IOGodN,

Radical proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope are to be published this year, The Times has learnt.

The proposals have been agreed by senior bishops of both churches.

[link]

This is the coolest part:

As the Anglicans’ squabbles over the fundamentals of Christian doctrine continue — with seven of the conservative primates twice refusing to share Communion with the other Anglican leaders at their meeting in Tanzania — the Church’s credibility is being increasingly undermined in a world that is looking for strong witness from its international religious leaders.

They let primates in their church? Awesome!

but do the primates do the code monkey dance?

David, the Catholic Church no longer makes the non-Catholic convert in order to marry a Catholic in the church. One doesn't even have to be baptized these days.

I don't care so much about the ceremony mass and jazz, but all the pre-wedding counseling and stuff-- are there any non-catholics who have gone through it and can advise? Is anyone familiar with doing it with a foreign parish?

My DH was baptized Methodist and is basically non-religious. Me, Italian Catholic with old-school Italian father and that meant a church wedding. We had to do the Pre-Cana counseling, but we got it over with in a weekend (Engaged Encounter) versus meeting one-on-one with a mentor couple for 6-8 weeks. It was good in that it forced us to talk about some things that we had tiptoed around, and very eyerolly overall because the majority of the discussion was stuff that had already been hashed out. Oh, and you will get the requisite lecture on Natural Family Planning AKA "Why Birth Control is the Work of the Devil."

We live in the Metro DC area but got married in PA, in the church I attended while growing up. Because my parents are still members (and since I was baptized and confirmed there), it wasn't difficult to obtain permission to marry there.

He's Catholic, and I think his big thing is the whole formal ceremony and everything. I don't care either way, so if it's the one thing he wants, I'm inclined to go along with it. Not sure it'll be possible to get counseling in NY for a Phoenix wedding when his parish is in Dayton...and is Eastern Rite.

The counseling can be done anywhere. It was just easier to get in on the Engaged Encounter schedule for the Diocese of Harrisburg than it was for the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. We would have preferred to do it locally, but it was not to be. You should be able to obtain permission to get married in a Phoenix church (Eastern Rite or otherwise), as long as his parish in Dayton is willing to vouch for him, but you may not get your first crack at the prime dates/times.

bon, you are not going 'zilla too early. This is often the most difficult thing to figure out, and it determines what options are available for the reception. DH and I were engaged in June 2004, I had the church thing figured out by August, after getting my 4th choice of dates, and we were married in Oct. 2005.

Oh, and one thing you'll want to keep in mind is that most Catholic Churches will not hold weddings later than 2 or 3 in the afternoon, so it's either going to be an early reception or there's going to be a 2 hour lull in between. We had a 2 pm wedding with a 5 pm cocktail/6 pm dinner reception.

Feel free to email me if you've got other questions. My profile addy is good.

The Engaged Encounter website: [link]

One thing about the TAR all-stars: it's been suggested that some teams weren't asked back because they were a PITA for the crew to deal with.

Also, I have resolved to start being rude when people tell their children to give me a hug. It pissed me off when I was the child being told to hug random adults, and it pisses me off even more now. And if I explicitly told you that I find it creepy, why would you keep doing it?

I also hate it when people want their children to perform like trick ponies. “sing ‘old mcdonald’” “count to 10” whatever. ugh.

bon, it varies parish to parish -- I know mine pretty much frowns on it, and mine is definitely both pretty enough to get requests and poor enough that it'd be totally reasonable to say yes. But it really, really varies.

yeah, you gotta find the slacker priest. I would suggest finding a priest who does interfaith ceremonies, they tend to be a little more open minded.

I end up in the more neutral corner because, although I do not have a belief in god, I figure it doesn't really matter. A belief in god will not change my behavior now, so if I find out later I'm wrong, well, I still wouldn't have done anything different because of god.

Yeah, me too, though I have to addened that I firmly don't believe in a diety. It'd be interesting, I find so many mythologies and such utterly fascinating and engaging, but I don't. It's irrelevent to me. Just... it doesn't matter. At all. I'm me. Take it or leave it, with no real confrontation or challenge in that statement. I'm not denying anyone else. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's not about me.

I do make my nieces and nephews hug me whether they like it or not because I miss them! I don't think they're too scarred by it.

Code monkey vid made of awesome, beth.

Just with the people who say choice of priest is critical. The late Art Buchwald (Jewish) was married by a priest who ... well no point in details that was another continent and another century. A college friend of mine who is Catholic married another friend who is Jewish. They had both a priest and a rabbi jointly do the ceremony; it took some searching but they managed. A priest who will marry the two of you without conditions you object to ought to findable. He just may not be the first one you ask.

Code Monkey video made of much, much awesome.

I want a Code Monkey dancer of my very own.