News Tribune, a North Central Illinois newspaper, has posted a report on a local trend away from church weddings. The story includes this analysis …
Among the reasons why civil weddings have grown in popularity:
- Flexibility: Churches may restrict not only the venue but other elements such as music selection and personalized vows
- Brevity: Civil weddings can be concluded in minutes
- Participation: Guests may be more likely to witness the exchange of vows at a non-religious ceremony held at the same site as the reception
- Interfaith marriages: Couples of differing faiths may prefer to bypass required pre-marital counseling or religious instruction.
With regard to its local Catholic Church the report says,
One denomination that does track marriage numbers regionally is the Roman Catholic Church. In the 26-county Diocese of Peoria, the number of church weddings has fallen 27 percent since 2000 — from 923 weddings performed in 2000 to 672 in 2010 — according to the Official Catholic Directory.
The Rev. William Gardner, pastor of St. Valentine and St. Mary churches in Peru, said he wasn’t surprised by the trend.
Gardner said he’s observed a growing shift toward secular ceremonies and attributes it to a societal change: Marriage is viewed more as “a partnership of life and love,” he said, and less as a solemn institution for raising children.
By way of context, the number of Catholic church weddings nationwide declined 33% from 2000 to 2010.
Here in DOR the story is even worse. The 2000 OCD reports 1,962 local Catholic marriages while the 2010 edition shows 1,049, for a drop of some 47% in just 10 years.
Given that trend it is not too surprising that DOR’s number of infant baptisms is also in sharp decline, falling 44% (from 4,637 to 2,579) over the same time period. (The nationwide drop was 16% over those same 10 years.)
Decades of “Jesus loves you – don’t litter” catechesis would seem to be having their predictable effect.
UPDATE: Mark Gray of CARA has also addressed the subject of the declining number of Catholic marriages. See here.
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I have never understood the appeal of having a civil marriage ceremony. We don’t throw grand parties when we go down to the DMV to renew a license or when we register to vote, so why celebrate obtaining a simple piece of paper from city hall? When you strip the religious significance from marriage, all you’re left with is a legal document. These civil ceremonies are nothing more than a cheap attempt to simulate a religious marriage ceremony.
Recently I received some interesting data from the St. Joseph Foundation in San Antonio. I don’t know if these data have already appeared on CF; if so, please just delete. BTW, the St. Joseph Foundation is well-deserving of support, as they help Catholics to understand and vindicate their rights under Canon Law.
The following data tables compare 1965 to 2002 to 2010. All categories declined in each comparison period except for the number of Catholics which increased dramatically (immigration). Also, the number of seminarians and the number of ordinations increased slightly from 2002 to 2010.
......................1965...............2002................2010
...
# Priests.............58632..............45713..............40788
Ordinations............1575................450................472
Seminarians...........48992...............4719...............5131
Infant Baptisms.....1310413............1007716.............857410
Marriages............352458.............256563.............179576
Women Religious......179154..............75500..............58274
US Catholics.......45640619...........65270444...........68503456
And 60% of these marriages will wind upn divorce court because our Catholic clergy refuses to preach the “Good News” concerning sexual ethice, ie birth control. As a matter of fact, these clerics hava a peculiar twitching of their eyes as the wink at the mention of contraception.
If only these victum couples learn the truth about contraception. If it was never preaches or if a priest or bishop told them it was OK to use it, could these clerics be sued?
Dr. K, thank you for your observation… I LOL! I never looked at it that way, and boy is it a great analogy. I used to wonder what I should be celebrating as the children of friends married outside the Church… you want me there to celebrate their ticket to Gehenna? Yours is a more pragmatic view and kinder and certainly doesn’t smack of being judgmental (which I used to always feel I was being in my thoughts). +JMJ
I know of Catholic priests in the DOR who encouraged couples to obtain a civil wedding while their annulment was being processed. What a disgrace.