NFP v Contraception...Mac vs. PC?

Here's a pretty funny spoof of the Mac vs. PC TV ads "directed, written, acted, and edited by Catholic seminarians at the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha. We actually shot this on the 39th anniversary of Humanae Vitae without knowing it!"

Wedding: Between two halves or two wholes?

Father Lou Guntzelman of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati answers that question in his column:

"There are two distinct people in a healthy relationship. They always remain two. Each is called upon to develop into the unparalleled person God made them to be - and to encourage the other to do the same. In becoming our best and truest self, we become more able to choose and make the other person our first choice as companion, friend, lover."

Marriage Prep: How different faith traditions help get couples ready for the days after the big day

The woman who wrote the pro-EE column for BustedHalo.com has also written an article on marriage prep for The Wall Street Journal.

And she mentions EE again:

"According to a 1999 Center for Applied Research for the Apostolate report, nine in 10 couples who attended a Catholic Engaged Encounter weekend said they learned important skills for their marriage, and in a one-year-anniversary follow-up, more than three-quarters reported that they felt prepared for the challenges they faced."

Newlywed finances: For better or for worse

Finance exec tells newlyweds they need something old, new, borrowed and blue for their financial future.

Column

Two-thirds of couples overspend on wedding

"Marital bliss can quickly turn to fiscal friction if couples don't sit down and talk about their financial values and priorities before tying the knot. Whether it is planning a wedding, sending a child off to college or thinking about retirement, marriage is full of critical and often unexpected financial decisions. One of the best ways couples can plan for them is to have a frank conversation about financial expectations and then create a budget," notes one expert.

Visa is stepping up to help couples prepare financially for marriage with a marital money management guide. Practical Money Skills for Life is available free. It's easily accessible at at http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/marriage, an award-winning online financial education program.

Full story

Is divorce in your genes?

Apparently not, notes a study:

"A new study has found that divorce, not shared genetic risks or problems such as parental substance abuse, was key to the higher rates of break-ups experienced by the offspring of divorced couples."

Yet another reason why marriage prep is vital

This story in Boston Globe Magazine last weekend burned our britches to a crisp. If you ever doubt why marriage prep is so vital, read this claptrap:

The headline: Meet. Marry. Move On.

The subtitle: "When you're looking for a soul mate, why let a spouse slow you down? There's a new emphasis in marriages on emotional togetherness, a standard some relationships just cannot meet. Good thing nobody bats an eye anymore when young, childless couples divorce."

Oy vey.

New Zealand pol wants marriage enrichment courses

A New Zealand politician is backing an effort to offer marriage enrichment courses, citing research that shows youth offenders often come from broken homes. Full story

Real-life Pre-Cana courses are no laughing matter

The Herald looks at the non-Hollywood version of Pre-Cana.

Story here

A controversial bethroal proposal

Here's a pretty controversial proposal from the magazine U.S. Catholic and two family ministry researchers who think cohabitation is OK.

What do they suggest? "Our pastoral proposal is straightforward: a return to the marital sequence of betrothal (with appropriate ritual to ensure community involvement), sexual intercourse, possible fertility, then ritual wedding to acknowledge and mark the consummation of both valid marriage and sacrament."

Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. has a rebuttal, a la, "Whoa, hold on a minute":

"...I believe in the intelligence and good will of the authors. I also believe that their argument is bafflingly naïve. If the Church, in her reflection on the Gospel, has always taught that sex outside marriage is morally wrong, then for the Church to now bless “nuptial cohabiters” amounts to colluding in sin. Ritualizing a sinful behavior, or calling it a nicer name, does not change its substance. The very last thing we need in a society already awash in confused sexuality is a strategy for accommodating it."

His full response is at the link above.

And a caveat emptor on U.S. Catholic magazine.

Cohabitation vs marriage: Why get married?

A marriage and family therapist answers the question:

"Recently, during a conversation with a male friend, the subject of marriage came up. We both have friends who are contemplating marriage and I made the comment, 'I do not think they will get married ... maybe they shouldn't even get married.' My friend posed an interesting question when he asked, "What can she have married that she cannot and does not have unmarried?" "

Here's the therapist's secular defense of marriage.

Archdiocese launches effort to promote marriage

On June 22, Cardinal O'Malley launched an effort to promote marriage within the Archdiocese.

In letters sent to pastors, Cardinal Seán writes:

“As many of you are aware, the vocation of marriage is in crisis. Over the past twenty years, there has been more than a 60% decline in the number of marriages recorded in the Archdiocese of Boston; down from 12,274 in 1986 to 4,519 in 2006. At the national and local level, the Church has been responding to the many challenges faced by married couples. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is in the midst of a multi-year National Pastoral Initiative on Marriage.”

Here's a link to the Archdiocese's press release, including the very cool new marriage prayer.

Here's a link to an entry in Cardinal Seán's blog (a good read every week, BTW).

Will 7/7/07 be lucky for today's brides and grooms?

There's a lot of people getting married today, not just because it's the first Saturday in July, but because the date is July 7, 2007, which translates to 7-7-07, or 07-07-07 if you want to get even more technical.

Other highlights of the "specialness" of today:

• In Singapore, the country decided to "solemnise" 777 weddings on this day, compared to the normal 100 or so weddings they do on an average Saturday in July.
  
  
• In Australia, the Queensland's Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages had to extend its operating hours to accommodate the number of couples wanting to take their wedding vows.
  
  
• Wedding Web site TheKnot.com reported at least 37,0000 weddings were registered for today.
  
  
• The most famous of the "7-7-7ers" has to be Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, who tied the knot today to Tony Parker (basketball star) in France.

Many brides and grooms are assuming that the "lucky 7s" will bring additional luck to their marriage. While some luck is involved in any marriage, let's hope that many of these 7-7-07 couples prepared for their marriage as much as they prepared for their 7-7-07 wedding.

Speaking of marriage prep, did anyone go see "License to Wed" movie over the past week or so? I guess the movie is getting horrible reviews, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, at least the movie is raising awareness about marriage preparation. The Wall Street Journal wrote about the process of religious marriage preparation in this article (those of you who read that Busted Halo article about CEE might recognize the author of the WSJ piece).

Why are we waiting to get married?

A 2005 report by the National Marriage Project titled "The State of our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America" offered a list of reasons why Americans have become less likely to marry are:

• People are delaying first marriages (waiting to meet right person or complete postgraduate education).
• There is an increase in people choosing to be single for life.
• More people are cohabiting.
• There is a slight decrease in the tendency of divorced people to remarry.

Other findings from the report include:

• The divorce rate today is nearly twice that of 1960 but has been declining since hitting its high point in the early 1980s.
• Most people now live together before marrying for the first time. An even higher percentage of divorced people live together before remarrying.
• Divorced men are more likely to remarry than divorced women. Also, among divorcees who do remarry, men generally do so sooner than women.
• The likelihood of divorce is higher for blacks than whites and higher in the West than in other parts of the country.
• Americans increasingly view marriage and child rearing as separate pursuits.

More details here.

Survey: Younger adults have different values regarding marriage, sex, parenthood

A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows that most Americans believe that births to unwed women are a big problem for society, and that cohabitation without marriage is a mixed opinion, at best. Yet these nontraditional behaviors are commonplace among younger adults, who have a different set of moral values than older generations, the survey suggests.

Pew says this generational gap helps explain the decades-long surge in births to unmarried women (now at 37% of all births in the U.S.), as well as the sharp rise in cohabitation (nearly half of all adults in their 30s and 40s have done at least a portion of their lives).

Other stats from the survey include:

• Marriage Remains an Ideal, Albeit a More Elusive One. Even though a decreasing percentage of the adult population is married, most unmarried adults say they want to marry. Married adults are more satisfied with their lives than are unmarried adults.


• Children Still Vital to Adult Happiness. Children may be perceived as less central to marriage, but they are as important as ever to their parents. As a source of adult happiness and fulfillment, children occupy a pedestal matched only by spouses and situated well above that of jobs, career, friends, hobbies and other relatives.
  
  
• Divorce Seen as Preferable to an Unhappy Marriage. Americans by lopsided margins endorse the mom-and-dad home as the best setting in which to raise children. But by equally lopsided margins, they believe that if married parents are very unhappy with one another, divorce is the best option, both for them and for their children.

When asked what items are very important in making a marriage successful, faithfulness (93%), a happy sexual relationship (70%) and sharing household chores (62%) topped the list. About half the respondents thought that an adequate income (53%), good housing (51%), shared religious beliefs (49%) and shared tastes and interests (46%) were very important in marriage.