Pope: Not everybody has the right to marry. (USA causing too many annulments!)

[Bluebear]

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI told priests Saturday to do a better job counseling would-be spouses to ensure their marriages last and said no one has an absolute right to a wedding.

Benedict made the comments in his annual speech to the Roman Rota, the Vatican tribunal that decides marriage annulments. An annulment is the process by which the church effectively declares that a marriage never took place.

Benedict acknowledged that the problems that would allow for a marriage to be annulled cannot always be identified beforehand. But he said better pre-marriage counseling, which the Catholic Church requires of the faithful, could help avoid a "vicious circle" of invalid marriages.

He said the right to a church wedding requires that the bride and groom intend to celebrate and live the marriage truthfully and authentically....The Vatican's concern about marriage annulments is largely directed at the United States, which in 2006 had more annulment cases launched than the rest of the world combined.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110122/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_marriage

[Missy Vixen]

1. Am I the only one who's tired of reading "advice" on marriage

from someone who will never marry himself?

I'm more qualified to counsel the unmarried about what goes into a successful marriage than he is. After all, I've BEEN married for the past seventeen years.

:eyes:

[malaise]

5. No you have company

Does he ever shut up?

[hedgehog]

2. Most dioceses in the US move the priests around every 5 or 6 years.

This ties the priest to the bishop rather than to the people of the parish, and also helps keep the priests in line. ("Do as I say, or you'll end up at St. Hellhole's next time around.")


Marriage preparation is generally done by lay volunteers. I suspect most priests meet the couple for the first time at the rehearsal a day or so before the actual wedding.

How can a priest counsel people preparing for marriage when he has no idea who they are or what kind of family life they've had?

[Justitia]

3. says the man wearing the blanket on his head. Good grief. -eom

[CTyankee]

9. Wasn't that a towel...he had just washed his hair...no?

[RKP5637]

4. The picture says everything! n/t

[ellie]

6. As a Catholic

I have to say that I wouldn't take the Catholic Church's advice on anything related to marriage.

[Vickers]

7. Fuck him. n/t

[gratuitous]

8. I've seen my share of disastrous marriages

And yes, some premarital counseling should be required. Not to mention some postmarital counseling. And some prenatal counseling. Postnatal counseling would be a godsend. How about working toward a society - as Benny's comments appear directed at the U.S. - that supports and helps individuals and families, instead of endorsing the fiction that we're all rugged individualists who are perfectly capable and qualified to go it alone, no matter what the situation?

[Swamp Rat]

10. Thanks Mr. Holiness Nazi Pope, for further making the Catholic Church irrelevant

:applause: