On a Lenten Friday a few years ago, my mother and I were in need of a meatless meal while running errands far from home. We found an Indian restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet and decided to check it out. A quick look at the offerings revealed many vegetarian items like aloo gobi, saag paneer, vegetable pakoras, chana masala, and naan so we decided to stay. Passing up some of their yummy chicken dishes was a sacrifice but we still enjoyed what turned out to be a very memorable Lenten meal.
According to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, meat from cows, sheep, pigs and birds is prohibited on fast days but eggs, butter, cheese, fish, amphibians, reptiles and shellfish are not. Also permissible are meat juices and products made from meat like seasonings, condiments, broth, gravy and sauces. In Canada, beaver is considered fish and in some parts of South America so is the capybara. This all seems so strange given that Jesus once said in Matthew 15:11, "A man is not defiled by what enters his mouth, but by what comes out of it."
When I was younger, I wondered if God really cared about such arbitrary things. Now I see Lent as a way to better yourself through sacrifice...a sacrifice that pays homage to Christ's suffering and death on the cross. It unites us as Catholics and is a personal way of saying, "This is what we believe." Perhaps that's why I'm bothered by those special dispensations for corned beef when St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday during Lent.
This conflict in the spiritual calendar doesn't happen very often so why can't certain segments of the Catholic population wait a mere 24 hours to indulge their earthly desire for meat? At one time, abstinence in Ireland was serious business with many restrictions. Even babies couldn't receive milk until they cried three times. For more on this: http://ic2.irishcentral.com/roots/your-irish-ancestors-and-lent St. Patrick's Day itself was celebrated solemnly and until the 1970s, pubs were closed. No one knows for sure why corned beef dinners became associated with the Irish but it's a tradition that has its roots in America not Ireland.
If rules can be waived so easily, then how important are they in the first place? Newspaper articles on these special dispensations read like Catholics are getting away with something...like they have been given official permission to cheat during Lent. When bishops and cardinals swap out the fast day, they are placing an indulgence above a sacrifice. Isn't this encouraging moral weakness? Part of my ancestry is French but you don't see me clamoring for a traditional meat pie on Fridays. If the hierarchy actually maintained this year's fast day, would there be riots in the streets?
The irony is when some Catholics place more value on their culture than their religion, what St. Patrick stood for tends to fade into the background. We see this play out during Boston's annual St. Patrick's Day parade which is no longer about the man who brought Catholicism to Ireland. Instead, it has turned into a free-for-all where cultural pride and political statements overshadow any moral teachings the Church might hold dear.
Frankly, I never understood the huge appeal of the traditional corned beef dinner because the food is so bland. In fact, my favorite part of the meal is grinding it all up and having corned beef hash the next day. But even if it was the best-tasting food ever, I still wouldn't break the Lenten fast. Jesus suffered and died for us. We can't honor this sacrifice by going without a piece of meat for a few hours? To me, the special dispensation smacks of entitlement rather than reverence.
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| To veil or not to veil? |
While looking into some of these Catholic dating websites, the term "5/7" kept popping up. I discovered the expression is slang for members who say they are Catholic but don't agree with all of the Church's teachings. It refers to the 7 yes or no questions that CatholicMatch.com members fill out on their profiles. Do you accept the Church's teachings on:
1) Eucharist 2) Contraception 3) Sanctity of Life 4) Papal Infallibility 5) Premarital Sex 6) Immaculate Conception 7) Holy Orders
Ave Maria Singles has similar "profile-building" questions to weed out non-Catholics or those unfaithful to Church teaching according to the site's founder, Anthony Bouno. Many have suggested the real meaning of "5/7" is that you agree with the Church on all of those things except for 2) Contraception and 5) Premarital Sex.
Leila Miller, author of the blog Little Catholic Bubble places the onus on men. In her post entitled A Disappointing Eureka, she couldn't understand how a guy could accept some of the trickier concepts of the Church while at the same time rejecting two other teachings that seem pretty straightforward. She suspected it had something to do with these men wanting to have lots of sex but her husband explained it boiled down to personal sacrifice. These 5/7 men were fine with dogma as long as they didn't have to give something up. Of course, it's naive to think the 5/7 phenomenon is exclusive to one gender. During my years at a Catholic high school, most of my female friends refused to make those particular personal sacrifices.
How many times have we seen Catholics water down the faith when things hit too close to home? Marriage goes from being a life-long commitment to something that just runs its course when someone new to lust after appears. Missing weekly Mass is no longer a grave sin because you really wanted to sleep in. The Church's teachings turn into suggestions and the Bible is reduced to two words: Don't judge. As long as you are still a "good person" then nothing much should be expected from you.
For these reasons, I think it's good that dating websites have filters so people can find a spouse who meets certain expectations. However, the 7 questions these sites ask can have other consequences as one reviewer of CatholicMatch.com points out.
This person says the answers to these questions are rarely so black-and-white. Forcing people to divulge how they stand can lead to serious problems with the way certain members are perceived especially on the forums. 5/7 could mean they disagree with the Church's stance on not allowing priests to marry or papal infallibility.
The reviewer brings up a great point. Sometimes being excessively obedient is actually the morally wrong thing to do. During the priest sex abuse scandal, there were people who could have exposed this great evil early on but instead they followed orders and kept things quiet for decades. Am I against papal infallibility? When it comes to shielding the priests who covered up heinous crimes, you bet!
Therein lies the conundrum with these questions. Many of the "7/7" Catholics I've met over the years tend to be aloof. Instead of trying to get more young people to attend Mass, they prefer to discuss their favorite Cardinal Virtue or whether or not to use a chin paten during Mass. They feel the Latin Mass is somehow a step above Mass in the vernacular. Wearing a chapel veil is also important because in their minds, Vatican II ruined the Catholic Church. No mention of the sex scandal or corrupt clergy, though. A priest is to be respected and obeyed without question no matter how arrogant or unchristian he acts. Well, this isn't the Middle Ages.
I'm not sure I could date any Catholic who was afraid to embrace critical thought from time to time. A morally healthy Church demands we become something more than mindless zombies who do nothing in the face of injustice. Perhaps these dating websites should allow their members to answer the 7 questions in degrees rather than Yes or No. It would reveal more of what's inside a person's heart.
In the world of internet dating, one website claims to be the best place for Catholic singles to meet: CatholicMatch.com. Several years ago, a friend told me about the site so I checked it out. It was the first time I had heard of an online matchmaking service designed specifically for Catholic singles.
CatholicMatch.com was very detailed with active forums that seemed sincere. One section broke singles down into several temperaments. With traits like: thoughtful, reflective, ponderous, deeply sensitive, of noble ideals, shy, critical, pessimistic, loyal and self-sacrificing, I was definitely a Melancholic. (Turns out, there's nothing biblical about these temperaments as they originated in ancient Greece.)
A search function allowed me to view a handful of the site's eligible women. None really caught my fancy but when I wanted to view more, I was taken to the sign up page and could browse no further. Membership was pretty expensive so I didn't join. This hasn't changed. Like Christian Mingle, this site says you can sign up for a free account but I suspect you have to pay to play.
As of this writing, a one month subscription is $29.95 which seems very steep. If you sign up for three months, membership is $19.95 per month. Of course, that comes to almost $60 dollars. Again, a bit out of my price range. The “best value” is a six month subscription which is $12.49 per month. That's $79.94. Notice how they avoid displaying the much larger total cost?
Six month memberships come with a “unique protection” because if you fail to form a relationship, CatholicMatch.com gives you another 6 months for free. Oh, joy!!! Of course, you have to read the fine print.
You must: Comply at all times with the CatholicMatch Terms of Use. Be free to marry in the Catholic Church. Communicate with at least 1 unique member of the opposite sex each week. Create a complete and accurate profile with at least 5 photos. Your profile and primary photo must be approved by CatholicMatch within the first seven days of your guarantee subscription. CatholicMatch Terms of Use and the CatholicMatch Guarantee Program Rules are subject to change by CatholicMatch at any time. CatholicMatch reserves all rights to modify, suspend or cancel the Program at any time and without notice. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
For a site that focuses on Catholic values, there are a lot of hoops to jump through. Communicating with a unique member each week for six months equals about 26 females or to put it another way...more women than I have ever talked to about dating in my entire 43 years on this earth. What happens if at some point during those 6 months you just don't see anyone you're interested in? “Hi, I'm sending you a message not because I like you. I just want to get another 6 months for free.”
CatholicMatch.com heavily advertises their services online and in local church bulletins. Sometimes there are coupons and even “tell a friend” events where members can get free passes when friends sign up. (You get a $250 gift card for every 5 friends that subscribe.) These tactics seem pretty tacky and one reviewer of the site said, “People aren't commodities and it quickly felt like a business just looking to make a profit.”
Some have told anxious members to be patient because it can take years to find the right one. Given the high cost of membership, staying with it can become an expensive proposition. CatholicMatch.com maintains they are a good value because members can enjoy community and friendship while waiting for that perfect profile to pop up. Really? That's why desperate singles join a dating website? They also say that since they are a smaller company, they can keep costs low. $29.99 for a one month membership isn't pocket change but maybe God doesn't think poor people need to find love.
The website was founded in 1999 as SaintRaphael.net. Its co-founders had discussed the struggles single Catholics were facing and they wanted to create a community where men and women could come together with the intention of finding their future spouse. The site was a side project they worked on for fun and membership was free.
I wonder if CatholicMatch.com has lost sight of their humble beginnings. They say they have a sincere, heartfelt goal to promote more holy and healthy Catholic marriages and to reverse marriage decline but their high prices leave people like me out in the cold. When they claim to “support Catholic relationships in every way possible” I'm guessing this doesn't mean lowering their prices or giving away free memberships to those who suffer financial hardships.
In these increasingly secular times, the Catholic Church needs all the loving marriages it can get. Lonely singles like me should be seen as a potential source of renewal rather than an underserved market to be tapped.
