Also, I think that this point about the primacy of conscience is deserving of some development as a hallmark of Novus, heretical thought.

I understand the difference between sin and the near occassion of sin. Do you understand the difference between ‘good enough’ and heroic virtue?

If only St. Hannah and her seven sons had received Novus Ordo theology classes, they would have been spared so much agony and pain. ‘Sons, just bite off a little bit of pork and spit it out when they’re not looking. Then we can all just go home.’

What a silly traditional Catholic though, huh? Why risk his livelihood and also receive, at a minimum, an other-than-honorable discharge and potentially even a felony conviction and prison sentence over something that is “per se” not sinful? He obviously didn’t study Catholic morality at Cornell.

I would hope that The Doctor would be enough of a Catholic gentleman to offer his room to your female friend - and himself sleep in a chair in the hotel lobby or in his car with plenty of blankets - rather than put your female friend in the position of sleeping in the same room as a married man or herself sleeping in the hotel lobby or in her car. (If he dies in his car overnight what a message to the world: “Catholic Married man freezes to death while sleeping in car rather than share hotel room with another woman.” Now instead in the Novus Ordo world we have the likes of Monsignor Clark making excuses for sharing a hotel room with a female. You know, we cannot presume sin and all that pretentious, over-educated nonsense.)

I remember sleeping one night in a cramped Ford Escort (very uncomfortable!) rather than share a room with my fiancée.

If you saw The Doctor sitting on a crowded bus with a young lady on his lap, would you accept the excuse - well dear, there were no more empty seats for her to sit?

What is indeed childish is your compulsion to always state that certain acts of Catholic manners and decency are not always matters of sin. No one would suggest that a police investigation be hampered simply because all the police officers are traditional Catholics who would not enter a brothel. This is crazy. But you offer this constant example and leave the issue of entering a brothel open ended since you’ve managed to apply some sophistry to the issue.

On the other hand, making people discuss such things in a seminar might sometimes be beneficial for precisely the reason you suggest. “Well, it’s not that I’ve ever worried about it, but since we’re here…” It sometimes is better to discuss very sensitive things at a time other than the time they’re worrying you (the other person’s annoying habits, things about their family that make you uncomfortable, etc.) in order to make them less defensive. And sometimes a workshop environment can put people in the right mood to look on stuff like that constructively.

Don’t know how much of that happened at our Pre-Cana, which was in large part just tedious hours of aging hippies telling personal stories that had very little to do with anything. I’ll say more about the Pre-Cana workshop in another post perhaps, but later… it made for a pretty exhausting (though extremely boring) weekend, and I might need to recuperate for a little first.

These are just two canonical points which then open the door for all kinds of particular law established by the diocese and in the wake of particular laws one finds many hoops to go through like Foccus.

Today’s world is pretty messy and unfortunatly most of those who approach Matrimony don’t know what they are approaching thus all the rules. I’m glad that you and the Doctor are playing by all the rules in your local area because in the end the rules are for the good ordering of society (and some even determine validity!). Can’t wait to hear about Pre-Cana.

Regarding the college bit, there’s really not much to it. It had more to do with Irish stubbornness than principle—for which my father gets the credit. Maybe sometime I’ll address it in a short email as you might regret offering me a soapbox; my hackneyed clichés and stale jokes are annoying enough. Thanks for asking.

By the way, I found your last comment on the “forming hearts and minds” post quite fascinating, though I didn’t get a chance to say so. I’d love to hear more sometime about your principled decision in adolescence to forego college… I’ve never known anyone who did that before. Really interesting.

Everything you say sounds right. Of course I agree that communication is vitally important in a marriage. I just think that, in some cases, mutual understanding is well enough established that to bring up a topic for serious discussion, just because a book says you need to, might disturb the shared understanding more than helping it. For example, one book I saw really did advise engaged couples to always discuss the question of physical abuse, just in case, “even if it doesn’t seem to be an issue.” If my fiance were prone to violent episodes, or if I had ever felt threatened by him, then such a conversation would be warranted. But he isn’t, and I haven’t, and if I broached the subject seriously he would understandably be hurt. (”Don’t you know me better than that?”) Couples should discuss things that worry them, but they shouldn’t always be pressured into discussing things that don’t worry them. That’s all I was saying. But I appreciate your remarks.

Joe Six Pack, dropping the phrase “objectively wrong” to support your point about moviegoing is just childishness and I’m not getting into it. As far as sharing hotel rooms, I agreed that the circumstances would need to be “extraordinary.” Obviously “it will save us each fifty bucks” is not at all a sufficient reason. But it’s a matter of strong prudential considerations, not a matter of the thing being sinful per se. (This is similar to the “man going into a brothel” sort of case… there are almost no circumstances where this is okay, but entering the building isn’t actually a sin in itself. If he’s a policeman arresting a dangerous criminal inside the brothel, that could make it okay.) Consider the following scenario: my husband is on his way to a conference and an enormous blizzard comes up and makes it impossible to move any further on the highway. He manages to pull into a tiny town with just one hotel, and gets the last room. Meanwhile, a female friend of mine on the way to the same conference calls me in desperation because she has been stranded in the same little town and now there are no available rooms. Her choices are to sleep outside in below-zero weather, to knock on random people’s doors at eleven o’clock at night begging for shelter, or to go the police station and ask to sleep in the drunk tank. Or I could call my husband and say, “Sorry, I know it’s awkward, but given how bad her position is, could you let her have the extra bed in your room?”

Under those circumstances, I would call my husband and ask. You should not confuse questions of propriety (which do matter, but can be overriden non-sinfully when the reasons are strong enough) with activities that are sinful in themselves.

I wouldn’t go to a movie with a female friend not because of some subjective feelings of jealousy that this may inflict upon my wife, but for the objective reason that it would be wrong.

Sleeping in a hotel room with a member of the opposite sex other than my wife is objectively wrong. There are no excuses. (No more rooms in the hotel? Then sleep outside.)

My wife would trust me 100% and I would trust her the same. That is not the issue. The issues are objective right and wrong and also basic Catholic decency.

Persistent questions regarding one’s motivation (the lawn always needs to be mowed) or outlook on life, should be asked. The man you marry today is not going to be the same man (with the exact same views and motivations) in 5 or 10 years. We all grow and mature throughout life, and situations will present themselves in the future that are unthinkable at this point in time.

What I am advocating is continued open communication between spouses — even when there is a fear of rejection. God desires an open, loving relationship for every marriage. Your spouse-to-be loves you and wants to spend the rest of his life making you happy (as you do him). These fears are a barrier to the kind of relationship that God desires for you.

But it’s much harder to take the test seriously when you feel that unflattering and unCatholic assumptions are being made from the outset. And while I will respect that you have more experience than I in such matters, I’m inclined to disagree that no question should ever go unasked. Open communication is generally good, but sometimes we all have ugly thoughts that it really would be much better just to dismiss or suppress. “Are you secretly attracted to that man?” or “Do you think that woman is prettier than I am?” are probably good examples.

I was speaking more to the intent of the FOCCUS question(s). The survey is trying to ensure that the couples are not entering the marriage with any of the BIG unexpressed expectations, and that assumptions are not being made.

When my wife and I took the FOCCUS test 13 years ago, I assumed that I would do the financial planning for our family. My wife assumed that she would be performing that role. Each of these assumptions was based on our family backgrounds. The FOCCUS test revealed that this was an area for discussion.

You said that you and your fiancé have discussed marriage in the abstract quite often. Perhaps it is time to have a sit-down to discuss the concrete, putting the discussion within the context of complete trust. Asking a question of your prospective spouse should be completely natural. Fear of rejection or judgment should be cast away as a barrier to the deep intimacy sought by the two of you. No nagging question should go un-asked or un-answered.

Unfortunately, most of the questions posed by the survey are not addressed by engaged couples. It should raise a lot of questions regarding spousal roles and lifestyles for these couples.

Thank you for your note… I did actually consider that such things might have been intended, but in my desire to be snarky and sarcastic I didn’t elaborate on it. :-)

I don’t know if I *quite* agree with Joe Six Pack that opposite-sex friendships should be out of the question within marriage. I have a number of male friends from over the years and I haven’t delivered “end-of-friendship” notices to them because of my impending marriage. And since our field is rather male-dominated, I also work with (predominantly) men, and often may be alone with one by chance in an office (there aren’t very many female graduate students in our department, so I share an office with four men) or the department lounge. He likewise has some female friends, whom he sees under friendly circumstances from time to time, and he periodically will have academic meetings one-on-one with female students in his office. This has been true throughout our long-distance engagement, and yet I can’t recall our ever having an argument about jealousy.

The problem with the “you should always discuss everything just in case” rule is that in some cases, bringing up the subject for dicussion is itself likely to be interpreted as a concern or warning sign. I’ve never thought to be concerned about his relationships with his students; I take it as assumed that they are complately above-board and that he is trustworthy. If he were to ask me, “Does it worry you that I’m sometimes alone in my office with college-aged girls?” that would give me a bit of a shock. What is he saying? Should I be worried about it? Etc. Likewise if I said, “I grabbed a sandwich today with (male student from our department); is that okay with you?” It wouldn’t have occurred to him that there was anything suspicious in this… until I asked the question.

Jealousy is a monster that feeds on itself. Once the seeds of mistrust are planted, it’s hard to know how they’ll grow. Sometimes an issue may arise and need to be discussed, but these occasions should be well justified and carefully handled; a spoken admission that mutual trust may not exist can itself be damaging to a relationship.(This is what seems curious to be about James’ suggestion. We talk about the nature of marriage in the abstract reasonably often, so seriously posing a question like the one he suggests would certainly seem insulting to my finace, as much as if I asked, “You’re never going to beat me, are you?”)

It’s very hard to lay down hard-and-fast ground rules for what is and isn’t appropriate between people, because so much depends on the meaning the participants attach to them. A dinner can be perfectly innocent under some circumstances, and a glance passing in the hall can be laden with meaning. That’s not to say that nothing should be absolutely out-of-bounds for purely proprietary reasons (for example, one would need an very extraordinary excuse for staying alone in a hotel room with a member of the opposite sex other than one’s spouse) but posing hypothetical situations (would you ever…?) can again be insulting since it implies that the other doesn’t have good judgment about such things. Normally I agree with Joe Six Pack that I’d want an explanation why my husband needed to go to a movie with another woman without inviting me. Still, I could imagine a scenario in which a female friend was in town, they both wanted to see a particular film and I was feeling ill or had piles of work to get through… then I might possibly give my blessing to him and a woman to see it together. I’ve had dinner with a married, male friend before, with his wife’s blessing, when she was out of town for a few days at a conference. Normally all three of us do things together, but this time she was gone, and she knows perfectly well that she can trust both me and her husband to behave appropriately.

I think the key to opposite sex friendships within marriage is not excluding the spouse from the friendship. My fiance has a good friend from graduate school (herself now married) and I hope we will keep in touch with her and her husband over the years. In some sense she’ll always be more “his friend” than “my friend” given their many years of friendship prior to our marriage. But we do things all together when we see them and it’s clear that nothing about the relationship is closed to me. I think this is particularly important if you’re wandering into “emotionally charged” territory like EM mentions. If one of his female friends, or one of my male friends, were to be in some kind of trouble, then of course we would pray for them… together. Why would one of us want to exclude the other from prayer? Likewise, if “counselling” were needed, or something as emotionally charged as that, it would seem most appropriate for the person to come over when we were both around, and make us both feel involved. (I probably need not add that the same is not necessarily true of same-sex friendships. All reasonable husbands or wives should accept and even encourage some friendships between their spouse and members of that person’s same sex, since there are some activities or conversational topics that are best suited to groups of men or groups of women.)

Sometimes the requirement to let one’s spouse in on the opposite-sex friendship may mean that the friendship fades over time. So be it… not every friendship can last, and obviously one’s marriage must be given priority when a conflict exists. But so long as they’re not suspiciously exclusive, it seems unnecessary to rule out such friendships entirely.