Catholics and bachelor parties can coexist -- with wise choices

Bachelor party: Lately, those words have earned lewd and lascivious connotations, conjuring images of alcohol-fogged half-remembrances of strip clubs and dark bars.

Women aren't excluded from the racy happenings. Bachelorette parties can include spa treatments, gourmet lunches and dancing -- or some of the same events that have besmirched the reputation of bachelor parties.

Catholic couples, say Pre-Cana presenters, should approach such parties with a cautious, discerning eye.

Preparing for wedding

The traditional pre-wedding ribaldry and its associated imagery of marriage as a prison is "not great preparation for marriage," warned Dennis Durnan, a Pre-Cana presenter at Immaculate Conception parish in Glenville. "In fact, it's the very opposite."

Bachelor parties aren't covered in Pre-Cana preparation, said Deacon Joseph Markham of Christ the King Church in Westmere, and couples don't often bring up the subject.

"Maybe it's something we ought to talk about," he said. "If you think of a traditional bachelor party, you think of immoral conduct, objectification of women or men, excessive drinking -- what does that say? It's not honoring the Sacrament of Marriage."

Instead, parties should celebrate the "sign of commitment between two equal parties in a covenantal relationship," he explained.

Groom's condition

Likewise, the stereotypical picture of the red-eyed, dizzy groom, still hung-over from the night's revelries, shouldn't have a part in a Catholic wedding, said Rev. Thomas Konopka, pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Troy.

"I am very clear with [the bride and groom] as to not using alcohol" in the festivities preceding the wedding, he said. "They need to be of right mind, and they should not be using something that alters that."

Another view

"I wonder if it's all that bad," said Rev. Robert Longobucco, campus minister at The University at Albany. At a bachelor party he attended, friends of the groom "played golf, had Mass and went out afterward."

He said that "it's really important for people to get together before marriage. Marriage preparation is isolating; there's a lot of details and business. There's something special about those moments you spend with your friends, especially with your own gender. There's a whole dynamic there that is a valuable thing.

"I don't see the need or the wisdom of doing things that are immoral at those times. I don't think that's what you base friendships on, and I don't think that's what you base marriage on."

Alternatives

Mary Moriarty, assistant director of the diocesan Family Life Office, reports some new variations on the old bachelor-party theme: fishing trips, weekends away, sojourns to sports games.

She recalls one bachelor party she witnessed that included affection, light drinking, sentimentality, a sing-along -- "a lot of camaraderie."

"More and more people get together weeks before their wedding," she said. "They're saying goodbye to the old ways, and I think because grooms are older now, they're seeing that it's not smart to do that the night before."

When planning a party, it's important for grooms to be clear with their friends as to what they feel comfortable with, she added. "Tell your friends what you want at your party. If the guy doesn't want a girl popping out of a cake, he should be very clear about that, because that's when it gets ugly. Somebody's bound to be embarrassed."

Bachelor and bachelorette parties can be done in a way that enhances the wedding, says Sharon Durnan, a Pre-Cana presenter for the Albany Diocese.

"What we've found with our children is that they're looking for something else," she noted.

Two of the Durnans' eight children held low-key get-togethers with their friends before the big day -- a trip to a Saratoga pub, for example, or a rehearsal dinner with family at the Durnans' home.

"As a couple, they preferred to do it that way," Mrs. Durnan said. "Our son and his bride wanted to just get together with their friends."

She and her husband Dennis advise that any couple planning a pre-wedding celebration make it a "special evening, consistent with the sacred marriage they are about to enter into. There are a lot of nice things you can do with your friends that would be consistent with that." (KD)

(11/13/03) [[In-content Ad]]