Church Officially "Wishy-washy" on Reproduction

I recently underwent a weekend Pre-Cana program where I was quite relieved to find out that the Church's position on reproductive issues was just as "wishy-washy" as I had presumed coming into the class (and, yes, "wishy-washy" were the precise words of the Pre-Cana director).

The director was indeed quite eager to allay any fears that the Church might have had a consistent or even strong view on birth control or obligations to an openness to children. I was delighted to learn that equally authoritative viewpoints existed on both sides of the birth control debate, and that it was ultimately up to my betrothed and I to decide whether children were right for us.

And just imagine the weight that fell from my shoulders when I discovered that no one should worry about "getting struck by a lightning bolt" when following his or her own conscience while in the privacy of my own bedroom.

Slightly less of a relief, but still quite encouraging, was learning that the wedding day is my day...and that I determine what the ritual means for me. My Pre-Cana director humbly acknowledged that my priest really shouldn't have any say in the readings or even structure of the ceremony, since the wedding is about us and not him and not anyone else. I was well-reminded that the priest is only a witness, and that he doesn't really have anything to do with the sacrament. I'm still a little hazy on what a sacrament is...I guess it's not that important since no one thought to tell me over the course of the entire two days...I guess a sacrament means whatever I and my fiance decide it means...it's our day. On the topic of vocabulary, can anyone tell me what Pre-Cana means? It's a kind of funny word, but no one explained that to me either. I guess it's another thing I'm supposed to decide on my own.

I also learned that I shouldn't ask people that are important to me to read at my wedding unless they are at least as good at public speaking as my Pre-Cana director, and that priests are apparently notoriously bad at reading the Bible. Who knew? I also found out that the Bible passage that my fiance and I had decided we would use for our wedding was stupid, so we shouldn't use it. My Pre-Cana director told me so. I was such a fool! How embarrassing it would have been to pick my own readings without my Pre-Cana director's advice!

I've also decided that I better make sure to have a unity candle since my Pre-Cana director spent about twenty minutes explaining its significance to him and the proper way to light one. This unity candle certainly seems more important than NFP (which my Pre-Cana director pointed out is a new name for something called the Rhythm Method) since I learned more about how to light and blow out candles than I learned how determine my future wife's fertility. Apparently, NFP involves taking your wife's temperature before she gets out of bed, but this (as my Pre-Cana director pointed out) is way too hard for anyone but only the most "religious" people to do effectively (and he assured us that he doesn't bother with it). My fiance said she was confused because the workbook said we weren't allowed to have a unity candle, and that it said NFP wasn't the Rhythm Method and seemed to spend a heckuvalot more time discussing it and various ways of doing it. I wouldn't know anything about that though, because we were never asked to look at the workbook even once over the course of two days, so I didn't bother.

We did have fun answering a Marriage SAT test together at Panera after the first day was over. You would think that they would want us to take that test in a way that would prevent us from cheating, you know, in case there were answers that you felt you didn't want your "partner" to see. Oh, well...I guess the test wasn't really that big of a deal.

I know this must be a pretty standard Pre-Cana course, though, because my  Pre-Cana director mentioned how silly the "Five Languages of Love" were. Another couple I know also learned about the "Languages of Love" from their Pre-Cana class, so it must be a standard thing. And just like my friends, my Pre-Cana director couldn't remember all five languages (he hadn't finished reading the book yet).
Apparently, the only really important language of love involves people touching each other's thighs while driving a car, or something like that (that's the example he gave us, at least).

I'm just glad we did Pre-Cana so early...with all of these truths and meaningful rituals that we have to make up on our own, we're barely going to have enough time to make decisions on flowers or favors!
And, boy, am I glad they didn't waste anyone's time talking about any of that Jesus guy (although I think God got mentioned rather abruptly sometime towards the end of day two). There's going to be enough of that Jesus-y stuff going on at the wedding, I'm sure. I mean, really, what could the Church or Jesus Christ really have to say about marriage that could be useful to a recently engaged couple planning to devote their lives to one another in an act of self-sacrificial love?

Comments

[Al T]

Wow!

You got all the bad stuff I was expecting but didn't get. Did you at least make a scene at any point?

[PeterTerp]

Unfortunately, we opted not to make a scene due to politics...we did make copious snide remarks in our notebooks though...and we plan on writing a letter.

[Al T]

Right, I forgot your soon to be better half would stop you from doing anything embarrassing. The sad thing is that in civilizing you she's killing a lot of stories that normally would begin with: "There's this friend of mine, you won't believe this crazy thing he did..." :)

[Peter Terp]

Wait, is that how you start stories about me, or how I start stories about me...because I'm far too narcissistic to have ever avoided making myself the protagonist of any of my wily anecdotes...

But if the Pre-Cana taught us anything, it's that Isabel and I share a language of love in the form of satirizing other people.

[Isabel]

For the record, it was actually Peter who, at one point, scribbled "Don't ask questions!!" across my notebook (where I had been diligently keeping a courtroom-quality record of the proceedings). To this I replied, "Well then you can't either!"

It is still possible that the whole thing was a performance art piece.

[Al T]

Reading Isabel's post caused me to get the office's attention by laughing out loud.

Thank you both. :)

[Mike]

Would it be a sin to fake being engaged so you could go to one of these and make a scene?

[Tommy]

Congratulations! On lots! But wow if that class isn't a nightmare by the description. I think I would have gotten genuinely riled up and confrontational, asking pointed questions. Ours was great, only I kind of abused my audience with one of the many priests invited to lecture by asking questions after the class about what the official stance was on ambiguously gendered individuals (similar to your aliens musings), and got the response that such a one must pick their gender and stick with that in such cases, until further information is available. But the priest really didn't enjoy the question. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, we were sent to a different class for NFP stuff, but it was highly encouraged by the lady leading the course. But not only did we learn the meaning of the Sacrament explained in Theology of the Body terms, but also got financial advise from a couple with psychology degrees who told us that we tend to emulate our parents' gender roles when it comes to money. They found out the hard way, because her mom and his dad were both totally hands-off with the budgets. So they had their own worksheets they had us fill out to know ourselves. [PS - I don't have your address, maybe you can email us that?]

[PeterTerp]

Actually, the financial advice was probably the best thing that our classes had going...although it was largely targeting a younger set of engaged couples and left me worried that I wouldn't get to retire until I was 85...