Skiergirl24 Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 I am in one of my close friends weddings in October. Her family are catholic and his family as well. His family (and hers) are pretty strict catholics. Anyway, in order to be married in a catholic church you must attend pre-marital counseling with a priest (usually) or deacon. My friend and her fiance have lived together for 3 years now. When they arrived for the first session they had to fill out forms with loads of personal information. They both live at the same address. The priest told her "you might want to put down your parents address so yours is not the same as his....you are not supposed to be living together." Then in the counseling the priest went over the "rules" - they are not to use contraception (BAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) etc. Also the priest asked about sexual positions..."When you do join the marital bed together, are you uncomfortable with certain positions or acts?" Mind you, my freind and her fiance have been sleeping together for 4 years. They had sex on their first date LOL. The whole pre-canaa thing is just another way for the church to try to control people. I would have said something like "well actually we have been banging since 2004, so I think we have those bases covered. We like doggy style best...that way I can do the reach around and he can pull my hair when we really get into it..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted February 27, 2008 Super Moderator Share Posted February 27, 2008 The Catholics are pretty funny about marriage. My wife was from a Catholic family, but not at all religious herself. I was definitely not Catholic. For the sake of her parents, I agreed to a Catholic wedding in the church. Didn't mean shit to us, but a lot to them. At the counseling session, the priest told me that since I wasn't Catholic I had to swear I would raise our children Catholic. I said I couldn't do that, and that was that. Upon informing her parents that I couldn't agree to that stipulation, they said I could have just signed the paper and done what I wanted. I said that since I wasn't a Catholic I couldn't be that dishonest and hypocritical. Things just weren't the same after that! - Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skiergirl24 Posted February 27, 2008 Author Share Posted February 27, 2008 I was telling some guy I work with about it and he said "she should have said, so father o;neill, when you sodomize young boys...do you make sure and ask them if they prefer certain positions?" i would not have lied to the priest either. in her shoes i would have said "more than half the couples you see live together, why should we lie to you? we have sex already, and we use, and will continue to use birth control. i could lie to you like 99% of the other couples...but that would be a sin." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraphicsGuy Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 i could lie to you like 99% of the other couples...but that would be a sin." I don't think religion really wants honesty that badly. That would mean accepting people at face value... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aqua Kitty Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Anyway, in order to be married in a catholic church you must attend pre-marital counseling with a priest (usually) or deacon. Don't you just love the irony? A priest, who is not allowed to marry, & supposedly celibate, is the one to do pre-marital counseling? All those questions about positions and such? Ha! That's voyeurism plain and simple - he only wants that info so he can whack off in the rectory later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eejay Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Yep, just one more thing I could never understand. The celebate one doing the counseling. What the hel does he know about marriage. The no birth control thing always pissed me off, as I am a woman, and want no children. How dare do those pricks tell me what to do with my body? But anyway, you sure got me laughing when you mentioned the positions for sodomy! it's fun to just giggle away sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skiergirl24 Posted February 27, 2008 Author Share Posted February 27, 2008 Anyway, in order to be married in a catholic church you must attend pre-marital counseling with a priest (usually) or deacon. Don't you just love the irony? A priest, who is not allowed to marry, & supposedly celibate, is the one to do pre-marital counseling? All those questions about positions and such? Ha! That's voyeurism plain and simple - he only wants that info so he can whack off in the rectory later. lmao at the voyeurism comment haaaaaaa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upstarter Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 At the time hubby and I got married we were still trying to be xtians, and we were attending a Baptist church. We were getting married in my childhood church, which was another denom. but since our Baptist church was more convenient, we went there for the require councelling. It was both mortifying and boring. We did batteries of tests, Myers Briggs being the one I remember best. Oh boy, were we incompatible on paper. Then they asked us about money and how each of us handled money... oh boy! The minister at that point actually said he didn't think we should get married because he saw nothing but heartache for us in the future. That and the fact that we were only 21. Well it's been almost 21 years now and we are blissfully happy in our marriage. Were we opposites when we got married? Yep, in almost every way. Did we love each other for our differences? You betcha. And have we grown as people and gained from each other's strengths. Oh hell yeah. Fucking councelling! What the fuck do they know? Heather Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraphicsGuy Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Fucking councelling! What the fuck do they know? Nothing. Where pastors/priests get the idiotic idea in their heads that they're equipped to do proper counselling (of any kind) is beyond me. Seminary/Bible college I would assume. My parents and numerous other retired pastoring couples I've talked to over the years all say that NO pastor is qualified to do any type of counselling unless specifically trained for it. Not to mention the fact that most of them don't even enjoy doing it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eejay Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Yeah, it's funny where they think they get their credentials. My mom, whom you'll get to know quite a bit about through these forums, did not have even one of her three children living in her home, before they reached 18. How disfunctional is that? Yet, her pastor issued her a missionary license (because she wanted one), and she did some ministry and counseling in a nursing home. She had absolutely no clue what she was doing, but she'd copy a bible study from one already studied at her church and bring it there. She'd sing x-tian songs, give them bibles. It was kind of like the little kids who are bible thumpers. All she did was repeat what she heard from someone else. She had no real understanding of any of it. You folks on this site would have had a field day with her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraphicsGuy Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 You folks on this site would have had a field day with her. By your description of her that would just be cruelty... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eejay Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 You folks on this site would have had a field day with her. By your description of her that would just be cruelty... Yes it would be....but after all the years of cruelty I endured it would kind of be poetic justice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraphicsGuy Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 She just needs a big ass bite of Karma, hey? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eejay Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 She just needs a big ass bite of Karma, hey? YES...in capital letters! In time you'll all know what I went through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 YES...in capital letters! In time you'll all know what I went through. I wonder if she went to the same School for Dysfunctional Parents as my biomom did. I swear, I have a good number of friends who are family abuse survivors, and we all have/had biomothers cut from the same cookie cutter. It's uncanny. Maybe we'll swap some horror stories sometime, with copious amounts of sophisticated adult refreshments... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eejay Posted February 29, 2008 Share Posted February 29, 2008 YES...in capital letters! In time you'll all know what I went through. I wonder if she went to the same School for Dysfunctional Parents as my biomom did. I swear, I have a good number of friends who are family abuse survivors, and we all have/had biomothers cut from the same cookie cutter. It's uncanny. Maybe we'll swap some horror stories sometime, with copious amounts of sophisticated adult refreshments... Sounds good to me. I get around the country quite a bit. And it would be interesting to compare stories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XCCC Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 As far as the qualifications and ministry go, I'm reminded of something my brother said to my dad while a high-school aged fundy. My dad was beside himself about my brother's below average grades. My brother insisted that grades were of no importance because he was going to be a pastor!!! Why is it I suspect that is a common refrain among leadership in the church? Who cares about knowledge when I have god??? As for the Catholic thing, I just last year was floored when one of my Catholic friends said she had no idea there was anything in the bible about homosexuality. She's grown up in a religious Catholic family and is 33 years old! How the hell has she gone this long having no idea what the hell the bible actually says? I have learned that hers is actually the common experience. Amazing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eejay Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 As far as the qualifications and ministry go, I'm reminded of something my brother said to my dad while a high-school aged fundy. My dad was beside himself about my brother's below average grades. My brother insisted that grades were of no importance because he was going to be a pastor!!! Why is it I suspect that is a common refrain among leadership in the church? Who cares about knowledge when I have god??? As for the Catholic thing, I just last year was floored when one of my Catholic friends said she had no idea there was anything in the bible about homosexuality. She's grown up in a religious Catholic family and is 33 years old! How the hell has she gone this long having no idea what the hell the bible actually says? I have learned that hers is actually the common experience. Amazing... Actually that doesn't really surprise me, as I too have a longtime catholic friend, who actually taught cathecism. It kind of seems strange to me now, but catholics don't really study the bibie directly itself, but rather their religious study is based on church doctrine only. Obviously, some of that comes from the bible, but only what the church approves to be taught. That's why the catholics are very naive in a sense. They are a x-tian faith as they belief in jesus x, but their overall biblical knowledge is very limited at best. That is another reason why most catholics believe in purgatory, even though the word doesn't even exist in the bible. That comes from church doctrine only. But, don't ever argue with them about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 Maybe I'm speaking out of turn here. Based on their historical legacy, I don't think we can blame the Catholics for not knowing the Bible. A large part of the Reformation, or Protestantism, was based on Luther's idea that the Bible should be made available to the common person. This was back in the early 1500s, right after the invention of the printing press. Not until about 1960, (four centuries later) did the RCC make the Bible available to the common person. For exCatholics on here, isn't that about the size of it? I understand that church was in Latin until after the Second Vatican in 1962 or whenever. That means the grandparents of today's young people grew up not hearing a single sermon. God, the Eucharist, Church itself, was too sacred to touch. The Holy Name was too sacred to mention. God's Holy Word--no common man dare presume to understand it. Tradition is what has always been revered in the RCC so far as the common person is concerned. It seems to be a cultural religion from which it is almost impossible to break away. On here and other forums I've read of exChristians who go back and receive the Eucharist with their families a few times a year for old times sake. And the church allows it. I've read of exChristians who wanted to be taken off the church's registers and could hardly get the powers that be to do it. In medieval Europe, the role of the church was such that by virtue of being born one was a member of the church--providing one's parents did their normal duty of getting you baptized and onto the register. That register was the only census register the law had for tax purposes. Thus, the Anabaptists' and other Protestants' refusal to baptize their babies in the church meant refusal to register their children on the census. This was the role of the State Church. Thus, it seems that breaking away from the RCC on the formal level takes strong willful efforts on the part of apostates. Knowing the Bible has little or nothing to do with it because the Bible simply isn't all that important to the RCC. I would guess the reason for this is that the Church existed before the Bible. But for Protestants, the reverse is true; the Bible existed before their churches or denominations. For the RCC, the Bible exists to support the Church. For others, the church obeys the Bible. That's one way of looking at it though I don't know if it's a legitimate way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 As far as the qualifications and ministry go, I'm reminded of something my brother said to my dad while a high-school aged fundy. My dad was beside himself about my brother's below average grades. My brother insisted that grades were of no importance because he was going to be a pastor!!! Why is it I suspect that is a common refrain among leadership in the church? Who cares about knowledge when I have god??? He was probably building on 1 Cor. 2:14-16: 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he that is spiritual judgethc all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.  16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. We all know that for Christians, the "things of the Spirit" are far superior to anything else that can be known. Thus, your brother was in effect telling your Dad, "Look, I'm not interested in the things of this world. My interests are far superior. Never mind my low grades in the 'things of this world.' I'll make it all up to you when I'm a pastor minding the things of the Spirit. No man can judge me then. I have the mind of Christ." The problem comes in when the pastors tell their congregations stuff about evolution and science based on the Bible when their congregants can go to the library and prove the pastor wrong. At that point the pastor is going to have to come up with elaborate lies to keep the congregants suspicious of scientists and their ways. Based on the crazy crap fundies feed us these days about scientists we know the pastors have been fairly successful. Based on the laws some states have passed re public education, and based on the limitations Bush has put on scientific research, we know that the things these pastors feed their congregations has far-reaching life-impacting consequences for very vulnerable people. People are dying because of the crap these fundies are preaching--all because of some ancient text. To distract people, Bush points across the ocean at some oil wells in Iraq. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 Upon informing her parents that I couldn't agree to that stipulation, they said I could have just signed the paper and done what I wanted. I said that since I wasn't a Catholic I couldn't be that dishonest and hypocritical. Things just weren't the same after that! - Chris I can see that. Christian is supposed to mean superior. But "dishonest and hypocritical" indicates inferior. They could not deny that what they were suggesting was in fact dishonest and hypocritical. Being thus rebuked by an "ubeliever" was NOT ACCEPTABLE. Yet what could they do??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Catlady34 Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 Hi, long time lurker delurking briefly. This thing about pre-marriage reminded me what my cousin told us before he got married. Naturally here everybody is from catholic background so religious marriage is still quite the norm; so my cousin and his future wife engaged in a "marriage preparation retreat" - it was held in a monastery and lasted three days. The girls were not sleeping in the monastery - they spent the night in a convent close to there. Same bulshit about the people directing the "classes" acting like the couples living there never having lived together (despite the fact that all the couples there did), separating men and women when it was about "sex topics" (even explaining the women "how" it was done as if they'd not already knew), ignoring that all of them were using birth control... We spent the night laughing out loud when he told us all this. Self-denial is incredibly powerful in ultra-religious types. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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