The Catholic Church is in trouble

Well, if their marriage preparation classes here in Buenos Aires are any indicator at least. We had to go to a mandatory three classes that were supposed to prepare us for receiving the sacrament of marriage in the church. More than any sort of learning experience they seemed like a test of boredom endurance.

Damn, these poor people need to go through a traning for trainers course. Each Thursday that we went got worse. The first was a priest who at least made some attempts to engage us couples in some sort of dialogue, although he might have regretted it a bit when Susana stated some of her reasons for not attending church in the past 10 years. The second Thursday was a married couple from the parish. Despite stating that they wanted the session to be a discussion, they just talked at us for an hour and a half. Susana was struggling to stay awake and my natural empathy for public speakers struggling with an audience waned and then dissapeared.

Yesterday could have been the worst of all if it were not for the fact that we strategically arrived late and the session only went for an hour instead of an hour and a half. Another couple this time, and believe it or not they delivered an insufferable monologue on the importance of ... dialogue. On top of it all the woman talked in a low monotone and kept saying "este" between just about every sentence (English speakers, think of someone saying "like" all the time.). Susana was literally nodding off and I had to keep prodding her in the back to wake her up.

You know, if they had provided some practical discussion and thinking about relationships and planning then I really would have been all right with these sessions. But, I just left with the feeling that nobody in the church is putting in any effort to make their programs relevant and effective. For god's sake (ha!) read a few books on doing presentations and discussion groups. Our student members at CFJ could have run the sessions way better than these folks did.