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Growing and Changing in WWME

The San Jose Spirit newsletter

There are big changes coming in our local Marriage Encounter area. One of those is indicated by the change on the header above - Worldwide Marriage Encounter in the Diocese of San Jose. Most of us only know the local Encounter as San Jose-Oakland. But now we will be two local Encounters, which is a sign of the health of our local area in Marriage Encounter. The other big change is that our wonderful leadership team, Andre & Ana Cvitanic, will be stepping down from leadership.

Andre & Ana Cvitanic

For the newer couples, here’s a quick overview of the ‘structure’ of the Marriage Encounter Movement. There is a Worldwide leadership team, National leadership teams for various countries, Section Leadership (we are Section 12 and our leaders are John & Regina Ruport from Sacramento), and there are the local Encounters. A ‘local’ Encounter in the Catholic Expression of Marriage Encounter may be as small as a single Diocese or as big as a state. To be a viable Encounter means having both Team couples and Community couples active in circles to support the Weekends as well as to support dialogue for couples who have made Weekends.

When a local Encounter is floundering, it may get support from a neighboring Encounter for a time, but the hope is always that both local Encounters will be able to eventually support Weekends and a community of dialoguing couples on their own once again. That’s why it’s great news that Oakland and San Jose will again be separate Encounters. It means we are strong and growing in this area! What it means in practical terms is that each of the two Encounters will have their own Executive Couple and that when there are Team and/or Community meetings, those attending are less likely to have to travel far to a meeting.

With this change, we now have three ‘local’ Encounters in the Bay Area: San Francisco, which includes cities from San Francisco to Menlo Park; San Jose, with the same area as the Diocese of San Jose and also the same boundaries as Santa Clara County; and Oakland, which is the Diocese of Oakland and includes Contra Costa and Alameda counties.

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