(via Inquirer.net) While the debate on the divorce bill rages in Congress, Catholic marriages in the country are on track for a record drop this year and the next, a Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) official said Saturday.
Fr. Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, said that based on the Catholic Directory, the number of church marriages is set to drop from 177,940 in 2008-2009 to just 166,0000 this year and in 2011.
Castro said this was because Filipinos were marrying at a later age and couples were opting for civil marriages first before going for a “grand” church wedding.
“(The) trend is Filipinos are getting married at an older age unlike before when Filipinos would tie the knot when they’re still young,” said Castro in an interview over the Church’s Radio Veritas.
“Because those getting married are getting older, the number of people tying the knot in church is going down.”
He said that in the diocese of Tarlac, the number of those opting for civil marriages was “on the rise because it is free when you have it before the mayor.” They later get married in church.
“It’s not because of the church fees but because as Filipinos they want to prepare for a church wedding. Filipinos are very particular that they have a grand church wedding so they postpone it,” Castro said.
He said the Church had also noticed a “glaring phenomenon” of more and more Filipino women marrying foreigners.
“We have a glaring phenomenon of so many interracial marriages involving Filipinas. Maybe foreigners are really falling in love with Filipinas. So it’s interracial and, more often than not, (it’s) a mixed marriage with the man having a different religion,” Castro said.
“In several instances, the groom would convert and get baptized in the Church but that is discouraged—to convert just for the sake of marriage,” he said.
Castro said Filipino women entering into interracial marriages was a “phenomenon” happening not just in the country but also in the large Filipino communities abroad.
“You will also notice this abroad where there are really many Filipinos getting married, either with a fellow Filipino or with somebody from another race,” he said.
September 29th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
I have been going to catholic churches in pasig, quezon city, antipolo, and manila during weekends to ask about how to go about a mixed wedding, between a Catholic and a Methodist. I want to be married in a Catholic church. My fiance is fine with it. All I get are blank stares and shrugs from the admin office attendants, and suggestions that I go to the diocese in that particular area, because each diocese has different requirements daw. Unlike churches however, the diocese are open only during office hours on weekdays, when I myself need to be in the office. It’s a little discouraging, as if the Catholic church would only like Catholics to marry fellow Catholics, by not making the requirements for mixed marriages easily available. I don’t understand why the procedure for this seems to be in the exclusive possession of the diocese and why working individuals who are trying to earn enough to afford the church wedding are forced to take leaves just to obtain a simple pamphlet detailing the requirements. Why is there no centralized site laying these requirements out per diocese? Maybe with the readily available information, more Catholics who are in relationships with non-Catholic Christians as well as Non-Christians would be willing to go for the church wedding if they only knew what it entailed.