Accord, the Catholic marriage support agency in Ireland, has launched the first major revision of its marriage preparation programme in 20 years.
The new programme, “Marriage – A Journey Not A Destination”, takes account of changes in Irish society and couples’ relationship expectations over the past 20 years.
Launching the document at the Shrine of St Valentine in Dublin’s Whitefriar Street Church, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin Denis Nulty, president of Accord, said the new programme was an important legacy of the Ninth World Meeting of Families which the Irish Church hosted in 2018.
Calling for greater accompaniment of couples throughout their marriages, Bishop Nulty said this had been a theme highlighted at the International Conference on the Ongoing Formation for Priests in Rome which he attended last week.
“Just as we need to accompany our priests, so too we need to accompany couples … on their preparation journey for marriage and into their early years of marriage,” he said.
On Monday, Bishop Nulty blessed the engagement rings of two couples who will marry this year. The blessing ceremony was held in advance of Wednesday due to St Valentine’s feast day falling on Ash Wednesday.
Accord’s new data shows that 7,262 couples were prepared for the Sacrament of Marriage across the island of Ireland by the agency in 2023, down from 7,470 couples in 2022.
The new pre-marriage programme incorporates the latest couple’s relationship psychological research as well as insights from Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation on Love in the Family, Amoris Laetitia.
Director of Accord, Tony Shanahan, said that in today’s highly demanding world, most couples need help to manage relationships effectively.
“We would say that counselling is really like going to your GP. If you don’t feel well, you go to your GP; if you are a bit unsure about your relationship – there might be something that you would like to be better – Accord can help with that.”
Shanahan said emotional affairs can be as damaging to a relationship as a sexual affair.
He said that it was mostly women who contacted Accord as men hesitated because of “an old-fashioned notion that they are going to be criticised or judged”.
“We never judge, we never criticise and we don’t take sides,” he said.
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