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Traditional Catholic Faith => Catholic Living in the Modern World => Topic started by: res ipsa loquitur on March 09, 2018, 05:06:37 PM

Title: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: res ipsa loquitur on March 09, 2018, 05:06:37 PM
Dear Catholic Friends,

Could you please direct me to Catholic literatures that would explain how to counsel an intellectually challenged person who can neither read nor write nor manage his own budget but is expressing an interest to get married?

Thank you!
Title: Re: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: Fanny on March 09, 2018, 05:23:01 PM
Dear Catholic Friends,

Could you please direct me to Catholic literatures that would explain how to counsel an intellectually challenged person who can neither read nor write nor manage his own budget but is expressing an interest to get married?

Thank you!
How does he expect to support his family?
Title: Re: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: res ipsa loquitur on March 09, 2018, 06:43:02 PM
How does he expect to support his family?
Thanks. I have already explained to him that he does not have the capacity to support a wife and children.
I need more arguments to present because he does not seem to be convinced.
Title: Re: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: songbird on March 09, 2018, 07:32:43 PM
Speak with the other/lady?
Title: Re: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: res ipsa loquitur on March 09, 2018, 07:46:08 PM
Speak with the other/lady?
Thanks.  I will do that if he would make her known.
Title: Re: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: Fanny on March 09, 2018, 09:12:31 PM
Thanks. I have already explained to him that he does not have the capacity to support a wife and children.
I need more arguments to present because he does not seem to be convinced.
How about this:
You can't have a horse just because you want one.  You have to have the wherewithal to care for it, the money to care for it, the time to care for it, the land to care for it, etc.  Same with a spouse.  You have to be able to provide for a family before you can think about having one.
Title: Re: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: res ipsa loquitur on March 09, 2018, 09:40:53 PM
How about this:
You can't have a horse just because you want one.  You have to have the wherewithal to care for it, the money to care for it, the time to care for it, the land to care for it, etc.  Same with a spouse.  You have to be able to provide for a family before you can think about having one.
 That's a very good explanation.  I think he will understand that clearly. Thank you so much!!! 
Title: Re: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: Nadir on March 09, 2018, 10:39:21 PM
I have an intellectually impaired brother who has since gone to Heaven (of this I have no doubts). He was not so impaired that he was not aware of some things that he was unable to achieve in his life. As far as I am able to discern he did not aspire to marriage, though he did aspire to driving a car, which my mother gently explained to him would not be a wise or even possible achievement.
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I also had the experience of working with the mentally disabled with church-community organisations. We had moved to a new town as so I applied to work there with the disabled. In this town were a young married couple living in a house around the corner, and my husband, on one of his regular walks, was beckoned to the house by the man, who invited him in for a coffee. My husband accepted the offer. He says that the house was extremely dirty and messy and the wife seemed more handicapped than her husband. They had a small girl in a cot and she had gone to bed sucking a lolly which had become embedded in her matted hair and the mother was trying to remove it but tearing it out, causing the child extreme pain. From then on we used to pop in on them and they were always happy, especially the husband, to see us. Another time we saw them walking home from the shops with the shopping in the pram on top of the child.
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We learned that this marriage between these two very sweet but incapable people had actually been encouraged by the organisation to which I had applied for work.
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Which brings be to wonder from where or whom the idea of marriage come. Did it come from the young man, or was it a spontaneous thought that he came to himself. Does he go to community social/care group?
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Is there a particular person he has in mind? Has he actually broached the possibility with her? Have you talked to him about what God wants from him?
Title: Re: Advice for Intellectually Challenged Seeking to Marry
Post by: res ipsa loquitur on March 10, 2018, 12:28:15 AM
Thank you, Nadir.

When asked where he got the idea, he said that the laborers around him advised him to get married and have a child to take care of him in the future.  I tried to explain to him that it would be difficult for his future wife to budget his meager income and then she might be tempted to use products against pregnancy which would be sinful.  He then said he would not want to commit sin but when I asked him what he would do if his future wife would insist on contracepting, he answered that he would leave her.  When I reminded him that divorce is not an option for Catholics, he didn't want to continue our conversation.  

On another occasion, I pointed out to him the priest and said that some men are called by God not to marry and such people who respond to God's call do not worry about who will take care of them in their old age because God does not abandon the people who put their trust in Him.  He was silent.  I shared to him the story of St. Andre who helped so many people by dedicating his whole life to taking charge of the sacristy and the doors of the church.  He smiled and said he still wanted to get married.

Then another time, he said that he will just wait to know the will of God.  

But recently, whenever I see him all excited and dressed up and ask, "do I know her?", he would just smile very broadly.    

I have known him and his brothers, sisters and cousins for years, and we're like family already.  I pity his condition because he really doesn't understand much but he has strong muscles from years of hard labor.  An equally intellectually-challenged girl may get attracted to him and I wonder how a contract between "forever young" minds could be valid.