3 - Criteria for selecting couples for Sponsor Couple ™ Training.
Criteria for selecting couples for Sponsor Couple ™ Training [3-18-2024]
Email from Tom F:
Fr. Rob
Hope you can provide some clarity for me. The question has come up: "Who makes a good Sponsor Couple for a particular couple?" In baptism it is pretty clear. Canon Laws 872-874 spell out how a sponsor is chosen and what qualifications they should have. But that is not the case with marriage sponsors, nor does it need to be as definitive, in my opinion.
Recently, we had a couple ask if her life-long mentors could be their sponsor couple. This couple has a good Catholic marriage and are willing be trained as a "sponsor couple". We thought it was fine. What do you think?
Tom F
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Tom,
I wrote a document to clarify my own definition of Sponsor Couple ™ ministry using the information in Canon law. The Rite of Christian Initiation uses 2 terms (godparent & sponsor) in somewhat different ways so that an adult catechumen could have BOTH a sponsor and a godparent. My own definition of a "sponsor couple" includes some of BOTH elements. See document: “Canon Law: Guidelines for Sponsor Couple ™ Ministry.”
As for criteria for selecting and training prospective sponsor couples and then assigning them to particular engaged couples, I offer the following:
1 – Qualifications I expect of those trained to be sponsor couples are:
- Willing to function as "peer to peer" (or "like-to-like") ministers with the engaged couples. They must be credible as "co-learners" with the engaged, not "experts" who think they are qualified to tell people how to be married. They must do the same Homework and dialogue with their spouse in preparing for the meetings with the couple they are sponsoring.
- Committed to doing the program the way it is designed. It is intended to be a FLEXIBLE program, but there is a structure (see page 7 of For Better and For Ever ™) that should be followed unless there are important reasons to do it differently.
- Willingness to NOT introduce additional content that contradicts the text of For Better and For Ever ™. This is important because pastors/bishops need to be confident they know what is being shared with their engaged couples.
- Willingness to make a commitment to FOLLOW - UP beyond the wedding. While the newly married couple has the freedom to reject their efforts to follow-up, the sponsor couple who does not work at the follow-up part of this ministry ought to cease being a sponsor couple. Today we know too much about the challenges of marriage to think that ANY marriage preparation program can end with the wedding and call itself an adequate marriage preparation program. Efforts to establish parish based programs for newly married and married couples are to be encouraged, but I always going to teach that "sponsorship" is a commitment that has a starting point....but no ending point. (Exactly like being a sponsor for baptism.)
Additional questions:
1 - How many years should they be married before they are recruited for Sponsor Couple ™ Training
While I understand that the parish leaders want to be confident their sponsor couples have enough experience of Matrimony to be credible in their ministry to engaged couple, I avoid applying arbitrary norms, such as, “They must be married at least XXXX years.” If a couple has been through the Sponsor Couple ™ process in their preparation for marriage, they may already have the ability to take part in this ministry because of their own experience.
2 – Can interchurch & interfaith couples be invited into this Sponsor Couple ™ ministry?
I say “Yes.” I tend think they may be ideal sponsors for engaged couples who are of different faith traditions......I would be cautious about selecting a couple in which one or both of them are clearly committed to being a "non practicing" person.
3 – What about the use of a sponsor couple who knows the engaged couple?
Decades of experience have affirmed that it is best that the Sponsor Couple have no previous relationship with either of the engaged (or their parents). That way the two couples can begin a new and unique relationship. I have made exceptions to this "rule" for what I thought were good reasons. I remember a couple who wanted to be sponsored by the girl's uncle and his wife, and I could not find a good reason to say "no" because I knew the family very well and thought the uncle and aunt would be a good sponsor couple. [Note: This question may be especially relevant in a small town or rural area where “everybody knows everybody.”]
Peace and Love,
Rob