Looks like Marriage Care are trying to smooth things over a little bit. Diocesan Marriage and Family Life coordinators from around the country have been holding a "residential meeting" and Marriage Care have been there to allay concerns...

Diocesan Coordinators national residential meeting 16-18 October 2012

Dear friends

....

Bridie Collins from Marriage Care is coming for Tuesday’s business to talk about some of the recent branding changes at Marriage Care and also hopefully to allay some of the concerns about this which I had passed on to Marriage Care after they were expressed to me a couple of weeks ago.

...

Elizabeth Davies

The word on the street is that Bridie Collins told the group that Marriage Care has assisted at least three same sex "couples" entering civil partnerships using a version of the FOCCUS inventory that excludes religious content.

According to the FOCCUS website, FOCCUS is "a comprehensive, user-friendly tool for use by lay individuals, couples or professionals who are helping couples prepare for marriage". See that - helping them prepare for marriage. Offering such preparation to people entering civil partnerships rather undermines the Catholic Voices line that civil partnerships are entirely different to marriage.

Still, Bridie Collins told the group that aside from a legal obligation to help such people, it also wouldn't be right to discriminate against such couples. In other words - Marriage Care themselves see no difference between a heterosexual marriage and a homosexual civil partnership.

Bridie then proceeded to ask the audience how Marriage Care can continue to draw new volunteers from the Catholic community but also as to how diocesan employed persons can help Marriage Care raise its profile. Not only do Marriage Care want to undermine Church teachings, they also wants Church employees to promote Marriage Care for free.

I should remind you that...

for Marriage Care, the Christian ethos is not made up of a set of doctrines but rather is an exhortation to the members of the charity to be visible by their inclusive and loving behaviour of the other by providing a rich variety of services across the whole community.

[link]

Are diocesan Marriage and Family life coordinators going to tell them to get lost, or will we be seeing more adverts for Marriage Care in our local diocesan paper?