Cupid's arrow strikes Utah Catholics online

Intermountain Catholic

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Valentine's Day is made for couples like Dan and Cindy Castelli who married last year after meeting online on Catholicmatch.com.

OGDEN - Saint Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, is the holiday of lovers expressing their affection with flowers, candy, greeting cards and romantic outings.

The holiday is named after an early Christian martyr named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 A.D. The holiday first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

In tradition with the holiday, Dan and Cindy Castelli and two other couples plan to spend a romantic evening on Valentine's Day going out to dinner at a local Japanese restaurant.

The Castellis, who are members of Saint James Parish, Ogden, were married Sept. 26, 2009 at St. Peter Parish in American Fork. They met online on Catholicmatch.com in September 2008. They made a date to meet face to face in Ogden two months later, when Dan went to Ogden for a function with the Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus. At that time, Dan was a member of St. Peter Parish and an auto mechanic and Cindy lived in Ogden. Cindy is a speech pathologist in the Weber School District and Dan now works for St. James Parish.

They have many things in common. They are both from California, like the outdoors and hiking, traveling, movies and cooking. They both have two sons who range in age from 17 to 25. They were attracted to each other's online photos, personality profiles and survey questionnaires. "Dan has quite a cute personality," said Cindy. "He would say flirtatious things that were very flattering and charming. We both wanted to be involved in church, and we enjoy socializing with other Catholics."

"Catholic Match is set up on an understanding that a spiritual foundation is a core part of marriage," said Christina Ries, public relations for Catholic Match. "We are seeing Catholics who want to marry fellow Catholics, who believe that having a shared faith can strengthen their marriage. Catholic Match is aimed at spurring on marriages on a deeper level in response to Pope John Paul II's ?new evangelization' and was continued by Pope Benedict XVI, who recently emphasized the Church's need for high-tech outreach to young people in his 44th World Communications Day address."

Ries said Catholic Match has subscribers answer seven faith questions about how important faith is to them in their daily lives and what faith means to them.

Dan and Cindy were on other sites they felt were less safe and where they were unable to meet Catholics or people with their same values. They went to Catholic Match after seeing it in their parish bulletins because they wanted to meet someone who was Catholic with their same values and interests.

"It was nice to be able to talk to a variety of men about going to Catholic school, and who thought the same way I did," said Cindy.

On the other sites, Dan met only one Catholic, and no one that he would have wanted to be with permanently, he said.

"It's hard to meet people in our age range - 40s and 50s - because everybody's life is so well established you're not going places where you meet single people," said Cindy. "Online was a nice way to meet single people."

"According to the PEW survey of religious landscape, there are 24 million single Catholics in the nation, so there is a need for a site like ours," said Ries. "We have 500 Catholic Match subscribers from Utah. Catholic Match is one way to help singles connect with others and build friendships or discern vocations. We receive thousands of success stories from our site, which is really exciting."