Church Implements “Get Tough” Wedding Policy
The Catholic Church in Costa Rica has implemented strict measures on couples planning to get married and for priests performing the ceremony in an effort to stem rising divorce rates.
Priests may only wed couples in chapels or churches, not in hotels, meeting rooms, event centers or open air sites. They will continue to interview couples prior to scheduling the ceremony to determine their readiness for marriage.
The other strategy is to lengthen the pre-marriage course that couples must take in preparation for the wedding. Now the course will take 30 hours. The courses are free and deal with various topics like communication and fidelity. Other topics are at the discretion of the people giving the course.
The 30 hours may be met in the following ways:
- A weekly meeting on a fixed day of the week that lasts 3.5 months.
- An intensive course that lasts 3 weeks with 5 meetings per week.
- A weekend course that lasts from Friday to Sunday over 2 weekends.
- A custom course may be taken, as long as there are 15 meetings that last 1.5 or 2 hours each.