You don't even want to get me started on the Catholic church beliefs....not only is your wedding vows about procreation - but even baptism!!
I am not and have never been married, but I am a single mom. Born and raised in the Catholic Church, I wanted my daughter to baptized in the church as well (this was before I had my awakening of the crap they try to pull). Before the baptism the priest told me that since I was a single mom, in order for him to baptize my daughter I had to sign a paper saying that whom ever I marry in the future will be or convert to Catholicism and raise our future children Catholic. I think I laughed in his face. And told him "There is no way I am making a decision like that for someone I dont even yet know, and that should not be the basis for the baptism of my current child. You should be lucky enough that I am letting you baptize her into your church." I don't think he was too pleased, but he proceeded with the baptism and I never signed his supposed paper.

Got married in a Catholic church. As the wife and I can't have kids, we got that line excised from the service well in advance. But I was at a wedding the following year where the priest officiating actually asked that question again, saying that they should speak up when they answered. Pissed me off.

I was raised Catholic and this is one of the (many) reasons I got the hell outta there. Even as a mere preteen it seemed incredibly obvious to me that a huge chunk of the Church's teachings were all about making more Catholics. Convert everyone you meet, breed as much as possible, and eventually we'll win out through sheer numbers!

The whole thing just seemed incredibly suspect to me.

This is definitely one of many, many things that made me decide to renounce my Catholicism. Not that I'm anywhere near marriage right now, but if and when I do, I do not want that kind of ceremony. And I'll have babies under my own terms, thank you very much.

My other reasons can pretty much be summed up by being sick of being told that 90% of the people I know are going to hell for things beyond their control. I hate the idea of a vengeful God, and want no part in worship of that idea.

janet, your story reminds me of one from my catholic upbringing. just before graduating from catholic school (8th grade), we had exit interviews where each student and parent(s) met with one of the priests. upon learning that i would be attending a public high school, the priest asked if i would be doing CYO.

(FYI: CYO stands for catholic youth organization. they are usually affiliated with catholic schools/churches, but designed for kids who are not receiving a catholic education in school. most CYO is for kids below high school age but there are high school groups as well.)

my mom said, "yes, she'll be doing CYO." i believe the exact words running through my head were "shit. goddamn it." so the interview is over and we're walking down the hallway (not even out of the school building yet) and my mom says "don't worry, you're not doing CYO. i just said you were because i didn't want to get in an argument." i love my mom.

but to get to the topic of catholic weddings, i have been to many (both cousins and friends) and at one friend's wedding, she used the old-school traditional vows in which the bride utters that crap about obeying her husband while he makes no such promise to her. this was only four years ago! you could see the smoke coming out of my ears as i grumbled about what a sexist load of crap that was. another friend (who's wedding i was in a few months afterwards) turned to me and said "don't worry. we won't be having any of that in my wedding."

Is it a surprise that a religious sect that systematically makes women feel like their only value lies in their wombs would make procreation a keystone of the marriage ceremony? For the Catholic Church, you don't get married if you don't want to have sex, and you don't want to have sex unless you want to make babies. That's how they roll.

I got married in a Catholic Church, because my spouse and I were using it as a farewell gesture to the church (we'd both been raised Catholic but fallen away from all types of faith) and as a nod to our parents' wishes. We didn't have a mass (my hypocrisy only goes so far), and I was willing to say that I would accept children willingly from God (whatever -- God knew I was on the patch, so that was easily rationalized), and we'd raise the kid according to the laws of Christ (decent moral philosophy, that giving to the poor, turning the other cheek and loving one's neighbor -- why not?). But that "and his Church" bit? That was going too far.

The priest said he wasn't allowed to omit the vow, either entirely or just the "and his Church" part. I told him about my opposition to Church teachings on birth control, the role of women, etc. -- and he asked me to consider the church as being the Christian church in general, not necessarily the Pontificate. I didn't buy his argument, being a lawyer and appreciating the capitalization of "his Church" -- the intention was the Catholic Church, and we shouldn't try to put a gloss over something so obvious.

Faced with the prospect of changing the whole wedding plan or saying three words that were not going to be true, I sucked it up and sold out...or at least I thought I would. In the ceremony, the priest started the vow, stopped after "the laws of Christ" and looked purposefully at me. We ran with it and said we would, so I said a vow with which I was comfortable, and that priest will have my gratitude for making my wedding day a much happier one.

The process was dumb as shit, though, and I will be happy not to burden my kids with such regimented, patriarchal bullshit.

My best friend got married in an Anglican church a couple of years ago - and since she and her partner are not religious (doing it for the family), I didn't expect it to be too formal (which leads to another funny story of me showing up drunk and covered in ketchup to the rehearsal, but I digress...). Anyway, her ceremony was SATURATED with baby talk, and they had similar passages where they had to promise to bring forth children. AND - me and the best man, while signing as witnesses, had to swear that we would "hold them accountable" to procreation or some such nonsense!!! I certainly didn't agree ahead of time to that, but I joked to her afterward that now that I'd given my word I was going to start monitoring her ovulation cycle and calling to remind them to have sex on the appropriate days. Anyone else experience this in an Anglican ceremony?

Oh and PS - I wore a very similar 2 piece bridesmaid dress for her wedding - it was white on top, but the same colour on the bottom. That colour was called 'lettuce' by the designer, which still strikes me as kind of funny when I see it hanging in my closet. Hopefully next wedding I can wear 'arugula' or 'endive'...

Weird. I was at a small-town Catholic Iowa wedding this weekend, too. And the bridesmaid dresses were ALSO two-pieces. Hmm. What's up with this trend?

To show the flipside of the coin, at my Dutch atheist wedding my (female) civil servant asked if we wanted to replace the "till death do us part" stuff with "with the best of our abilities".

Now that IS a realistic view in the current day, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth with divorce being the easy way out you anticipated from the start.

As another lapsed-and-happy Catholic, I'm beginning to feel like George Carlin's character from Dogma wasn't too far off from how the Pontificate really thinks: hook 'em while they're young.

My sister managed to swallow the BS and made my father happy and have the proper Catholic wedding that I didn't. All of the "PROCREATE, BITCHES" stuff was still there, but at least she refused to say "obey".

The funniest part for me was watching her VERY Lutheran maid-of-honor march up to take Communion. Oh, if that old priest knew, he would have stroked out right there.

If it makes you feel better Niobe, I can report from having witnessed my parents' divorce, that there ain't nothing easy about it.

Not to support the RCC, but when I married in said church (also as a goodbye gesture), I wrote to the priest about that "accepting children line" and explained my concerns about church views on contraception. The priest told me I could interpret it to mean I would take care of my nephew (he remembered the child's name from a chance conversation) if my partner's brother & sister-in-law were killed. He was very cool about the whole thing, and this was an older man.

The Catholic Church is not really, IMHO, very Christian. It systematically excludes women and married men from every part of its hierarchy.

For former Catholics, it's easy to see why this is a problem. It's worse than, say, Congress not having many women, or the fact that we've never had a female Commander in Chief. Most members of Congress are married. Many have daughters. The Pope, bishops, priests, and the rest are all single. No wives, no daughters. There is no natural mechanism by which they can understand the plight of women. The Pope has never nursed a wife through morning sickness, preeclampsia, or anything similar. He has never once thought, "Wow, if my wife could use birth control, our marriage would be stronger and more intimate," or "Since we aren't using birth control, my wife insists on abstaining, because another kid is going to make her mental." He's never put a daughter through college and realised that, without birth control, it's either her career or marriage.

I'm not saying that married men or men with daughters are a perfect substitute - or even an acceptable one - for having women as part of the religious hierarchy. What I am saying is that Catholicism has a systematic exclusion of both women and anyone who might learn, through normal life experiences, to be sympathetic to women.

I was raised Catholic and I was recently very torn over whether to stay in the Church or not. Then I took a class on Catholicism and had to write a paper on some part of it. I wrote on birth control, and I ended up finding out so much about how illogical, biased, and ridiculous the Church's official stance on it was that it was one of the big things that helped me get over my obedience and give up on Catholicism. I came to the conclusion from my research that the reason behind the Church's stance is they think sex is dirty and therefore can only be justified by something holy, like having children. Even that is not considered as holy as being a lifelong virgin, but having kids at least makes it look like you weren't just doing it for fun. But don't hold it against all priests - a lot of them are pro-birth control and don't make their parishioners confess using it as a sin. A lot of them are also in favor of ordaining women. The Vatican is just completely out of touch with reality.

Even that is not considered as holy as being a lifelong virgin, but having kids at least makes it look like you weren't just doing it for fun

Did these people miss the part of Genesis where God made Eve because Adam was lonely? What, did God make sex dirty but never really say anything about it in the Bible?

I hadn't seen your comment before, oenophile, but I think you're totally right. That's probably a big part of why they're so out of touch. That and stubbornness. The Church isn't ever supposed to be wrong, so they stick by bad ideas so they won't have to admit they ever made a mistake. The hilarious thing is, the Popes went so far overboard trying to keep their power from being undermined, that instead of continuing to obey, most American Catholics (I haven't seen the stats for other countries) just ignore the Vatican and any teachings they don't like. They use birth control as much as anyone else.

As for whether Catholics are Christian or not...the pre-Reformation church was plenty misogynistic, so in the sense of what Christians have always been like, that doesn't make them un-Christian. But you could argue whether Christian ideals allow for/require misogyny, and if you came to the conclusion that Christianity calls for complete equality, then yeah, you could say that conservative Catholics (and Protestants, and Orthodox) are not very Christian. I've tried to figure that out myself, and I've come to the conclusion that the stuff I associated with Christianity - the love everyone as yourself stuff - doesn't always jibe with what's actually printed in the Bible. So I guess it depends on how you define the religion, and which parts of the Bible you read.

Honestly, I think the church is misogynist because they keep listening to misogynistic bastards. St.Paul and St.Augustine were both incredibly misogynistic individuals who came to the church late in life after they'd had all their fun. And we hold their word as gospel, literally. Because I was raised by very loving and open minded parents and was taught my religion as a loving and compassionate thing, I didn't learn the true nature of the church until I began reading about it on my own. I still value some parts of the church, but I agree that a lot of church teaching isn't in line with what most catholics believe.

Did these people miss the part of Genesis where God made Eve because Adam was lonely? What, did God make sex dirty but never really say anything about it in the Bible?

Ah, but God did say plenty about sex being dirty. God made Eve to keep Adam company, but Eve listened to the snake, tempted Adam, and each ate from the forbidden tree, at which point they became ashamed of their nakedness. By giving in to temptation, they became aware of their sexuality and knew that it was dirty. In casting Adam and Eve from Eden, he cursed Eve with the pains of menstruation and childbirth, making her body dirty (a concept that was cemented in Leviticus, which sets forth rituals by which men can cleanse themselves after associating with menstruating women, who were, by reason of their bleeding, ritually unclean).

The concept of sex -- and women desiring sex -- being dirty was cemented in the story of the Virgin Mary. Her conception was without Original Sin (it is hers that is celebrated on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, not Jesus's), and therefore, being without the sin of Eve, she was worthy of carrying the child of God, a conception that took place by divine grace and without the dirty, sinful act of coitus. So between Eve's downfall and Mary's redemption, sex is definitely framed as dirty, even when it's procreative.

Layer onto that concept of dirty sex the notion that being free from familial obligation is the most true calling of Jesus. In telling his disciples that they ought to be "fishers of men," Jesus instructs them to leave their families and preach the word of God. He disdained family and marriage (and regarded such trivialities as being the perview of women -- when, at Cana, the wedding party ran out of wine and his mother asked him to help, he said, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?").

Now, I don't have a problem with the notion promoted by many modern Christians that Jesus's message came at a time when women were massively subjugated and therefore the Bible's misogyny should be read out, along with many other prohibitions, on the grounds that historical and cultural biases should not distract from a message of love and liberation. However, to the extent that leaders in the Catholic Church want to paint themselves in a more righteous light because they are celibate and not either having dirty sex like those married folk or being dirty whores like, um, all women, there is a rather strong Biblical basis for their beliefs.

Oh, and I very much agree with Genny -- Paul and Augustine loved to read everything in a woman-hating light, and the Church as been more than happy to keep up their traditions.

Minor quibble -- the epistles of Paul aren't literally considered gospels.

ekf--
Do Christian denominations really interpret the whole "oh shit we're naked" thing to equal "sex is dirty"? I never knew that. I was raised Jewish and we were always taught that sex was both for pleasure and procreation, and that first story in the garden of eden wasn't really about sex being dirty. In fact, it's a "double Mitzvah" to have sex on the Sabbath. Of course, there is that whole phobia about menstrual blood in Leviticus, but if you read it, it isn't clear that being ritually unclean was a bad thing--people who were ritually pure had to sacrifice one or more of their animals per day (assuming these nutjob rules were ever followed), and the rules were so onerous that it seems like EVERYBODY would mostly be in a state of ritual uncleanness all the time. Also, if a man was made ritually unclean through contact with a menstruating woman, they're only "unclean" till nightfall, so it doesn't seem like it was a very big deal.

Just wanted to share a story from a Protestant wedding I was in a few years back so nobody things that the Papists have a monopoly on entrenched misogyny... My friends got married in a Baptist church and the pastor went on at great length about how the groom was Christ and the bride was the church and so was commanded by God to obey the groom/Christ in every way. He then went on to warn them of the sin of having separate checking accounts, and told the bride that in no uncertain terms should she ever put anyone before the groom, including her (seven year old, present, and perfectly cognizant) son, whom the pastor explicitly pointed out by name. (Subtext - if your new husband abuses your children, tough luck for the kids!)

After the ceremony I asked my partner how I looked standing up next to my friend and he said, "You looked nice, but you kept rolling your eyes and shaking your head..."

I don't know about "Christian denominations" generally (although a lot have hang-ups about bodies and sex), but and certainly the naked body has not always been seen as dirty by the Catholic Church (see, e.g., Michelangelo's David).

That being said, the Eden story was taught to me as a child in Catholic school as evidence that our bodies are inherently sinful and tempting towards sex, which is bad for purposes other than procreation. I recall specifically being taught about the shame that Adam and Eve felt when they became aware of sex and temptation, which were one and the same after The Fall.

I admit that the call out to Leviticus is more my read than an explicit Catholic (or Christian) church thing. Leviticus is mostly strip-quoted for the anti-gay verse and then forgotten in Christian circles. It was more something I found later on in life while trying to read the Bible cover-to-cover and thought that between menstruation being "the curse" and making a woman ritually unclean (and then either being virgins or whores in the New Testament), there seemed to be a lot of "women are dirty and sinful" stuff in the Bible. The Bible verses themselves weren't all part of church doctrine, but they certainly harmonized exactly with the church's message to us girls.

ekf, I've always wondered about the Catholic idea that Mary was immaculately conceived. I mean, wouldn't that make HER the Messiah, not her son? I can stretch suspension of disbelief to her being impregnated by the Holy Sprit, but I'll be damned if I believe her mother was also. Oh, and that she remained a Virgin for the rest of her life, I'm not buying that either. I don't get what's so wrong with the idea that a regular woman, conceived and born like any other woman, could be selected to give birth to the Messiah based on her virtue and faithfulness. I mean, that's what I was taught.

There's been a few popes who have been far more anti-sex than others, which never helps. One went around with a hammer and chisel to remove the phalluses (phalli?) from all the male statues in the Vatican, lest their naked forms incite lust in the cardinals. And a lot of painting had strategic draped cloths added long after they'd been painted to keep the church decent. Then again, since we've also had popes that enjoyed the occasional orgy and others with bunches of bastard children running around, these are things that varied from Pope to Pope.

The intense baby pressure in wedding vows tends to shock people nowadays, even when you know it's coming. I nearly burst out laughing at one wedding where the preacher said, "Bless this home and all who live in it," even though I knew the couple wanted babies someday. I knew the pressure would make them flinch.

ekf,

Not buying it. Part of the Fall was shame - it's not that nudity is inherently shameful, it's just shameful when you're not living a life in God.

Moreover, how do you take those verses that say things like, "Be always inebriated by your wife's young breasts" and the line that tells married couples to bring each other pleasure?

If you're ever bored, read Rob Bell's Sex God. It presents a very compelling argument for a sex-positive view of Christianity.

I can stretch suspension of disbelief to her being impregnated by the Holy Sprit, but I'll be damned if I believe her mother was also.

I think you're misunderstanding. "Immaculate conception" does not mean "impregnated by the Holy Spirit." Mary's mother, whose name I'm blanking on--Anne? Or is that her cousin?--was impregnanted by Mary's father. It's merely that the conception took place without the tainting of the infant with original sin, thus making Mary a fit vessel for impregnantion by the Holy Spirit. It makes as much sense as anything else in religion does, I suppose.

[I had a really long post written, but somehow it was eaten. Argh! Will try again...]

oenophile, I may be making my points rather sloppily, and, if so, I apologize. There are, of course, many ways to read the Bible, and I have no doubt that people have found enough Biblical support for a sex-positive view of Christianity.

That being said, do you really believe that any substantial number of the leaders of the Catholic faith (either in the U.S. or globally) share such a sex-positive view? I am not asking you do "buy" that the Bible is inherently anti-sex.

My point is that the teachings of the Catholic church are anti-sex and anti-woman, and that such teachings -- as I personally experienced them growing up going to Catholic school -- were supported by stories from the Bible.

I am more than happy to assert that the misogyny and sex loathing of the post Vatican-II incarnation of the Catholic Church (which is what I know; I believe other parts of the church's history are the same or worse) simply took the portions of the Bible that could be painted in a sex-/marriage-/women-negative view and went ahead to paint such verses accordingly. But it would defy my own experience to act as though members of the Catholic church did not teach that sex and women's bodies were shameful, that women were responsible for the Fall, that periods made women dirty, etc. -- and look to the Bible for support.

To the extent you are not Catholic, oenophile, I suggest you look online to a book of the Bible that you will only find in a Catholic version, as it's part of the Apocrypha and Deuterocanonical texts, and therefore was removed during the Reformation. It's the Book of Sirach, and includes, among others, a verse that says not to let one's daughter do as she pleases, or she'll open her legs for any passersby. I'm paraphrasing but not exaggerating. That the Catholic Church keeps this book as divinely inspired says a lot to me about its particular attitude towards women and sexuality.

I went to my old best mate from uni's wedding over in Ireland a couple of weeks ago and certainly a big part of the religious service was about how we all hoped and prayed God would give them children and how they promised to "accept" the children God gave them.

Thing is though - much as marriage is no longer about children - some people seem to think WOMEN are about nothing other than children!

Let's be frank here -- we're talking about religion. It's the nature of the beast, so to speak, to "hook 'em while they're young", and I don't have a particular problem with that. I have a lot of problems with the Catholic church, to be honest, but this isn't one of them.

The clause about lovingly accepting children from God, yeah, that's no issue -- IF you remove the supposition that birth control is allowed. And, again, let's be honest: birth control, while great, is in no way %100. Ever. The only way to absolutely not get pregnant is to just not have sex. A priest I know interprets the line about lovingly accepting children as meaning "IF you are so blessed THEN you will not abort them and you will do your best to love and raise them well".

You might say, Well, that's an anti-abortionist stance, and it is.

But again, let's be frank. This is a church wedding you're describing and while the majority of weddings occur under the mantle of a church, the definition of marriage is no longer automatically synonymous with a sanction from a holy man. If it bothers you, then don't get married in a church, or choose one you take no issue with.

It seems to me that this outrage is somewhat ill-placed: if your friend were offended by that part of the vow, then she would have either spoken with her priest to have it removed, or would have gone elsewhere for the ceremony. True, it's not always that simple, but while we're boiling the issue down to black-and-white on one side, we might as well do it on the other as well.

i have yet to go to a Catholic wedding although I will be next year. It will be interesting as the bride is catholic yet the groom is half hindu/half irish and has never been baptized. My friend's priest was okay with it though as he says he supports love in any form..although i'm sure he could get in trouble for it.

I never really was okay with the catholic church and how much like a government it is. I know all churches have some sort of hierarchy but theirs' always seemed ridiculous.
I also never understood the lack of marriage. I am Orthodox and our priests are supposed to be married because there is the belief that how can you counsel people if you've never had a fight with your wife or had to worry about another person basically ever....

also, an interesting side note. While researching wedding traditions for Serbians (which I am) I discovered that originally the bride and groom walked down the aisle together, rather than the "giving away" ceremony to symbolize their equal footing within the marriage. However, that tradition has fallen away as everyone has jumped on the give the bride away bandwagon.

I debated doing that for a bit although I know my dad really wants to walk me down the aisle. I am supportive of this because I knoew that he does not view me as his property or as my soon to be husband's property. He has been there tos upport me through my life and has helped me achieve all of my goals and I am o kay with him being the one to walk with me since I look at this as another area of my life where I have had his support love

Wow, Ann, a matching bag? really?
What I want to know about a Catholic wedding is whether or not it's gonna last longer than the few other weddings I've been to. I'm a bridesmaid in a Catholic wedding in a couple weeks, and the bride made us buy these ridiculous (and painful) shoes, and I want to know how long I'm going to have to be standing in them at the front of the damned church.

While researching wedding traditions for Serbians (which I am) I discovered that originally the bride and groom walked down the aisle together

Interesting. I'm told that in the Jewish tradition, both bride and groom are walked down the aisle by both parents. Should I ever get married, I would be up for that, but it would raise the sticky father/stepfather issue.

I went to Catholic School, and up until I was about 12 I assumed that sex for any other reason than procreation was considered a sin. Then we had some Christian sex-ed teacher(or whatever they're called) come to speak to us. She read a "Song of Solomon" told us about God's plan for sex. I couldn't believe they talked about sex in the Bible. It wasn't even about having children. The entire passage is about erotic love. She went on to tell us that sex is only meant as something to be shared between husband and wife and children were gifts, but I had already heard that before. It was the first time we were told that sex is not just to have children. I don't understand why the Church doesn't say this more because their official position is that it's okay to have sex even while trying to avoid pregnancy(within marriage) though charting ovulation and having sex at infertile times.

Wow, I don't know how you can put up with sitting through a wedding only to hear the pastor go on about the groom being Christ and how the wifey better obey. I would probably end up vomitting into my little sequin purse.
I attended a nice, secular wedding last Saturday of some good friends. Then the DJ kept calling them "Mr and Mrs. John Smith!" I can't wait til the big day when I get to shed my name and become nothing more than my hubby's wife!

My whole family is Catholic and not a darn one of my aunts or my own mother have more than two children! My mom put me on the pill as soon as she found out I was having sex (She knew like the day after my first time. How do they do that!!!) But anywho, so I don't think that many Catholics really take the "contraception evil!" BS seriously.

Okay, as a Pagan ex-Catholic who took many religious studies courses that dealt with women and sexuality, I can clear up some of the "sex = dirty" mentality if I remember the lectures correctly. The Hebrews were all about procreation, I mean that was one of your main goals in life, but they were also super-cool about sex within marriage (the Kabbalah for example tells men all about how to please their women in bed). The whole obsession with virginity is thanks to Paul. He actually had GOOD reasons for it though. See, as his letters have proven, he actually had a lot of fellow female preachers spreading Christianity. The way he was able to justify these women traveling around converting others instead of becoming part of a family and procreating like crazy (remember Paul wasn't Jewish and pretty much through out all their rules about circumcision, dietary restrictions, and what-not) was to say that they were all staying virgins to spread the word and justified by claiming virginity as a holy thing. Eventually, once the church was established and it became a male-only power structure, they elevated the level of holiness that virginity had since the priests had to be holier than your average sinner. So then comes the problem, if everyone wants to be holy and they remain virgins, no one will procreate. Well they made it all cool, you see as long as you got married (and the implication was that marriage was to start a family because of the cultural norms) that was holy too, not QUITE as holy as virginity, but still cool in the eyes of the lord.

Now, that historical bit being said, I was raised Catholic and find the institution and its teachings to be extremely anti-sex and pro-guilt. I mean they use Biblical stories and God knows what else to say that masturbation and even thinking about sex is DIRTY, you become dirty, you're a sinner, you need to be cleansed by going to confession, repenting, and saying x# of hail Mary's or whatever. Maybe this isn't the brand everyone else was raised with but that is what I remember and the version I still get from my mom. I was disgusted when my cousin got married in November (she had 2 kids before marriage) and she had to promise to continue to be a good mom and happily accept any more "gifts" (children) she may receive from God and be a good mother to them as well...and NOTHING about being a good father was mentioned to her husband, the new step-father and father figure of her children! WTF?!