We are in Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families and the visit of Pope Francis!
Danielle Bean, Robyn Lee and I will be co-presenting at one of the break-out sessions. CatholicMatch.com and the CatholicMatch Institute has a huge booth presence at the event. If you are attending the World Meeting of Families please stop by the CatholicMatch booth (#213) & CatholicMatch Institute (#217).
I have spent a lot of time thinking about and preparing for this conference.
By the very nature of the conference name, we know there will be a focus on family life. Families are the fundamental building block of society and the Church has a keen interest in doing everything she can to foster healthy and growing families.
Families, however, don’t appear out of thin air, they are formed by individual people who first fall in love and then commit to that love in a sacramental marriage.
It is understandable that there is a strong focus on enriching today’s families, but shouldn't there be an equal emphasis on creating a better environment both inside and outside of the Church for these families to form? We should work together to build a culture that helps single Catholics to better discern dating and marriage. I believe the WMOF is the perfect place to jump start that conversation.
The problem of more single people, greater diversity among them, and less marriages snuck up on many in the Church. Even those who understood what was happening were unsure how to respond because it was a new challenge. Normally, most issues were addressed through the organic cycle of parish and sacramental life. But this large, diverse group of single Catholics (many of whom want to get married) have unique needs.
So part of the conversation about Catholics who desire marriage, needs to include how we can expand or modify parish life to better integrate the needs of these Catholics. We want to foster a culture of purposeful dating and healthy marriages in order to change the trend of declining marriages.
The Church is working hard to promote healthy marriages with remote marriage preparation. This preparation is accomplished primarily through the experience of a young Catholic's own family life and looking at the example of marriage through his or her parents.
Due to many circumstances over the last 30-40 years, including outside cultural influences, a healthy view of marriage and family life has not been present for many Catholics. As a result, there has become a need to complement what the Church intended by supplementing this remote marriage preparation. This can be accomplished through the parish sacramental and cultural life.
It is my hope that the World Meeting of Families will launch a wellspring of ideas and practical advice for ministering the unique needs of single Catholics. I hope Church leaders and individuals from all over the world will be inspired and will bring home the desire and energy to create fruitful environments that will help increase the number of sacramental marriages.
