Money worries, job stress and time pressure are the most corrosive factors facing young Asian marriages and the Catholic Church in Southeast Asia is trying to help through various initiatives.

A recent symposium in Yogyakarta saw more than 50 bishops, priests and laypeople from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam discussing their experiences of helping young married couples.

Financial matters emerged as one of the biggest sources of marital stress, particularly in urban Asian areas where both husband and wife are forced to work to make ends meet. This left little time to communicate with one another, weakening marital relations, participants said.

According to them, this situation could lead to divorce. To prevent this, participants agreed to establish family care centers in their own countries.

“Young married couples generally know what marriage is,” said Franciscan Bishop Michael Angkur of Bogor, West Java, on the sidelines of the symposium. “But many do not really understand what family life is and its implications for their children as well as for faith education.”

The prelate, head of the Indonesian bishops’ commission for family, said he supports the establishment of family care centers to provide support to families, especially those of young married couples.

“This can be done by facilitating meetings in which young couples can share about their situations in the company of more experienced people,” he said.

The May 28-31 symposium, titled “Young Marriage Couples: Current Issues and Challenges,” was organized by the Holy Family-run Family Care Center (PPK) of Brayat Minulyo, in Solo, in cooperation with the bishops’ family commission.

One of the priests from the commission, Father Ignatius Tari, told UCA News later that young Catholics should realize that marriage is about more than a couple’s financial situation. The marriage itself should be firmly grounded in faith.

The commission offers counseling to married couples in Indonesia on Tuesdays and Thursdays but in the end, he said, “faith shines a light on all problems.”

Apart from the commission’s counseling program, other Church-run programs have helped couples whose marriages were floundering.

One couple shared with UCA News recently about the help the international Marriage Encounter (ME) program gave them in their first years of marriage.

The program aims to help married couples deepen each partner’s care and commitment, working through weekend sessions run by a team consisting of a priest and several married couples. ME weekends are now held in more than 80 countries and are open to people from other faiths. It was introduced to Indonesia in 1975 by a team from Belgium.

Stefanus and Regina (names have been changed) were married in June 2005.

“We got married because my wife was pregnant. But I was not ready for marriage because of my economic situation,” said Stefanus, 32.

After getting married, Stefanus and Regina lived in Regina’s parents’ house in Grogol, West Jakarta. All did not go well at first, however.

“I could not take the complaints from my parents-in-law, who kept saying that I did not provide for my family,” Stefanus said. He left his wife and daughter and moved into his friend’s house, also in West Jakarta for seven months. It was then that the parish priest at St. Christopher Church in Grogol stepped in.

“He suggested my wife and I join the Marriage Encounter movement,” he said. Two years later, the couple’s marriage is working.

“This movement’s programs such as retreats really helped us,” Stefanus said.

The symposium on family followed one held in Singapore in 2008. The next meeting is planned for Malaysia in 2010.