Searching for a spouse: Catholic love stories in the digital age

Second of two parts

Creative courtship and matches made in cyberspace are among the follies of Catholic dating in the 21st century.

Even though the internet is overcoming the geographical limits of courting with an ever-expanding selection of dating apps, young Catholics say they’re ironically finding it more difficult to find a suitable Catholic match. 

What was once a straightforward process – if anything relating to love, romance, and marriage can be straightforward – that involved singles gathering in church dance halls or meeting at the behest of friends has morphed into a challenge of selection and vetting. 

Rather than simplify the dating process, a potential deluge of cultural Catholics and propositions awaits those who decide to brave the online dating world. 

While Catholic dating sites like Catholic Match supposedly offer tools to slim down the selection of potential partners, many Catholics interviewed by The B.C. Catholic found the sites’ “Catholic” label creates counter-intuitive problems. 

Ironically, by stripping away the secular world and reducing the dating pool to people who are, at least superficially, Catholic, the sites offer an overwhelming amount of information about favourite devotions or prayers, but little information about general interests or hobbies. As one young woman told The B.C. Catholic: “It places too much emphasis on ‘Catholic.’ I want to know more than your favourite Mass.”

Additionally, some people who sign up for Catholic dating sites only equivocate religion with culture. One Catholic Filipino man said he was dismayed to find that often his so-called “Catholic match” was someone looking for a superficially Catholic, but very culturally Filipino, husband. They would check the Catholic box, but have no issues with abortion, sex before marriage, or any number of other red flags. 

On the other hand, venturing outside the Catholic bubble brings its own problems, the most prominent of which is modern sexual mores. Nearly everyone who spoke with The B.C. Catholic, regardless of gender, mentioned regularly being propositioned for sex or being asked if sex before marriage was at least on the table. 

Many said they felt the need to be uncomfortably upfront when it came to premarital sex, and it was a trend that their messages affirming a commitment to chastity would go unanswered. One young woman told The B.C. Catholic she became used to potential partners ghosting her the second she described herself as someone who cares about her faith. 

This adversity can also lead to creative solutions. 

One woman said the deficiencies of Catholic Match led her to try a secular dating app in the hope of finding a better selection algorithm. Her logic was that if Catholic Match offers no reliable way to vet for “Catholicity” as opposed to people who identify as “Catholic,” then perhaps a dating app without the Catholic label would give the word “Catholic” more meaning in her profile. 

By only considering men who highlighted their Catholicism in a secular forum she found it easier to know if they took their Catholicism seriously. And because it was only one detail mentioned in their profile, she found it easier to find other areas of compatibility, like shared interests. 

Something else she learned was that not everyone was as upfront about their faith as their Catholic Match profile would suggest. She was not the only Catholic Match member with a second, secular, dating site profile, and many of the men she saw on both sites would only mention their faith on the Catholic site, which suggested a weakness of religious conviction. 

Using all these strategies, her intuition proved correct, and she recently married her husband, whom she met on the secular dating app Bumble. 

There is also a third option: to opt out of the techno dating scene entirely. 

Inspired by countless conversations with female friends who bemoaned their troubles finding eligible Catholic men, Alexandra Chessell and the Holy Rosary Cathedral Young Adults leadership team decided to try something different, and the Catholic Dating Project was born. 

It’s “intentional dating for people who want to be married,” Chessell.

At its core, the Catholic Dating Project is simple. Young adults are paired with approximately five other single Catholics of similar age. When they sign up, they accept a code of conduct that includes committing to arranging a one-hour date with each of their matches. 

The one-hour time limit is not a suggestion, it’s a requirement. Chessell said organizers got the idea from The Dating Project movie, which suggested that one hour is the perfect length of time for a first date. Not too long or short, it gives participants a convenient out in the event of a bad date, and it kindles a sense of anticipation if the date goes well. 

The third round of the Dating Project isn’t scheduled yet, but Chessell said she knows of at least two couples who are still seeing each other months after having their first dates through the program. 

Dating: outdated yet longed-for

Vancouver’s Catholic Dating Project took its inspiration from the 2016 documentary, The Dating Project, which explored the sad reality of modern romance and dating. 

The film was an exploration of observations made by Prof. Kerry Cronin of Boston College, who realized her students had no idea how to date or develop romantic relationships. 

In Cronin’s words, “Dating is now perceived as outdated — yet it’s longed-for.” Her students even found the idea of a coffee date or holding hands scary because of the vulnerability and visibility those things require.

The documentary takes its name from an assignment in one of Cronin’s classes in which her students were required to go on a traditional date. The students reported that the intentional nature of the date increased the sense of meaning within the activity, making it radically different than a casual hookup. 

Bridging a gap with speed dating 

By Arleen D Souza

Finding someone to go out with who shares her Catholic faith has been difficult for Maria. That’s what led her to a recent speed dating event for Christian singles in their 30s and 40s.

The Vancouver event drew more than 20 single men and women from around the Lower Mainland. In Maria’s case, she came to the event hoping to find someone who would understand and relate to her Catholic background.

The event allowed participants to mingle and engage in conversation with those of the opposite sex. At the end of the evening, having had the chance to speak to multiple potential dates, each participant privately submitted to organizers the names of those they considered a potential match. If the matches were mutual, the organizers would then release contact information to both parties so they could connect.

One of the organizers, Donata Ling from Holy Name Parish in Vancouver, said the event “offered the opportunity for singles to connect with multiple like-minded people also looking for a partner.”

The men and women were offered intriguing questions to discuss with each other, from “What excites you about your job?” to “What qualities are you looking for in a partner?” 

Organizers say they hope that in today’s digital age, events like this will help to bridge the gap between secular dating apps and faith.

New York Times ‘Mini-Vows’ features Vancouver couple’s heavenly love

By Nicholas Elbers

Love was in the stars for a Vancouver Catholic couple, whose romantic story was featured in The New York Times’ Mini-Vows column earlier this year.

Alexandria Angco, a Toronto Catholic, had become disenchanted with dating. After her 28th birthday, she swore off going out with anyone for a year.

That was until she accidentally met Christian Chai Chua during a night of stargazing, during which she was acting as a wing woman for a friend who had a crush on him.

The couple had actually first met each other on Zoom during an online 2020 Singles for Christ conference. Over the years, they saw each other in various online events, “though neither thought that much of each other,” the Times column said.

But that didn’t last long. 

The two met in person in September 2022 when Angco flew to Vancouver from Toronto to facilitate a personal development workshop at an in-person Singles for Christ conference. 

Chua attended the workshop and was impressed.

“The workshop was done so well,” Chua said. “I was just like, ‘this girl’s funny and she’s smart.’”

He sat beside her during the conference’s closing Mass at St. Francis de Sales in Burnaby. He remembers thinking, “Wow, this girl is beautiful.”

That evening, he invited Angco and some friends to go star gazing.

“Throughout the night, Angco was trying to be a wing woman for a friend who had a crush on Mr. Chua,” said the article. “But she accidentally charmed him instead. Her jokes made him laugh so loud that his friends warned him to quiet down to avoid complaints” from neighbours.

Chua was smitten. The next morning, he asked her out on a date.

They went stargazing at Porteau Cove Provincial Park, said the article. “It was pitch-black, and they sat in the dark for three hours talking about their upbringings, their families and their dreams. ‘My brain was so engaged,’ Angco said.”

She was impressed by his questions and put a lot of thought into answering his query: “why are you worth knowing?”

“I was like, what a good question,” Angco thought. “I’ve never written about that in my journal.”

They met one more time before her flight home to Toronto the following evening. 

After months of long-distance friendship, they sealed the deal in November of the same year at another Singles for Christ event in Pennsylvania.

“I’m ready to be your girlfriend,” she told him during Sunday Mass. To which, said the article, he “whispered back coyly, ‘So, you want to be my girlfriend?’”

They were engaged in February 2023 and married on Jan. 6 at Holy Rosary Cathedral by cathedral Vice-Rector Father Pablo Santa Maria.

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