Worldwide Marriage Encounter | Volunteers Sue and Tony Morris Spearhead North America’s First and Most Popular Catholic Marriage Enrichment Program

Jun 10

It’s the Gold Standard of Catholic marriage curricula. Worldwide Marriage Encounter was the first marriage enrichment program offered through the Catholic church, and it continues to be the most popular faith-based marriage enrichment in the world, reaching more than 3.5 million couples overall since its beginning 56 years ago. A non-profit movement, WWME exists as its own entity and has inspired supplemental programs like Catholic Engaged Encounter and Retrouvaille, an intense, six-month program for those experiencing indiscretions and challenges in their marriage. WWME has been expanded to be available to an ecumenical audience, so couples from other faiths can benefit as well.

Established in 1968, WWME presents more than 4,000 experiences in nearly 100 countries every year, all using the same outline curriculum. In North America, couples and priests (known as presenting teams) hold Marriage Encounter experiences in English, Spanish, French, Korean, Dutch and soon Portuguese. WWME’s support groups exist in virtually every diocese of the US and Canada, according to the organization.

Worldwide Marriage Encounter is organized into six world secretariats: North America and the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, Pan Africa, Asia and Pacific. Each secretariat is led by a three-person volunteer team. The current North American team includes Illinois-based Tony and Sue Morris and Bishop Michael Warfel.

Sue and Tony remain an ordinary couple, juggling family, work and church activities. Sue’s a retired physical therapist, and Tony works as a Vice President of a St. Louis-based IT company. But this ordinary couple has done extraordinary things – including spearheading thousands of volunteers as they lead 400 Marriage Encounter retreats and 2,000 parish enrichment events in North America this year alone. The Morris’ non-paid position also has taken them across the world to meet with leaders from Africa to Indonesia.

“While everybody has different ways of going about their day and their culture, at the end of the day, the challenges married couples have are pretty much the same,” Tony said, “like communication and making the daily decision to love.

“We are just one of 1500 couples and priests in North America who give time like we do,” Tony said. “In July 2025, we’ll pass the baton.”

Sue’s motivated to leave a legacy for the next generation. “We received this gift from the couples who came before us who gave their time,” she said. “We want to continue the experience and see Marriage Encounter be around for our kids and grandkids and other couples who will benefit from the communication skills you learn and the closeness.”

Tony’s parents divorced when he was five. Although they eventually enjoyed long marriages with their subsequent spouses, he remembers that time as “not the prettiest thing in the world.” He resolved what happened to him and his sister wasn’t going to happen to anyone else. Tony had individually demonstrated his leadership skills in service through the pastoral council and Knights of Columbus, but he realized serving with Sue through Marriage Encounter was the best thing they could do together to support families.

“If the marriage relationship is strong, families will be strong, churches will be strong, and our country will be strong,” he said.

Although the Morrises have been married for 43 years, WWME predates their relationship. Fourteen years in, friends from their parish asked Sue and Tony to attend a Marriage Encounter weekend. The Morrises were busy raising four kids and didn’t think anything was wrong with their marriage, so they kept looking for excuses to decline. But Sue and Tony were chairing a parish picnic and needed someone to take over the kitchen for the event. The couple brokered a trade – they’d carry the kitchen if Sue and Tony would come to the weekend at which they were presenting.

The results were “life changing,” Sue said. While they weren’t experiencing any crisis, the Marriage Encounter process helped the couple get back to the feelings they had for each other early in the relationship.

“We realized what was really most important was our relationship with God and with each other,” Tony said. “We’d gotten into a day-to-day rut with work and kids. We’d lost the magic we had when we were first dating.”

One characteristic of WWME’s curriculum is that it focuses on dialogue between husband and wife. There’s no group discussion. Sharing feelings with each other about a topic is more important than the topic itself, Tony said. “If I understand how she feels about something, I have a better understanding of Sue,” he said. They also differentiate between feelings and behavior. “Feelings are neither right nor wrong,” Tony explained. “Behavior is different. If Sue does something to upset me, my behavior to fly off the handle is a choice.”

“If the marriage relationship is strong, families will be strong, churches will be strong, and our country will be strong.”

— Tony Morris

One of the sessions tasks couples to write down their feelings in a letter. “Sharing genuine, unchallenged feelings helps them drill deeper,” Tony said. A couple learns how to have discussions about money and sex not just to try to solve a problem, but to understand how each feels — to risk and trust and talk about areas of disillusionment. “The worst thing is not knowing what you don’t know,” he added. “You can have those conversations in a safe environment.”

Couples also will learn good listening habits and how to talk about difficult things – including death.

“Sometimes you have to bring people to the point of thinking about what if they lost their spouse,” Tony said. “Imagining what life would be like without Sue helps me when I get frustrated with something,” he said. “It makes me really want to spend as much time as I have with her.”

“If tomorrow never comes, would Tony know how much I loved him? This supersedes anything else,” Sue said.

Other themes discussed by the three presenter couples and priest during a Marriage Encounter include:

Exploring our personality styles
Appreciating our differences
Listening in a new way
Communicating intimately
Addressing difficult topics
Discovering God’s desire for our marriage
Continuing the journey

Sue’s priorities changed after that first Marriage Encounter weekend. Previously a fanatic organizer, she realized her list was not her top priority. “Nothing is more important than our relationship,” she said. “Marriage Encounter gives people the opportunity to reprioritize what’s most important in their lives. When you die, nobody is going to count the days you went to work. Take an inventory of yourself and realize what is important and how to make life flow well.”

It didn’t take long after the first retreat for their friends to ask the Morrises if they would be open to share with others, something they’ve now been doing for 29 years. As a presenting couple they tell their story using real-life examples to flesh out outline points. “We’ll share a time in our relationship when the other wasn’t listening well and how that made us feel,” Sue said. “Another area is how to make a decision to love and be loved during times of disillusionment.”

They remember a couple on a weekend experience who asked them for help. “They were really having a challenge,” Sue said. Tony finally asked the husband, “If you saw your wife about to get hit by a bus, would you throw her out of the way?” When the husband agreed, he challenged him, “If you would do that, why don’t you give this another half day of doing what we ask you to do.” The couple made it through the weekend and later brought their children to meet them, saying, “Tony and Sue helped save Mommy and Daddy,” words the Morrises will never forget.

A number of couples have told them the weekend experience is the first time they’ve been away from their kids for years. “They didn’t realize how much those problems could build up,” Sue said. “It’s not a bad thing to be busy with the PTO or the kids, but sometimes the good things can get in the way of the best,” Tony said. “Take time away together. If you don’t put time toward this, it’s (your relationship is) going to get smaller and smaller until it goes away. We don’t think people realize this when they get married. They are so anxious to get through the training and get to the wedding.”

“When you die, nobody is going to count the days you went to work. Take an inventory of yourself and realize what is important and how to make life flow well.”

— Sue Morris

He used an analogy of refurbishing a school before it needs to be rebuilt. “Why would we not do that now if it is valuable?” he asked.

WWME’s curriculum outline was originally written in the early 1960s by the person who developed Cursillo retreats, Father Calvo, a priest in Spain. Soon after, Father Chuck Gallagher, a Jesuit priest, gathered three other couples and introduced it in the New York area. As WWME grew in popularity, it spread across the country, first in English, then Spanish, Korean, French, Dutch and Portuguese. It’s been endorsed by the last three Popes. The outline has been updated since 1968 and now incorporates videos, music and interactive exercises to remain culturally relevant.

WWME includes a component for priests and religious individuals because they can benefit from learning skills to build their interpersonal relationships with the people they serve. “People don’t realize a priest is a person, not just somebody conducting mass,” Tony said. “We teach communication to them as well.”

WWME can be accessed in several different formats, including an online virtual version developed during the pandemic. Traditionally a Marriage Encounter is held as a weekend getaway, but parishes can choose to offer a non-residential weekend experience onsite, described as a “weekend without a hotel.” A Restore, Rekindle, Renew Experience option is offered as seven weekly evening sessions.

Once a couple completes the experience, they’re encouraged to connect with other graduates in a community group that meets weekly or monthly to help them stay in relationship and hold each other accountable to continued growth.

“We help them understand their role in the world and in the church of being that visible sign to others of what marriage is,” Sue said.

“A relationship on fire is like a coal in a campfire. It’s easy to cool off if it gets kicked away,” Tony said. We exercise to stay healthy. If we want our relationship to stay healthy, we need to keep training.”