Helping Inter-Faith Marriages

Every year I take part in the Pre-Cana day at my parish. The day is designed to help engaged couples (at least one of whom is Catholic) have the tools to have a successful marriage. Without a doubt, all the challenges of marriage can not be discussed in a single day, but hopefully we get these couples talking about some issues that they may not have given much thought to.

We had our preparation meeting last week and our pastoral minister gave each of us The Fall 2007 C21 Resources Newspaper which is put out by Boston College. The topic was marriage. One of the articles dealt with inter-faith marriages. Having major faith differences can put a real strain on a marriage, if not in the beginning then when children come along and decisions must be made about how to raise them. Lee Williams, a Professor in the Marital and Family Therapy Program at the University of San Diego has created a website: Two Churches, One Marriage designed to help inter-faith couples work through the challenges and create a stronger bond.