Finally! I did a quick read on your new bishop, and he actually sounds pretty good. Intelligent and supposedly an excellent preacher and very devout.
Many years!
...But for these working people who do attend Mass and try to raise their children in the faith, marriage licenses, church fees and a small party were not in the budget when there have been more immediate concerns like grocery, rent and car payments. All they needed was the right opportunity. That came last fall when Msgr. Scharfenberger announced in the parish bulletin and from the pulpit the annual tradition of the group wedding ceremony. Any couples who were engaged, living together or civilly married were welcome to share together in a group wedding Mass and reception for a fraction of what a traditional wedding would cost. “We were aware of many people saying they’d like to get married but it’s too expensive,” said Msgr. Scharfenberger, former head of the Diocesan Tribunal. “We ask only for a free-will donation (to cover church fees) and the reception is $20 per person.”...
.... In his homily, the monsignor held up Mary and Jesus as “our example of love and leading one another to salvation.” He told the couples that through the sacrament of matrimony, they are called to be a means of salvation for each other. He explained how Jesus’ first miracle at the Cana wedding feast is a reversal of man’s first sin in the Garden of Eden. While Eve misled Adam, Msgr. Scharfenberger said, “Jesus knows His mother would never mislead him. Jesus discovers the will of His Father, through woman, Mary, His mother.” “Mary and Jesus opened the new way,” the monsignor said, to show that “man and woman are for each other."
http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/deaconsbench/2008/02/Who-cut-the-cake.html