It was forced on them. They wanted a Church marriage, but the old pastor said no.
My dad converted, but not until he got away from that parish. He resented the hell out of what he always saw as a humiliation.."The Church treated me like a second-class citizen."
Ironically, six years after he converted, an assistant pastor at another Church in 1959 did, indeed, call him a second-class Catholic because he was a convert.
Dad never darkened the door of a Church again, until he made his final confession and went to Mass a couple of times before he died.
Lots of people were hurt by an Arrogant Church.
The Church should be humble; it has every reason to be.
Nothing wrong with that.
The Church treated me like a second-class citizen."
He WAS a second-class citizen -- he wasn't a Catholic. Am I supposed to walk into my local temple and tell the Rabbi to start treating me like a 1st-class citizen? I don't think so.
The Church should be humble; it has every reason to be.
Ah, but individuals don't? They can be as arrogant as they want? They can walk into churches they don't even belong to and start dictating policy?
The problems in the Church today are the problems of individuals. Each one of us needs to be humble. But it is not true, as you say, that the Body of Christ has reason to be humble (except imitation of our Lord).
I'm sorry, but this is all a bit small-minded.
I have been insulted and talked down to on several occasions by nasty, emotionally immature clergy as well as been treated rudely or insensitively. One recent example: I was required to take a class on baptism before I was permitted to have my daughter christened - a silly rule my local ordinary insists on without any room for a parish' discretion. The official class I took was given by a priest in another parish than mine. As it turned out, all the people in class besides my wife and I were RCIA students and my wife was the only pregnant woman in the class. The priest mentions to the class that the Church prefers to baptize a child as soon as possible after birth. Someone asked why.
The priest went on to tell the class, in front of my eight-months-pregnant wife that "babies can die just like that" and snapped his fingers. He then went on to regale us with tales of stillbirths and SIDS cases that he had hurriedly baptized. My wife was almost in tears as this man painted a vivid picture of her worst fears in graphic terms. I was livid.
That never made me decide to stop attending Mass - get back at unpastorly priests by insulting God? That's the kind of response that someone who just doesn't care about their faith in the first place makes.
Giving up the Eucharist in a childish act of retaliation is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.