About us

How did Marriage Retorno come about?
Marriage Retorno was created by a priest by the name of Fr. Gabriel Calvo and a group of married couples who had a great desire to deepen their Spiritual lives as a couple. They wanted to approach God as a couple. Before his ordination, Fr. Calvo was profoundly moved by the talk given by Pope Pius XII on the occasion of the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes in February 1952. The Pope was calling all men and women to make a change to no longer evangelize salvation from outside the human condition, but to "approach the Divine through the human. We must begin to enter more fully into the human situation and discover the divine within it." When married couples first approached Fr. Calvo for spiritual direction, he was hesitant, but the Pope's words still rung in his heart. For many years, Fr. Calvo met with married couples and eventually the Marriage Encounter retreat was created in Spain, and later taken to the United States during a Christen Family Movement Conference. (Fr. Chuck Gallagher saw the value in the retreat and started Worldwide Marriage Encounter.) However, many of the couples wanted more. They wanted to approach God in the oneness and unity of their Sacrament of Matrimony. With the help of the Holy Spirit and prayer-filled couples, Fr. Calvo developed Marriage Retorno. The first English speaking Marriage Retorno weekend was held in Ireland in 1970. The Spirit used the priest and couples who made that weekend as the yeast for the growth of Marriage Retorno in the United States and Canada.
 

The Marriage Retorno experience came to the US in 1972 at a CFM Conference at Notre Dame and began spreading throughout the country. It drew from the large number of couples that had experienced Marriage Encounter. It seems they had the same yearning for more as the couples in Spain. In 1975, a few of the original Marriage Retorno team couples and priests gathered at Morristown, New Jersey to review what was happening with Marriage Retorno, and tried to determine how best to continue to support the growth of Marriage Retorno in North America. They determined that Marriage Retorno would serve couples and religious seeking a richer relationship with God. There would be no follow-up organization like Marriage Encounter. On a Marriage Retorno weekend all couples and religious are encouraged to be led by the Holy Spirit and discern how God was calling them to serve. Some might go back to their own ministry or to join one if not already involved. Some might join a prayer group to continue to grow in the Lord in a community of fellow believers. Some couples and religious might choose to join the Marriage Retorno ministry as presenting couples. They also decided to establish a central office to coordinate information among the couples and religious who were serving in the Marriage Retorno ministry. 
 

To support the Marriage Retorno structure in the United States, Marriage Retorno was incorporated as a non-profit organization in July 1978 in the state of Minnesota. This gave the group legal standing and allowed donations to Marriage Retorno to be gifts to charity for income tax purposes. As a corporation, there is a president, a vice president, a treasurer and a board of directors. In this organization, a Coordinating Couple and a priest are selected every three years to serve as the officers. The Coordinating Couple and the Priest are responsible to then select couples and religious to serve as members of the board of directors. The main role of the officers and the board is to serve the Marriage Retorno community by providing a central place to share information and insight and to maintain the integrity of the weekend. A newsletter called the Ram's Horn is used to communicate to the larger Marriage Retorno Community. It is published a few times each year.

 

Fr. Calvo also insisted that Marriage Retorno have a Bishop serve as an Episcopal Moderator. It is through our moderator that we are to maintain communion with the Church. Since the beginning Marriage Retorno has been served by Bishop Stafford of Baltimore, MD, later Denver, CO; Bishop Daily of Long Island, NY; and then Bishop Wm. Franklin of Davenport, IA.
 

Fr. Calvo was personally involved with the development of Marriage Retorno in North America and worked with the Marriage Retorno community, translating the Spanish Marriage Retorno manual to English. The original manual was published in 1977. Fr. Calvo then revised the Marriage Retorno manual in 1990. North America presenting teams use this manual to prepare and present Marriage Retorno weekend. Fr. Calvo copyrighted both manuals. The manual was translated to French as well.
 

The present US-Canada Marriage Retorno Coordinating Team are Fr. Mel Hemann and Tony and Mary Anne Hartman.