearly free things to do in Phoenix http://sahmjbechtold.blogspot.com/2009/09/entertain-your-phoenix-toddlers-for.html. There are a lot of fun and some educational things in there. They are all for kids to. I put links to most of the websites.
Ditto SCHWAA44. Very well said!
ReplyDeleteANd just to update you on the dreaded annulment process (that I need to now start). Due to the enormous backlog on the Tribunals in most Diocese, as long as you are married by a J.O.P., you are not "co-habitating", but children should still be off the table depending on who you talk to.
ReplyDeleteKris and I did a J.O.P. and most of the huffers in our parish shut up after that. Problem was we were one of the "Holy Families" in our parish because we were a founding member of the parish and held several leadershio positions.
Sometimes the church can be like a catty country club. Wisteris Lane ain't got nothin' on Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Parsh.