Posted on 06/20/2014 6:23:47 AM PDT by Weiss White
Q: My daughter stopped practicing her faith and was married to a protestant in his church. Now she has come back, and her protestant husband is preparing to become a Catholic too, next Easter. They understand that their marriage isn’t valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but the parish priest told them he can just “bless their marriage” and it will be all right. Can that possibly be true? –Eamon
(Excerpt) Read more at canonlawmadeeasy.com ...
One of the most STUPID mantras of the '60's: "Bad laws were made to be broken." That is, people make their own laws when God's laws don't fit into their agenda. The "me generation" was always around. It's just morphed into something more timely.
This is because the proper ministers of marriage are the man and the woman themselves while the priest is simply the witness to the licitness of the marriage.
(2) Their marriage is, however, technically "illicit" in the sense that it was never witnessed by the Church.
This is a technicality that can be resolved by publicly blessing the marriage before witnesses.
It would only be a problem if one of the parties was still married to another person, or if the two parties are too closely related by blood, if the man is impotent, etc.
Though I’m not Catholic, I agree. The church isn’t some liberal social club. I also agree that it’s disingenuous to claim your own blog is ‘copyrighted.’
Its nothing more than me saying “Good stuff.”
A blessing is just a pleasantry to satisfy secular Americans. It is NOT the sacrament of marriage, which can only happen once both parties are baptized, make first communion and are confirmed in the Catholic church.
If they want to have a Catholic marriage the monseigneur should have no problem helping them make the sacrament given they take the appropriate steps to complete the above three conditions, meet with him for 1 on 1 pre-cana and also take the requisite pre-cana courses/group meetings. He will also require you get a local “remarriage license” from the town/state, so he can formally marry you secularly at the same time as your sacrament. This last part isn’t required but MOST monseigneurs will insist on it anyway.
I don't think you're correct. Generally, if a Catholic marries outside the Church without a dispensation from the bishop, the marriage is invalid due to lack of form.
Here is an article that explains it better than I can:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0043.html
Here is a short quote from the article:
“However, if a Catholic enters marriage outside of the Catholic Church without the necessary dispensation, then the marriage is considered invalid and is not recognized by the Church. Moreover, this action places the person in a state of mortal sin. For instance, if a Catholic marrying either another Catholic or anyone else just decides to be married in some other Church or by a Justice of the Peace, that marriage is invalid. While such a marriage may have legal standing in the eyes of the state, it has no legitimate standing in the eyes of the Church.”
sitetest
I agree and disagree with different aspects of your statement.
yes, point 1 you make is true in the sense of the holy spirit function of marriage. However, they have not made the sacrament, and a blessing doesn’t change that.
If you are a practicing Catholic in good faith, I would think the sacrament is important for you.
I assumed proper form to go with proper ministers, but it is hard to ascertain proper form.
To your point, just going before a Justice of the Peace would obviously not have proper form.
“Catholicism is the most difficult faith to follow. Their “laws” haven’t changed in 2000 years”
The foundational tenets that form the basis for Catholic teaching are true for eternity. They come from Jesus Christ and over 2000 years of tradition and theology.
What you describe as the “laws” that are derived from these truths are made by men and are therefore imperfect and can change. But they change only if the remain consistent with the underlying verities that the faith is based on.
And as sitetest has pointed out, I am assuming too much in thinking that form can be observed properly without supervision.
The personal experience I am familiar with is an "Anglo-Catholic" Protestant marrying a Catholic who became an "Anglo-Catholic" Protestant.
So their wedding ceremony in the Protestant church was very similar.
So I stand corrected.
When my BIL converted to Catholicism, he and my sis had a second wedding, renewing their vows. In their case, their children, both Confirmed teenagers, were the maid of honor and best man.
Just as an aside, we (my priest felt strongly about this issue) had a wedding ceremony in the Church. We did not have a wedding Mass, as that leaves the non-Catholic spouse out of half the ceremony. Which is not the best way to start a marriage.
So did the couple have their marriage blessed/con-validated?
Has your husband since converted? Many do.
I disagree with your statement. We post entire articles all the time.
Which must mean that you are the author and do have full ability to post the entire article.
They eventually had a Catholic wedding Mass.
That's a bummer for everyone who was married before the church came into existance.
Still hoping. We were older, so we never had kids. Seems lots of people convert when they have kids.
Yes indeed!
Well put.
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