Catholic New World: The Interview

Marriage challenges people, helps them flourish

Catholic New World staff writer Michelle Martin talks with Father Britto Berchmans.

Father Britto Berchmans has celebrated hundreds of marriage ceremonies in his 25 years as a priest. He has written and spoken about the theology and spirituality of marriage, and he insists that marriage preparation should be taken more seriously than wedding planning. But while Berchmans, who will become pastor at St. Nicholas Parish in Evanston July 1, sees lots of challenges to married life, he also sees lots of reasons why marriage as an institution will survive.

The Catholic New World: Why is there marriage? Why has it lasted from God only knows when until now?

Father Britto Berchmans: You can go back to the Book of Genesis, when the Lord said “It is not good for man to be alone.” Or John Donne, who said “No man is an island.” It is innate to us that we have to be connected to other human beings. I believe God put it into our very selves to long for this connection to other human beings. In particular, God made us as men drawn to women, and as women drawn to men. I really believe also that anatomically the way we were made, it was part of the Creator’s intent that we are called to be with a person of the opposite sex.

The nature of love is that when you love somebody genuinely, it is forever. When you really, really love somebody, you never say, I wish this would last only for three days or a few months. You always wish it would never end. That kind of a desire calls for some kind of a long-term commitment.

The whole other thing is that when you are really attracted to another person and you feel this pull toward the person. Sts. Thomas and Augustine and all of them talked about how you want to be united with the object of love. When two people are united, there is every possibility that would lead to the creation of new life, and that would require the guarantee that it will be taken care of. It calls for a committed relationship that we call marriage.

I feel that the church has always understood that and that is why the church has a twofold objective for the union of marriage. The twofold objective is a union and a love between spouses and the procreation and the education of children. That is also the view of sexuality on the part of the church.

TCNW: How should people choose marriage partners?

FBB:I grew up in India, which has a very different view of marriage and the marriage commitment compared to what we have in America. Marriage should be viewed on a continuum. On the one end of the continuum you have the commitment, the obligation, the duties of marriage. On the other hand you have the romance, the passion, the love, all that stuff.

If you look at the culture I grew up in, we tend to be more toward the obligation, the commitment. So what happens is that we will get married because that is what you’re supposed to do. It’s a duty to your parents. The family gets involved in choosing your partner; it’s an arranged marriage. So there’s not a lot of romantic expectations of marriage. It blows people’s minds here that somebody could do that.

In the American perspective, you fall in love and hope to get married to that person. In India, I think, you get married to somebody and try to fall in love with them.

In the American view, it’s all dramatic. Hollywood and popular magazines and marketing—all of that plays into it. So people have this unrealistic expectation of marriage. People go into marriage expecting their partner to be what—a soulmate. I think there is no other concept that has done more harm to marriage than the idea of a soulmate. You want this person to come along and be so perfect that all you have to do is find the person and everything is going to be easy. It’s not true.

For my people back home in India, I wish we had a little more romance. For people here in America, I wish we had a little more sense of obligation.

TCNW: Do you talk about this with couples preparing for marriage?

FBB: Oh, absolutely. I talk about what the Bible tells us about marriage, then I talk about the theology of marriage and the meaning of marriage relationship. Then I talk about the challenges; I talk about communication and conflict. One of the biggest challenges for people is conflict. You put two living individuals together, and they are going to have conflict. It is in dealing with conflict that they are going to create a lot of negativity in the relationship.

TCNW: Why is it so difficult for people to make marriage last?

FBB: One, we have unrealistic expectations of what marriage is supposed to be.

Number two is marriage doesn’t work if you’ve chosen wrong. Sometimes people get married not for the right reasons.

The third thing is, in the traditional cultures, there is no such thing as dating. I really believe that dating does a lot of damage to people, because, especially nowadays, dating is no longer just dating. It is a lot like a marriage. People share everything, and so I feel your heart gets broken so many times and put back together. So many people seem to feel that dating or marriage is like baseball—the more pitches you see, the better you will be. Actually, I think you collect more baggage.

The other thing is, in many traditional cultures, including in Italy and Europe, you live with your folks until you get married. Then you get married and you live with this person. You are accustomed to having other people constantly encroach in your space. Here, by the time you are 18, you’re out of the house, in a college dorm or an apartment, and you start living on your own, carving out your own space. Then you are working and you call the shots.

Marriage is just the opposite. Another person is always getting into your life, interfering, making demands.

Take our society, which encourages selfishness and indulgence. Marriage is just the opposite. You put two selfish people together, you have disaster. Marriage only works when you can forget yourself and think of someone else. Someone said when you can put the authentic well-being of another ahead of your own, and then a state of love exists. And it’s hard.

Look at our society. It tells you to be assertive and strong. You drive in the city; if you’re not an assertive driver, you’ll never get anywhere. Corporate America is all about aggressiveness, assertiveness. Don’t let anybody take advantage of you. Don’t let anybody push you around. This is what you here again and again. What works in marriage is just the opposite. Be gentle. Be humble. Let your spouse take advantage of you. It’s OK to be taken for granted. But that is the Gospel.

If you spend the majority of your day asserting yourself and bossing people around and having your own way, then you come home, you have to be a different person. It goes against our ingrained nature. Yet, it is good for us.

TCNW: How is it good for us?

There is a great book written by a sociologist called “The Case for Marriage.” (Linda Waite, Marie Gallagher. Broadway Books 2001) They give chapter after chapter of why marriage is good for us. We are more healthy. We are economically better off. Married people engage in less risky behavior, they are happier, and if a priest can say this, they even have more sex.

Marriage is good for people, but you need certain attitudes and a certain idea of marriage to make it work.

TCNW: What can the church do to develop those attitudes?

FBB: I really believe that these marriage preparation programs are crucial. When people come to get married in church, I think we should demand that they do a serious preparation. And also to help people to choose well. Most people don’t think faith is important. But marriage doesn’t work on the natural level. You need your faith, you need a spirituality. Naturally, we are selfish, we are proud, we don’t want to forgive. But if you want to have a good marriage, you must learn to be selfless, you need to be humble, you need to be forgiving—all that comes from your faith. If people live their married life more as a response to a God who calls them rather than a choice they made of a particular person, I think it works better. Just like for me as a priest. If I look at it as a job, I don’t think it works. I look at it as a vocation. I didn’t choose this. Somebody chose me. Somebody called me to this, and my response is very different.

TCNW: How do you make marriage preparation work?

FBB: You need to start younger, as part of our religious education. Why not make it part of the confirmation program? Or we do all these programs for young adults. In Chicago, we do Theology on Tap and all that stuff. Why not talk about these things? Of course, the majority of young people are not thinking about that. It’s true. But as a priest, I do anywhere from 20 to 25 or 30 weddings a year. The couples that I work with, I try to make them do that. I would say 90 to 95 percent of the couple respond to that. Five percent of the couples, it’s difficult to get them to the meetings and all that—it happens. But those are the couples that will have trouble down the road. I see couples that are so eager to learn and to reflect and discuss. Those couples do well. They’ve got the right motivation. They go to church together and they pray.

TCNW: What differences do you see between older and younger couples?

FBB: Certainly in general. Just a couple of weeks ago, I did the wedding of a young couple, in their early 20s, out of college for less than two years. They are caught up in all the excitement and this and that. Then I am doing the wedding of another couple in their late 30s and early 40s, and they have a certain maturity. I think they understand what it means. They don’t get sucked in by all the hype about the wedding. They understand the seriousness of it. Not that the young people don’t understand that it’s serious.

On the other hand, you can develop a sense of cynicism as you get older. You can lose that idealism of youth.

TCNW: Do you follow up with the couples you marry?

FBB: Yes. Especially if they are in trouble, I follow up. Some of them keep in touch; of course, they have to keep in touch with you. One way I keep in touch is when they have a baby, they want me to baptize it, so you become attached to the family. I tell them, if I’m doing your wedding, you’re stuck with me for life. I am your priest for life. I do pray for my couples, and I tell them that I they are in trouble, they should call me.

TCNW: What could the church do better?

FBB: Emphasizing the spiritual dimension of marriage relationship. I think too often both the society and couples, they talk about relationships in terms of skills of strategies and knowing how to do whatever. I think we need to teach people more about the spirituality of it. Let me put it this way: I think the best couples are the couples who met through no initiative of their own. I always ask couples for their love stories and the way they met. You’ve got to remember, somebody else had a hand in this. You didn’t make it happen. If God brought you together, then you have a different sense of your marriage. It’s more of a vocation. I insist with couples that they should pray together. It’s not about the centerpiece and the DJ and the entrée and the cake. People get sidetracked by all the fuss over the wedding day. I tell couples that what comes after the wedding day is more important. The wedding day will come and go like that. I tell people to prepare for the day after.

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