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14 couples marry in historic ceremony
By Anna Maria Basquez
Fourteen Hispanic couples from St. Catherine of Siena Parish in northwest Denver made diocesan, if not national, history April 16 as they married in what is believed to be the largest community wedding ever to take place at a Denver Catholic church.
The mass wedding for the couples, most of whom have children, officials said, is one of the fruits of a new evangelization program a priest at St. Catherine’s started more than a year ago titled SINE (an acronym that in Spanish means Integral System of the New Evangelization). The couples all were either common-law married or previously had a wedding via courthouse. While they had the desire to tie the knot in the eyes of the Church, most of them didn’t have the money to put toward an official church wedding.
“The main goal of this program, which is why we had so many couples who decided to (go) through the sacrament of marriage, is that they made a personal encounter with Christ,” said Father John Gregory Cieutat, known to most parishioners as “Padre Juan.”
“They knew it was what they had to do,” the priest said. “They had to take classes and go through some rules. But when you have Christ in your heart you know it’s what you have to do—it’s the best thing for your life; it’s the best thing for your family. It’s that simple. No matter which background you are from, this is the same experience for every Christian.”
A week before the wedding, Jessica Dela Torre, 27, dished about her dress. While she said she didn’t have the average $20,000 or more it takes for a blow-out wedding of her own, she could spot $650 for a gown that’s been 11 years coming since meeting her fiancé Fidel Gonzalez, 31, father of her two children and another she’s expecting come July.
“It’s not white,” Dela Torre said. “It’s ivory. I got it at David’s Bridal. I wanted to do (this wedding) a nice way. They gave me a good deal. … I got the (credit) card from there and will pay it, little by little.”
The marriage classes the couple took four times per week for a month made a difference both in their spirituality as well as their relationship, Dela Torre said. The two had married in a civil ceremony years ago, but she said they wanted to bring their faith into the equation this time around. The marriage-prep classes were pivotal to their relationship.
“It got us closer,” said the full-time mother and homemaker. “Before, we were just always fighting. It got us back together a lot and it showed us how to say sorry. That’s one of the things we weren’t doing—saying sorry to each other—even though you didn’t do anything wrong. To say sorry and it will pass us by.
“After 10 years of being together, you’re just together because you’re together,” she said. “But with this, you start appreciating the other person after you hear everything they tell you. They show you how to look at the person not for just how they are, but to look at their personality and look at other things we weren’t paying attention to, and the importance of spending time together. Before it was just thinking about the kids. Now we think about both—the kids and each other.”
Phil A. Webb Jr., director of the Marriage and Family Life Office at the Archdiocese of Denver, said the community wedding concept was new to him.
“I had never heard of this happening before, so I was surprised and delighted,” Webb said. “Christ our Lord loves all these people and wishes their very best not by ignoring their sin but by repentance and helping them to change their lives in accordance with his teaching.”
Dela Torre, whose husband is originally from Mexico, said a community wedding wasn’t something he was familiar with happening in Mexico.
Father John Gregory said he once witnessed a community wedding of three couples in Peru. However, he had never heard of one the size of the ceremony he celebrated.
“I (was) on my own in this,” he said.
Multi-couple weddings take place sporadically at Our Lady of Peace in Greeley, which last celebrated a community wedding in 2009 when eight couples living together or married in civil unions made their wedding vows in the church during the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
At St. Augustine in Brighton, three couples were married during one ceremony in 2010. Community weddings there have topped at four to six couples, parishioners said. However, St. Augustine has stopped doing community weddings, officials there said. The one at St. Catherine’s could be the largest one ever in a parish of the Denver Archdiocese.
Richard McCord, executive director of Laity, Marriage and Family Life at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the size of St. Catherine’s community wedding was unique in his experience.
“A 14-couple wedding is something new to me and I have not heard of it happening in other dioceses—which is not to say that it has not occurred,” McCord said.
“The closest I have heard to this sort of thing is the proposal has come a few times from those who work in Hispanic ministry. They have suggested that it could be a good practice to invite all the couples in a given parish who have been through a convalidation of their marriages, those first performed as civil ceremonies, to come to a group ceremony in the parish church followed by a group reception.
“The rationale for this,” he added, “besides a certain amount of convenience, is to offer a ‘church’ wedding and a suitable party celebration to couples who might be delaying getting married in the Church for reasons of finances.”
Several St. Catherine’s parishioners mentioned their sadness at hearing Father John Gregory will soon be returning to France. He is among the visiting priests of the Community of the Beatitudes, a French religious order which runs St. Catherine’s. Father John Gregory said his intention was for community weddings to continue at the parish and that there will likely be future dates of such nuptials.
His vision of the evangelization program was something Dela Torre said helped integrate her whole family more in the Church.
“He did a lot for this (parish),” she said. “That’s what brought us more into the Church. He did a program where you bring your kids to first Communion, and we, the parents, have to stay. Parents have to take a class. It’s a nice thing to show your kids and learn about God so you can teach them more.”
She said she has noticed in the more than one year the parish has hosted SINE, a growing number of participants. It’s a program that now has 14 small communities of 10 to 12 people each, totaling a participation of at least 140. There are also retreat opportunities. Father John Gregory said he has heard of other similar overall evangelization programs that have taken place at parishes including Our Lady of Guadalupe in Denver and St. Augustine.
While Father John Gregory doubled as chief wedding planner, he said didn’t notice any bridezilla tendencies among the group.
“I think in the Latino culture, they are maybe more simple in these questions,” he said. “In France, in Europe, in North America, we have such a big idea of marriage—that every bride wants things to be done maybe this way or that because this is their marriage. I would say the couples who signed up for this community marriage are also poor. I’ve been working in a lot of different places. When you work for the poor, they make things easier. It’s a good virtue.”
Webb referred to the late Pope John Paul II in talking about couples of all cultures who might be cohabitating yet might hunger for more Church involvement.
“Pope John Paul II recognized that couples can enter into cohabitation (‘free unions’) for various reasons,” Webb said. “He urged pastors and the Church community to become familiar with these situations on a case-by-case basis.”
Quoting from the late pontiff’s apostolic exhortation “Familiaris Consortio,” Webb said, “They should make tactful and respectful contact with the couples concerned and enlighten them patiently, correct them charitably and show them the witness of Christian family life in such a way as to smooth the path for them to regularize their situation (No. 81).”
Father John Gregory emphasized that the sacramental wedding was a sign of conversion.
“It’s about the new evangelization,” he said. “It’s about, first of all, making a personal encounter with Christ. When this is done, everything else becomes easier.”
Dela Torre expressed experiencing a sense of peace.
“It’s a blessing to get married and do the sacrament,” said Dela Torre. “You feel more comfortable, and you just feel right with God and with your family. You know you’re showing your kids, especially if you have girls, you have to get married and do it the right way.”
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