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One part of the wedding planning checklist that Black and her fianc do not have to worry about is engagement preparation. They did their marriage formation online through the Catholic marriage ministry that Black works for.
But for thousands of Catholic couples across the U.S. facing the stress of preparing for marriage and planning a wedding amid the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, going through marriage formation online is the new normal. And in this regard, the pandemic may permanently alter how the Church does marriage formation as almost overnight, marriage ministry moves from in-person gatherings to online or virtual-interactive models of marriage formation.
Right now, there is no definite end to various state lockdowns, and even if they are lifted, Catholic churches may still have to operate under social distancing requirements that are lifted by degrees. And there is no guarantee lockdowns will not occur again, such as if Covid-19 surges in the Fall similar to the flu, until a safe and successful vaccine is widely implemented.
The normal time to complete the program is 90 days, but given the crisis, the time for completing the program is now extended to 120 days. Meert said queries from couples getting married in May or June are on the priority list for his team.
At a parish level, inter-personal marriage formation programs like Witness to Love, that take a catechumenal approach to marriage formation with mentor couples for the engaged, are seeing the strengths of their program translate well from the living room setting to the video chat setting.
"It's an approach that connects people, not just resources," explained Daniela Mazzone, a parish coordinator for the Witness to Love marriage catechumenal program. She meets with couples and mentors via Zoom or Video chat to give them some tips on how to make it work with social distancing.
The centerpiece of the Witness to Love approach is that couples grow in marriage, and the engaged couples have a relationship with the mentor couple they picked that lasts beyond the wedding date, and will provide them an ongoing source of wisdom to talk to.
Mary-Rose Verret, co-founder of Witness to Love, told the Register that the isolation that couples are experiencing right now underscores the need for marriage formation to be interpersonal with a mentor couple who can integrate them into the larger community of the Church before and after the wedding.
Dioceses are also retooling their pre-Cana gatherings to go online and be interactive with couples. Matt Selby, director of marriage and family life at the Archdiocese of Dubuque ,said that his office had to cancel the Engaged Encounter weekend, but rather than cancel the pre-Cana sessions, he embarked on providing them in a virtual format for the couples that had signed up.
The all-day pre-Cana session was reduced to a four-hour Saturday morning session over Zoom. Each speaker provided the content, with an opportunity to discuss the material. They used the chat feature on Zoom to provide people an opportunity to ask questions.
Having marriage formation continue in an online-interactive format helps provide couples a good sense of being grounded, even if the wedding is postponed. And Selby explained that while his preference would be for in-person pre-Cana sessions, they are learning a lot about how to make them more interactive and how pre-Cana via Zoom might be a good option for couples whose schedules or distance makes attending an in-person session very difficult.
Peter Jesserer Smith Peter Jesserer Smith is a staff reporter for the National Catholic Register. He covered Pope Francis's historic visit to the United States in 2015, and to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in 2014. He has reported on the Syrian and Iraqi refugee crisis, including from Jordan and Lebanon on an Egan Fellowship from Catholic Relief Services. Before coming on board the Register in 2013, he was a freelance writer, reporting for Catholic media outlets as the Register and Our Sunday Visitor. He is a graduate of the National Journalism Center and earned a B.A. in Philosophy at Christendom College, where he co-founded the student newspaper, The Rambler, and served as its editor. He comes originally from the Finger Lakes region of New York State.
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