While there are relatively few Catholics who are dedicated to following the Church's teaching on birth control, it is possible that those who were interested would be particularly interested in joining a Catholic singles' group for like minded people. After all the problem of finding singles' who want to practice natural family planning, nfp, after marriage is obvious, so the appeal of nfp oriented single's group might be very strong for those people who are interested.

Furthermore, one of the great problems faced by Church singles' groups is that people see them as a place for losers who can not get a date. But once again the difficulty of finding people who wish to follow the Church's teaching in this area is so obvious that most people would see it as simply a reasonable response to a difficult problem.

Finally a single parish would probably not have enough interested singles. A regional group drawn from a number of parishes would probably be needed. As most singles ready to marry have a vehicle this should not be too much of a problem.

One difficulty with this plan could be fakers. Would desperate singles join a group like this and pretend that they were interested in following the Church's teaching? I do not know. Some might argue that it is better to simply allow the other person to talk and reveal themselves before laying out your own criterion.

One way to deal with this type of problem is to follow all of God's plan for courtship. Those who are uncomfortable about following the limitations of the Church after marriage are likely to be uncomfortable with the Church's limitations before marriage.

While I have never heard anyone bring up the problem of fakers, I have gotten some resistance from some church officials that think this is a little elitist. I usually say that in marriage we try to bring our children up in the faith, so we are trying to convert our children. Our marriage partner should be helping us in this, if we are also trying to convert them to be fully dedicated to the Catholic way of life it makes it far more difficult to bring the children in the faith. Marriage should not be used as a technique to bring people into the faith, even though it often does so. I have found that when I make this argument all resistance evaporates. Most of the Catholic Church workers readily support the idea, though I might run into more difficulty if I had ever gotten really serious about the idea.

I am a big believer in religious singles groups in general because my parents meet in a very successful group. More than thirty married couples who meet in their liberal Protestant group in Berkeley, California formed their own group that has met monthly for over thirty years. Collectively the thirty plus couples who were involved in the group for more than a short period of time have been happily married, avoiding divorce, for more than a millenium.

My former landlord reported similar success for his Catholic singles' group, and a couple of other people who were involved in Catholic singles' groups reported similar success.

For a more detailed story of how my parent's church singles' group avoided divorce click. For more pages on church singles' groups click.

Page last updated August 23, 2005