A reader writes:
My brother was raised catholic and has received 4 sacraments. He is now a non practicing catholic, but has not left the Church by any formal decree. he is getting married in a month in a protestant church and has asked me, my wife and our 3 children to stand up for him in the wedding. His future wife was baptized in the catholic church, but was raised in a somewhat anti-catholic family. I know his wedding is invalid. What does the Church say or teach on family members participating in an invalid wedding?
Present ecclesiastical law does not specifically address the situation, which means that we have to fall back on the principles of moral theology to help us settle the question.
It seems to me that "standing up for" someone at a wedding involves one in the ceremony in a formal way that goes beyond merely attending the wedding.
I cannot recommend attending a wedding that is known to be invalid. To do so lends one’s presence to a false union and thus constitutes an offense against the truth. It sends the message to the couple that either their union is valid, when it is not, or that what they are doing doesn’t really matter–otherwise you wouldn’t be there.
Since I can’t recommend attending an invalid wedding, I also cannot recommend becoming formally involved in it, as standing up for a member of the couple would imply.
Involving one’s children in such a situation also could send them a very bad message since, even though they may not understand about valid or invalid marriages right now, they will come to understand them with time (if they are properly educated in the faith, at any rate), and at that point they will remember that their parents involved them in such a ceremony.
You say that your brother has not "left the Church by any formal decree." I should point out that a decree is not necessary. For the wedding to be valid, your brother and his fiancee would have had to defect from the Church by a formal act (such as formally joining another church with the intent of no longer being Catholic), but it doesn’t have to be by the issuing of a decree. I’d therefore ask them more about their current religious status before concluding for certain that the marriage is invalid.
However, if the circumstances of the wedding are as you describe, I could not recommend that you or your family participate in it. I know that it would be hard to refuse your brother’s request, and I would explain to him as gently and lovingly as possible that you can’t do it because you care about him and need to be honest with him about the situation.
Wish I had better news, but I hope this helps.
20
If the brother were to confess atheism, would that be a “formal act” which separated him from the Church and, thus, place him outside the realm of those required to have proper form? (I realize that apostasy is much worse than invalid marriage, but I know someone in a similar situation and was wondering if such a situation would make the marriage outside proper form valid)
JIMMY: Correct, as usual. PS: Just heard of sweet, 80 year old lady, whose divorced daughter got married outside the Church. The old lady did not attend, and there was no family crisis. She did the right thing, the right way, and people respect that.
P PRINCE: Confesssion alone is not dispositive, it wants also to be “public”.
Mr. Peters:
When I wrote “confession” I did not mean the formal sacrament (I’m not sure if you thought I meant that). I just meant that he told, say, his extended family at thanksgiving dinner. Would that constitute public, or is public defined in canon law as much greater than that (like a newspaper article or the formal joining of another cult)?
I have many questions. If I attended an invalid wedding in the past (not knowing) should I confess that to a priest? Is it a sin? I guess sending a gift would be out of the question, too. What if the gift was an apologetics type book explaining why we couldn’t attend the wedding? How do I tell people I can’t attend their wedding? I live in Oklahoma where Catholics are rare and they don’t know their faith well, so this is going to happen a lot!
I have three brothers and all three of them are in some sort of invalid “marriage”. And my good friends also. They know what I believe and it’s a good strong teaching moment to continue to love them but NOT to accept what they do. In time they are all slowly drifting back to the Truth (with the emphasis on slowly) as they see the state of the world around them and the incredible brokenness of so many “marriages” and relationships and the consequences of protestant individualism. It’s hard to say “No” but we’re talking about the salvation of souls and that’s worth the embarrassment and pain.
P PRINCE: I knew what you meant, you used the word “confession” in its older sense. The law is unclear, but surely at a certain point the “publicness” of the confession you describe would count as a formal act of defection.
SUZANNE: The action you describe is missing one element of grave sin (namely, adequate knowledge). You may send gifts to virtually anybody for virtually anything. Re telling them, try, “Thanks for thinking of me. Regrets, Suzanne.”
Jimmy:
This is good advice, but can you clarify in a broader context.
The wedding described here, while not being valid, could still be considered a sacramental marriage as far as the Church is concerned for anullment purposes, correct? That is, since the catholic “vows” of permanence, fidelity and openness to children may in fact be present, the wedding is presumed to be “sacramental” and yet not not “valid”, right?
Therefore, my question relates to the converse situation. That is, a Catholic wedding between two Catholics in “good standing” who have stated their intentions to not have children. (Not through an inability). Can a Catholic attend a catholic wedding between two catholics when it is CLEARLY sacramentally deficient and has immediate grounds for anullment? Obviously, this has FAR REACHING CONSEQUENCES.
I meant that Catholics are in the minority, not rare.
This makes me angry that I didn’t know this until I started reading and listening to Jimmy. Kinda like the whole thing about contraception. People yell at me and get all upset with me when I try to explain the Church’s teaching on contraception. They act like I made this up. This is what is gonna happen when I start telling people that I can’t go to their weddings. Why aren’t we being taught our faith? It’s a sad day when I have to tell people about the Church’s teaching on items. Of course, I always tell them to read Jimmy if they don’t believe me.
I am tired of being the pioneer around all these protestants and protestant-like Catholics!
Thank you for letting me vent. I feel better
When you tire Suzanne, give it to Our Lord in prayer. Of course your tired, your human. It gets frustrating and emotionally weary. Im in the exact situation and I still don’t know what to do. If I didn’t go to my brother’s wedding my family would not speak to me again. But, he and his live-in fiance are getting married before a JP which I know is invalid, but my brother is no longer a practicing Catholic. So Im at a loss as to what to do. Keep praying, God will find a way.
yep, Julia is my sister and yep, we’ve got this wedding coming up next year and seriously, it’d blow the family wide open. I’ve heard it said that a person should go for the sake of charity for the couple and so as not to drive them further from the faith. Is this true, or is it just what I wanted to hear?
thanks for any answers,
Laura
Dear Julia and Laura,
I will pray for you and thank you for the words of encouragement.
Why doesn’t the very act itself of getting married count as a formal act of defection?
I mean, wouldn’t you have to formally join a protestant church to get married in it?
CHRIS 2-4: For 2 baptized persons (Catholic or otherwise) sacramentality and validity are inseparable. You can’t have one unless you have both. Period.
SUZANNE: When I tire of doing good, I realize it’s more me whose doing the trying, instead of my letting God do good through me.
BILLYHW: the wedding here is an act of diosbedience to the CHurch, not defection from the CHurch. The objects of the two kinds of acts are different, ok?
JIMMY: you know your “preview” button is not working? It’s post, or nothing.
Didn’t know that. Will report it to TypePad.
RULE 20 VIOLATION.
LOL, well, I disagree that I was contradicting Jimmy, but I guess it isn’t up to me to decide…
Prayers for Laura and Julia.
Anyway, the main thing was to post this helpful link on the subject from Catholics United for the Faith. Hopefully, no one would impugn the orthodoxy of CUF. It doesn’t contradict what Jimmy said, although it may not be in lockstep either. If this, too, is deemed in violation of rule 20, I won’t try again.
The link is http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=137
A while ago, a couple was married in our church. He’s a laicized priest, she’s a divorcee (4 kids), and they lived together for a year before actually getting married. Her first marriage was annulled. Our PP celebrated the Nuptial Mass, but the groom insisted on his friend, a deacon, presiding over the vows. Also, the groom insisted that his own ordination chalice be used in the Nuptial Mass. As organist, I was required to play for this wedding, and our choir sang (he’s a member). What do you have to say about that situation? I thought it stank, but everyone else thought it was OK.
The facts given could result in a valid marriage. I say, could.
My brother-in-law got married last year. He is a non-practicing Catholic. (I think she is also) Anyway, they decided to get married when she became pregnant with his child. The family was invited to the wedding and reception afterwards. We wrestled with the question of going (called Fr Serpa and all) and finally decided to not attend the wedding but go to the reception. Of course, we expressed our objections to him about the marriage. (He is my wife’s brother) Many prayers go out to all of you who are also wrestling with this situation.
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Oh my word. The insanity that men have inflicted on the teachings of Jesus Christ. What a petty, foolish human construction, that would prevent families from celebrating their unions, in whatever religion. “An offense to the truth.” Oh please. Organized religion is a construction of man, and you sir, are a fool. Go read the New Testament in the original language, and try interpreting it again.
“Organized religion is a construction of man” is a construction of men.
Sarah, welcome to this blog. I cannot say whether I agree with your disagreement with Jimmy Akin’s view that attending a wedding known to be invalid is an “offense against truth” and thus objectively a sin and my statement that I cannot say so is meant to highlight for you something that you may have been unaware of as a newcomer. When Jimmy Akin posts something with a “20” at the end of the post, that is an indication that disagreement with what he terms IIRC “pastoral” advise is not permitted to be expressed in this forum.
Ed Peters has brought up the matter of formal defection from the church. It should be noted a council authorized by the pope to give authentic interpretation to the code of canon law and other legal texts has given clarification to what formal defection entails:
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1. For the abandonment of the Catholic Church to be validly configured as a true actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia so that the exceptions foreseen in the previously mentioned canons would apply, it is necessary that there concretely be:
a) the internal decision to leave the Catholic Church;
b) the realization and external manifestation of that decision; and
c) the reception of that decision by the competent ecclesiastical authority.
2. The substance of the act of the will must be the rupture of those bonds of communion – faith, sacraments, and pastoral governance – that permit the Faithful to receive the life of grace within the Church. This means that the formal act of defection must have more than a juridical-administrative character (the removal of one’s name from a Church membership registry maintained by the government in order to produce certain civil consequences), but be configured as a true separation from the constitutive elements of the life of the Church: it supposes, therefore, an act of apostasy, heresy or schism.
3. The juridical-administrative act of abandoning the Church does not per se constitute a formal act of defection as understood in the Code, given that there could still be the will to remain in the communion of the faith.
On the other hand, heresy (whether formal or material), schism and apostasy do not in themselves constitute a formal act of defection if they are not externally concretized and manifested to the ecclesiastical authority in the required manner.
4. The defection must be a valid juridical act, placed by a person who is canonically capable and in conformity with the canonical norms that regulate such matters (cfr. cann.124-126). Such an act must be taken personally, consciously and freely.
5. It is required, moreover, that the act be manifested by the interested party in written form, before the competent authority of the Catholic Church: the Ordinary or proper pastor, who is uniquely qualified to make the judgment concerning the existence or non-existence of the act of the will as described above in n. 2.
Consequently, only the convergence of the two elements – the theological content of the interior act and its manifestation in the manner defined above – constitutes the actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica, with the corresponding canonical penalties (cfr. can. 1364, § 1).
6. In such cases, the competent ecclesiastical authority mentioned above is to provide that this act be noted in the baptismal registry (cfr. can. 535, § 2) with explicit mention of the occurrence of a “defectio ab Ecclesia catholica actu formali”.
7….
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http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/intrptxt/documents/rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20060313_actus-formalis_en.html
To my knowledge, the church has not abandoned its claim of jurisdiction in principle as extending even to those who have formally defected. In American jurisprudence, churches are not permitted to discipline those who are not members where membership is as understood by the courts or have indicated a desire to no longer relate to the church or practice its precepts. This conflicts somewhat, not just in principle, but also in practice with church law.
@Mattheus and Sarah
I don’t think Sarah was saying that all constructions of men are bad; so the fact that her saying that organized religion is a construction of man is itself a contrusction of man is of no consequence since she has never claimed that her statement that it is is a divine statement. OTOH, certain organized religions, claim that their sociological structure is divine in constitution. If Sarah were saying that there was a divine statement (in scripture?) that organized religion is merely a construction of man, then Mattheus may have a point of some kind.