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The principles of arraigned marriage and military schooling for boys are historically well-established, consistent with natural law, and vastly superior the modern customs of marriage and boy education.

Having some SSPX priest conceivably pressure a young woman into some bizarre arranged marriage, or having them organize a "military" academy with "military discipline" is a sign of a group that is out of control. [...]

Having priests trying to influence who marries who is very cultish.  And the idea of "military discipline" in the schools is also about creating SSPX-bots, and gratifying the domineering spirit of martinets.

Priest-arranged marriages?!? Actually this is done by family members lining up eligible candidates with the voluntary collaboration of the principles. Pastors with the courage to support the principle of arraigned marriage from the pulpit are responsible and truthful, not necessarily cultish.

"military" schools shouldn't be run by priests.

What is inherently wrong about priest-led schools conducting marching drills for boys?

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Priest-arranged marriages?!? Actually this is done by family members lining up eligible candidates with the voluntary collaboration of the principles.

Priests using the confessional to try to impose parental will on pain of sin - to manipulate who marries whom.

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Pastors with the courage to support the principle of arraigned marriage from the pulpit are responsible and truthful, not necessarily cultish.

"the principle of arranged marriage" - you make it sound as though it is a Christian principle.  This is absurd, and part of the problem.  The problem of making up the religion as you go along, which is what the SSPX often does, often with no consistency whatsoever from one year to the next.

Turning down an arraigned candidate would be a sin requiring confession? Supporting the principle of arraigned marriage amounts to claiming it is the only option? You have nothing but straw.

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What is inherently wrong about priest-led schools conducting marching drills for boys?

It's not a priests job to make anyone's son march.  

They need to stick to their vocation.  

And stop pretending to be shrinks, military officers, matchmakers, etc.

You offer nothing beyond your personal dislike of priest-led schools conducting marching drills for boys.

Difficulty in finding suitable marriage partners and lack of hardness in boys are real-world problems among traditionalist families. Seeking traditional Catholic solutions to these problems in a forthright manner is not necessarily a bad thing.

Quote from: Columba

Turning down an arraigned candidate would be a sin requiring confession? Supporting the principle of arraigned marriage amounts to claiming it is the only option? You have nothing but straw.

No, I have the evidence of my own eyes the way the SSPX likes to manipulate people.  Encouraging "arranged marriages" would be entirely a matter of increasing that abusive manipulation.

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You offer nothing beyond your personal dislike of priest-led schools conducting marching drills for boys.

People who want priests to act as drill sergeants are deranged.

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Difficulty in finding suitable marriage partners and lack of hardness in boys are real-world problems among traditionalist families. Seeking traditional Catholic solutions to these problems in a forthright manner is not necessarily a bad thing.

No, it's not a bad thing, but that's not what suggesting going back to arranged marriages and encouraging "military discipline" in schools is about.  At all.

It's about making up the religion as they go along, anything to increase their power and control.

So your problem is with negative tendencies you perceive within the SSPX, not with practical solutions historically proven effective among Catholics. Conceivably, the SSPX might use arranged marriage and military schooling for cultish purposes, just as they might use other things such as the faith and the mass. None of these things are inherently evil.

In retrospect, we can see that many forms of schooling that were popular in the past were evil in their consequences.  Particularly the boys boarding school.

That's not to say they were all evil or that there were not good reasons for establishing them.

Just that certain kinds of schooling are particularly ripe for abuse.

That is particularly true today, when a child's peers are apt to be vicious.

Abstinence before marriage is also culturally alien

No, it isn't culturally alien.  It's widely approved on paper.  And it's a totally different category from arranged marriage.  You're treating arranged marriage as though it's Catholic teaching.  It's not.

and corporal punishment is practically illegal. Wifely submission to the husband has been obsolete for more than a century. Catholic mass had to be modernized because it too was "culturally alien."

I explained very clearly that arranged marriage is not a matter of the Catholic Faith.

Your understanding of non-Western arranged marriage appears to have originated from neocon war propaganda.

That is a ludicrous comment.  Incidentally, I have heard of tragic, heartbreaking marriages (marriages that kept young lovers apart and resulted in a disastrous union) - and not from neocon propaganda, but from from the sister of a man trapped in such a terrible marriage.

East Indians now commonly have websites of marriage seekers maintained by relatives. Using online photos and information and by preliminary communication between maintainers, acceptable candidates are lined up by the family.

This idea that parents are going to be selecting mates for girls in America is ludicrous.  If anything, the problem is that parents do not want marriage for their daughters until their daughters have lost their innocence, because of the influence of feminism.

Young women left to themselves are usually attracted to the "bad boy" element. For the most part, Catholic girls suffer the same proclivities.

And you think girls in arranged marriages won't be attracted to those types?  The problem is that women are not looking for marriage.  If marriage were a priority they would behave differently.  The real problem is that the only people these priests and fathers can punish are the "nice guys" - only the nice guys will be vulnerable to their manipulative guilt-tripping, gas-lighting, and lies.

Family involvement in the courtship process helps to protect young ladies from such inherent weakness. The condition of the weaker sex was once widely understood in the West, but such understanding has since become "culturally alien."

There's nothing wrong with family involvement in courtship.  But that's totally different from "arranged marriage."  Family involvement in courtship isn't "culturally alien" either.

Quote from: Columba

Abstinence before marriage is also culturally alien

No, it isn't culturally alien.  It's widely approved on paper.  And it's a totally different category from arranged marriage.  You're treating arranged marriage as though it's Catholic teaching.  It's not.

Paper schmaper. Abstinence before marriage has become operationally obsolete in youth culture. You are treating arranged marriage as though it's prohibited by Catholic teaching. It's not.

I have heard of tragic, heartbreaking marriages (marriages that kept young lovers apart and resulted in a disastrous union) - and not from neocon propaganda, but from from the sister of a man trapped in such a terrible marriage.

Yes, I have also seen "The King and I" and numerous other silly Hollywood propaganda hit jobs against arranged marriage, but Hollywood is not the arbiter of what is alien to my culture. I never said that all arranged marriages are perfect. However, you notably sidestepped my allusion to statistical evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the vast superiority of arranged marriage over non-arranged.

European Catholics are doomed to extinction unless they can restore those cultural practices that were integral to the building Christendom, such as arranged marriage. Catholic marriage is not the same as Islamic, but it is much less the same as modern-style, birth-dearth Western marriage. Yes, some traditionalist couples are already having large families. Unfortunately there are many, many young trads who cannot find suitable marriage partners or get married too late in life to have many children. What solution do you suggest for getting a large majority of Catholic girls into suitable marriages while they are still young and fertile? Clearly, the current culture of Western marriage is not acceptable.

This idea that parents are going to be selecting mates for girls in America is ludicrous.  If anything, the problem is that parents do not want marriage for their daughters until their daughters have lost their innocence, because of the influence of feminism.

Right, but parents that have grown sick of the feminist dichotomy, in both its liberal and conservative formulations, may wish to return to pre-feminist (i.e. pre-"Enlightenment") forms of courtship, such as arranged courtship. By the way, arranged marriage in the Western tradition is the same as arranged courtship.

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Young women left to themselves are usually attracted to the "bad boy" element. For the most part, Catholic girls suffer the same proclivities.

And you think girls in arranged marriages won't be attracted to those types?  The problem is that women are not looking for marriage.  If marriage were a priority they would behave differently.  The real problem is that the only people these priests and fathers can punish are the "nice guys" - only the nice guys will be vulnerable to their manipulative guilt-tripping, gas-lighting, and lies.

LOL. Yes, most priests, including traditionalists, are just cogs in the feminist machine. Their conservative feminism serves as an essential counterpart to the liberal side of the feminist dichotomy. Bp. Williamson is a notable exception to that unfortunate rule.

Most young women, married or not, are attracted to bad boys. In the West, single girls give their most attractive and fertile years over to a succession of bad boys, until they are too aged and used up for the bad boys to give as much attention as when the girls were in their teens and young twenties. Then they finally make themselves temporarily available for marriage to a nice guy provider. After marriage, they have a couple kids, file for divorce and go back out prowling for bad boys as Sex in the City cougars with expenses paid by the the hapless sucker who was foolish enough to give them a ring.

If the wife is Catholic enough, she may refrain from divorce, but give her husband hen-peck hell as she continues to struggle with an addiction to bad boys that leaves her secretly pining for previous lovers and tempted by adulterous feelings. In previous times and still today in other cultures, such women were and are considered ruined for marriage.

Arranged marriage (courtship) is a viable alternative to this destructive culture of Western marriage.

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Family involvement in the courtship process helps to protect young ladies from such inherent weakness. The condition of the weaker sex was once widely understood in the West, but such understanding has since become "culturally alien."

There's nothing wrong with family involvement in courtship.  But that's totally different from "arranged marriage."  Family involvement in courtship isn't "culturally alien" either.

I am not talking about Hollywood propaganda characterizations. Real-world arranged marriage is very similar to courtship. Non-arranged courtship is workable in a traditional Catholic society but arrangement is required when there is insufficient supply of suitable candidates within the marriage seeker's circle of acquaintances.

In principle the Church supported free marriage and usually exercised its authority in favor of free marriage choice..

yeah? tell that the the nobles and royals, sometimes arranged marriage prior to or at birth...or when kids in youth.......

Paper schmaper. Abstinence before marriage has become operationally obsolete in youth culture.

Arranged marriage has been obsolete in this society for a very long time.  You're comparing totally different matters.  Even if I were to concede that few believed and even fewer practiced waiting for marriage, that's something that's changed relatively recently.  And most importantly, it's IRRELEVANT.  Arranged marriage is not something the Church teaches.  Which is why it's bizarre that it's encouraged, when there is absolutely no possibility of social support for it among Catholics, unless they submit to a cult regime.  

It's possible to raise children to believe in waiting until marriage.  It's not possible to raise them to submit to an arranged marriage, unless they are in a cult, not for Catholics in this country.  And it's not possible to try to enforce it.

You are treating arranged marriage as though it's prohibited by Catholic teaching. It's not.

 
I've never said it's prohibited for parents to arrange a marriage for their children.  What's morally prohibited is to tell them they're bound to go along with it.  And it would be immoral, gravely immoral for priests to exert any pressure in the confessional for any child to go along with it.