Marriage prep will promote mentor program

In an effort to enhance marriage preparation for engaged couples, the Archdiocese of New Orleans has adopted a new policy, effective July 1, 2016, that calls for couples to meet with a priest or deacon six to eight months before their wedding and increases the Day for the Engaged program from one to two days.
 Father Garrett O’Brien, parochial vicar of St. Joan of Arc Parish in LaPlace who chaired the committee that developed the new guidelines, told more than 200 priests gathered at the recent archdiocesan Priests’ Convocation that the intent of the policy was to give couples a more consistent way to interact with priests or deacons in the parish and more time to discuss the sacramental nature of their marital commitment.

More robust prep
“At the heart of the committee’s discussion was the hope of keeping any added burden of these changes from falling on the couple’s shoulders,” Father O’Brien said. “We wanted to make it more robust but at the same time not dump a lot of new requirements in their laps.

“The hope is that engaged couples will find more opportunities to connect with the church and be welcomed, first of all, by their clergy. The guidelines call for two mandatory clergy meetings, and most priests already are doing that. We want them to have personal contact with someone in the clergy. That way, the couple can feel welcomed by the clergy. We also feel this will allow for a better connection with their home parish rather than being sent away to do their marriage prep.”

The policy on marriage preparation was adopted as “particular law” in the Archdiocese of New Orleans on July 26, the Feast of Saints Joachim and Ann, the parents of the Blessed Mother. The policy goes into full effect on July 1, 2016, when the Day for the Engaged program will expand to a two-day seminar.

An extra day of prep
“It will be two separate days, and the couple will have a lot of options of when to take them,” Father O’Brien said. “With the extra time, the hope is to put more spiritual content into the program, especially more emphasis on the sacramentality of marriage. The Natural Family Planning (NFP) content will be more robust on top of what is already being covered in terms of discussing the practical kind of issues such as communication and finances. From that little bit of investment in time, we have a lot of meat to offer them.”

Beyond the NFP material covered in the pre-marriage programs, the archdiocese offers training to all couples on three methods of Natural Family Planning: the Northwest Family Ser- vices’ Sympto Pro Method; the Creighton Model FertilityCare System, and the Couple to Couple League’s Sympto-Thermal Method.

The current options for marriage preparation in the archdiocese include a Mentor Couple program in which a married couple, ideally from the same par- ish, guides the engaged couple through a discussion of marriage issues over the course of five or six evenings; Engaged Encounter, a weekend program directed by two married couples and a priest; and Day for the Engaged.

Re-marriage also covered
There is a Re-Marriage Preparation program for couples where at least one spouse is remarrying after the death of a spouse or an annulment. The archdiocese also offers a Special Marriage Preparation program for those who have been civilly married and are coming to the church for validation of their marriage.

One of the significant procedural changes under the new policy asks the couple and priest (or deacon) to fill out a form called “The First Step to the Altar.” That form must be completed before a wedding date can be confirmed with a church.

The couple is required to meet first with a priest or deacon to discuss topics such as the uniqueness of sacramental marriage; the couple’s freedom to marry under canon law (usually, that means neither person has been married before); a preliminary date for the wedding; the selection of a marriage preparation program; and identifying the priest or deacon who will complete the pre-nuptial inquiry, oversee the marriage preparation process and officiate at the wedding.

The marriage preparation program must be finished two months before the wedding date, which is the same timeline that currently exists. The officiating priest or deacon also will sign the document acknowledging that he will be the officiant.

“When a priest or deacon signs this paper, it represents a commitment on his part,” Father O’Brien said. “He is committing to this couple.” Father Garrett said he hoped many more couples would choose to use the Mentor Couple program or Engaged Encounter as their pre-marriage program because it provides a longer time for couples to discuss various issues.

“But even our minimum program (Days for the Engaged) will be filled out and have more content for the couple,” Father O’Brien said. “This is our opportunity to ask couples to take the time to invest in their marriage.”

Searched across the country
David Dawson Jr., director of the archdiocesan Family Life Apostolate, said the new guidelines are the result of extensive consultation and research of best practices in other U.S. dioceses. He hopes emphasizing the mentoring approach will improve marriages, give the engaged couple a personal point of contact in the future if problems or questions arise and also enrich the marriages of the mentors themselves.

The archdiocese is hoping to train more than 100 mentor couples to help run the programs.

“An important factor in our culture today is that young couples lack intimate relationships with mar- ried couples, and they don’t know what to do,” Dawson said. “We’re not good in our capacity to communicate and ask for help. We’re terrible at it. We’d rather go to Facebook to find an article on it. We don’t know what it looks like or feels like to be married.”

More intensive approach
One of the drawbacks of the single-day approach to marriage preparation, Dawson said, is that it can more easily be completed without someone making a whole-hearted effort.

“That’s because I can hide,” Dawson said. “A guy can get in the back row and put his cap down, and he survives the day. We’re trying to give couples techniques to divorce-proof their marriages. What might make a difference is if they have a relationship with some married couple. What matters most is the witness of a couple that is a companion to the engaged couple.”

There are two Mentor Couple programs available within the archdiocese. One is In Home Marriage preparation, created by Jan and Lloyd Tate, that relies on training mentor couples who would then be responsible for two or three weddings every year. The Family Life Apostolate trains the mentor couples, who pay $125 for the training. The engaged couple pays no fee.

“The good news is that all pastors have to do is pick out a couple who has an admirable marriage, someone involved in the parish,” Dawson said. “The bar is not sky high. These are normal people.”

The other mentoring program is “Witness to Love,” where the engaged couple selects a married couple they know to lead them through the various exercises. A “coordinating couple” is responsible for overseeing both the engaged couple and the mentor couple. The Family Life Apostolate will facilitate training. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has given the program high marks, Dawson said. It is being used in more than two dozen dioceses.

“It’s a chance for the engaged couple to take advantage of a couple they already admire,” Dawson said.

Other clarifications in the policy call for all parishes to make their churches available for wedding liturgies on Saturday evenings. No weddings are allowed on Sundays in the archdiocese. Wedding Masses that occur after 4 p.m. on a Saturday (or the day before a Holy Day of obligation) satisfy the obligation to attend Mass.

The policy reiterates that the proper place for a Catholic wedding is a church. Permission to celebrate a wedding outside of a parish church will be given “only for serious reasons” and must be handled by the archbishop.

For more information on marriage preparation programs or for Natural Family Planning, call the Family Life Apostolate at (504) 861-6243.

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached atpfinney@clarionherald.org.