My Two Cents: Come out Virginia, ed.

Dear Abby,

I'm writing about the letter from "In Love in Kansas," whose priest is predicting that if she marries her fiancé, the marriage won't last. When my husband and I were married, the priest who married us was the same one who had seen my parents through their divorce and divorce counseling. Therefore, he had a negative view of every member of our family. The entire time we were in premarital counseling, which is required in my religion, "Father John" was very pessimistic and went so far as to repeatedly try to talk my fiancé out of marrying me. Well, it didn't work. We got married.

On our wedding day, the entire ceremony was videotaped. Little did we know until we viewed our videotape that on this keepsake, Father John, who had just pronounced us man and wife, said directly to the camera, "Don't blame me for this. I tried to talk them out of it." Needless to say, my husband and I were both stunned and horrified.

My advice to "In Love in Kansas" is, if this is the attitude of her officiate, change officiates! Father John was a man I had known for several years. He knew my family well and still behaved this way. Had I known what was going to happen, I never would have let him marry us.

Too Trusting in Oklahoma


Dear Judas Priest Disconcert:

The power of Christ compels you!

Max von Sydow, The Exorcist

That is one hee-larious keepsake-- if, that is, you manage to stay married. If, however, the marriage ends up in divorce and/or jail, then it devolves into “creepily ironic.” It wasn’t as bad as telling folks at a baptism that the child’s real parents were Satan and a jackal, but was un-cool, nonetheless. Sounds like Fr. McGaffer had a few Jimmy Beams too many and muffed a joke, John Kerry-style. Sorry if that ruins your keepsake, but that’s the chance you take when mixing camcorders and open bars. So really, it’s less a matter of getting an optimistic priest than it is getting one who can hold his liquor.

As to the larger issue, you would do well to give his drunken prediction some sober consideration. Priests, in their careers, become familiar with thousands of married couples—marrying them, counseling them, confessing them, burying them, etc. They also have a handle on all the conflicts that come with Catholic couple combos: Italian-Irish (who’s mother gets to torture them this Sunday); Irish-Polish (boiled vs. fried); Croatian-German (who left whom in the lurch at Stalingrad); Hispanic-everybody (oy yoy yoy, fahgettabowdit). Like it or not, they can pick out bad marriage material the way a Vegas dealer can pick out marks. Hell, they managed to predict the outcome of doodahman and his wife’s marriage; omitting, however, the little detail that we had been mentioned by name in the Third Prophecy of Fatima.

All in all, he did you a favor. Consider this: marriage functions, essentially, by stopping entropy; thus, a constant energy expenditure is required for a marriage to keep functioning. The video give you another incentive to put in the energy to make the marriage work. And hey, worse come to worse, you won’t even be able to use a priest for your next wedding. Ooooooooooo. Did MTC say that out loud?


Dear Abby:
The young woman who is about to be married and is disturbed by the priest's comments should heed his warning. My daughter ignored her priest's advice that she and her fiance, "Brad," were "not compatible," saying, "He didn't understand the questions." To date, her husband has fathered an illegitimate child, given her an STD, spends a lot of time on "hunting" vacations -- and I caught him with another woman. Because I told my daughter what I witnessed, Brad has forbidden me any contact with the kids.

So you see, the priest was right!

The Creep's Mother-in-Law

Dear Bad Brad’s Mad Maw-In-Law:

Hang on. There’s nothing here to indicate that your daughter and the creep-in-law are incompatible. It’s you and him who are incompatible. Apparently, that double wide just ain’t big enough for the two of you. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do until your daughter decides enough is enough, if ever. One suspects that the unmentioned “dad” in this affair was probably every bit the bounder as the man his daughter married—you know how that goes. Unfortunately, there was no priest to warn you on that warm summer night in the bowling alley supply closet so many years ago…..damn those beer frames!

That being the case, you have to just swallow your disgust and get along for the sake of having a relationship with the grandkids. That’s more important that trying to fix your daughter’s married life. Since you put such stock in the clergy, you might, perhaps, light a candle to St. Margaret the Barefooted , patron of difficult marriages. If that doesn’t work, try St. Eustachius, patron of hunting, and maybe the dude will “accidentally” shoot himself next time out. Fear not. In the long run, justice will prevail when your daughter develops into the same vicious harpie you turned out to be.


Dear Abby:
My husband and I had a similar experience when we were wed. We were both in the military and had been assigned the base chaplain for our ceremony. It seems our priest didn't approve of married women serving in the military, so he suggested to us that in a "successful" marriage the wife stayed home. He even took it one step further: During the ceremony he expressed his doubts about whether our marriage would last. Happily, we proved him wrong. We are celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. My advice to "Kansas" is: Don't worry about the naysayers. Work on your marriage every day and enjoy each other.

20 Years and Counting

Dear Twenty to Lifer:

He was a base chaplain alright. Rotten to the corps, in fact (assuming you were Marines). Folks like that never change. He’s probably still around, giving equally bad advice on how to make gay military marriages work. Incidentally, “20 Years and Counting” sounds more like something undersigned in a prison letter. Freudian slip, perchance? Or else it sounds like something a hold-out Japanese soldier might carve into a cave wall with his bayonette. Well, twenty years is certainly long enough both to make a fool of the chaplain and to allow you to surrender with honor intact.


Dear Abby:
A priest told my girlfriend that she shouldn't marry me, too. Well, we've been married 34 years now. We're so glad she didn't listen.

Rick In Audubon, N.J.


Dear Jersey Sure:

You know that only the good die young.

Billy Joel

Marry you too? Who the hell else was she planning to marry? Hey, don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. If she ignored that advice, she probably ignored everything else the priests told her, and the nuns, for that matter. You know—like the stuff about chastity, fidelity and sodomy (stuff they actually know something about first hand). What? You think you kept her happy all those years by yourself? Suuuuuure ya did….