Finding our officiant

My parents' insisting that John and I be married in a Catholic ceremony threw a wrench into our planning. Although we fell in love with Kirkpatrick Chapel at first sight, there was one tiny problem with booking it, in that it does not have its own clergy; we would be responsible for bringing in our own officiant for our wedding. But neither John nor I belonged to a church anymore, so we didn't have personal ties to any clergy members. Furthermore, I was terrified about going through pre-cana. I thought, for sure, all of these priests who can't even GET married and a bunch of lying, hypocritical couples would be judging John and me for living together pre-marriage. I was hoping to avoid it at all costs.

When we booked at the Grand Marquis, Joe gave us a list of clergy members that often perform weddings there. There were only four Catholic priests listed. I left messages with all of them, and only two of them called me back. The first told me he was unable to perform the wedding due to a prior commitment.

The second priest called me back and he was very pleasant on the phone. He explained that he is actually a former priest (he left the church because he did not agree with their stance on birth control) and that he is now married with children, but he said that the rule in the Catholic church is "once a priest, always a priest" so he is still able to perform weddings. And if that didn't sound shady enough, I asked him if there would be any sort of pre-cana requirement for him to marry us, and he said "No, I wouldn't make you go through pre-cana." At the time, that was all I needed to hear!

John and I met the ex-priest at Golden Bell Diner in Freehold one weekend. He seemed very nice and we liked the "no pre-cana" thing, so we asked him to tentatively add us to his calendar so that we could discuss it with our families before we made any firm commitments.

On the way home, I called my dad and told him about the ex-priest, and he was pretty much horrified. He begged me to find a practicing priest instead, and not to take the easy way out, so that we knew our marriage was a sacramental one as well as a legal one. Call it Catholic guilt, but I relented.

I didn't really know where to turn next, so I called the Catholic Center at Rutgers University. I explained that I would be getting married at Kirkpatrick Chapel but needed a recommendation for a Catholic officiant. They gave me the number for Deacon Frank from the Diocese of Metuchen, and they told me that he is wonderful and performs many weddings at Kirkpatrick every year.

I called Deacon Frank that night and found him to be a cheerful, kind man, and I liked him right away. I explained to him that we had interviewed an ex-priest for our wedding, though, and his reaction was about as bad as my dad's! He said "Former priests are also called 'rent-a-priests.' They are not valid priests in the eyes of the church, so your marriage would not be valid in the eyes of the church." Ugh. There goes that Catholic guilt again!

I asked him about pre-cana and he said that since John and I were already living together, we had to do not one, but TWO sessions of pre-cana. "Vanilla and chocolate," he called it. The "vanilla" one is the one all Catholic couples need to take where they go over everything from family planning and fighting fairly to budgeting and communication. The "chocolate" one is optional for most couples but mandatory for those already living together, which pretty much focuses on "God's plan for a happy marriage," ie, "Keep it in your pants until your wedding night." Great, this would be fun.

Nevertheless, after discussing it with John, we decided that we might as well do the right thing, no matter how painful it would be. I left a voicemail on the ex-priest's phone explaining that we decided to go with a different officiant, and I called Deacon Frank back and told him that we would like him to perform our wedding ceremony. We arranged for our first meeting shortly afterward, where we would take the dreaded FOCCUS test.

The FOCCUS test is pretty much the SAT's of your relationship and it asks you questions about money, family, children, religion, and morals. The point is not to get the "correct" answer, but instead to have compatible answers with your partner. John and I each had to fill in our own Scantron sheet answering questions like "I believe in splitting expenses with my partner 50/50. Strongly Agree / Agree / Disagree / Strongly Disagree / Unsure." Then we had to come back a few weeks later for our results.

Our results were interesting. Deacon Frank said that we scored beautifully in most areas, but when it came to issues surrounding money, we were basically doomed! He told us that we had to stop thinking of marriage as a 50/50 proposition, particularly when it comes to money issues, because it never comes out evenly. Sometimes one partner will benefit, other times the other one will. To illustrate his point he told us a story about how his wife can't make a good cup of coffee to save her life, so every morning he sets the coffeemaker to have fresh brewed coffee waiting for her by the time she wakes up, while he suffers with the sludge they serve in his company's breakroom instead. He makes the sacrifice because it makes his wife's life better. He said we needed to stop thinking of everything as 50/50, otherwise we would "be divorced within five years." Wow. So at least the FOCCUS test gave us some insight into our relationship and something to work on!

Pre-cana wasn't that bad either. Ironically, we actually enjoyed the "chocolate" variety WAY more than the "vanilla," mostly due to the speakers during that session being way more dynamic and interesting. Each session was 8 hours long, but it really wasn't the torture I thought it would be. All in all, we're both glad we did it, and we're even more glad that we went with Deacon Frank as our officiant. He was absolutely wonderful both in preparation for the wedding as well as during the ceremony itself.