Are all baptized Catholics permanently bound by Canon Law?

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Birdmanman said:
Thanks Cristiano, for your (name removed by moderator)ut.

In this example, we will say they know they are baptized as Catholics, but have in mind positively false information that the Church considers marriage (even in non-extenuating circumstances) to be valid without needing a representative of The Church or witnesses.
[Assume they don’t realize the serious mental inconsistancy of wanting their marriage to be considered valid by the Church yet remaining informal apostates/lapsed/non-practicing/unbelieving]
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Not valid.

I don’t understand why you believe changing the scenario matters. The marriage is not valid unless contracted in Catholic form, or dispensed by the bishop in situations outlined in Canon Law.
 
Birdmanman said:
Hi everyone, I was wondering if you could help me with a question I have:

Are all persons, who have been baptized as (Latin-Rite) Catholics, permanently bound to the rules and restrictions of Canon Law?

By extension: Would a formal or informal apostate from the Catholic Faith be bound by Canon Law? Would a Catholic who has been excommunicated also be bound? Would a Catholic in a state of mortal sin be bound by Canon Law?

Applied Example: A baptized informal apostate from the Catholic Faith attempts to enter into a Natural Marriage with a lapsed (non-practicing) Catholic; according to Canon Law, all marriages between Catholics that do not follow the appropriate form are not valid (with a priest or other appointed representative of The Church, except in cases of life-or-death emergency or when the priest is expected to be unavailable for a long period of time (I believe more than a month)). Does their informal apostasy and/or lapsing cause them to no longer be bound by Canon Law in this respect, rendering their marriage valid?

Thanks in advance for any help I could receive on this topic.
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Simple Answer: NO

Nobody is bound by canon law. We are bound by God’s Law. If Christ were alive today the story of Moses and the bill of divorce might be a discussion about the churh and annullment!
 
Cristiano said:
Just think at the extraordinary case of two Christians that do not know that they are Catholics because they have been raised in a different denomination, they choose to get married with the clear belief that their marriage is sacramental and they attempted to administer the sacrament to each other.
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1ke said:
Would still not be valid.
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So, suppose you have two (unrelated) babies (male and female) who are born to Catholic parents, and are baptized in the Catholic church. The next day, for whatever reason, both sets of parents die and both babies are put up for adoption, and are separately adopted by, say, a Lutheran couple and a Methodist couple.

Then later on when the two babies have grown to adulthood, they meet, fall in love, and chose to get married. Are you telling me their marriage would not be valid because they are “lapsed” Catholics?
 
OP: Are you trying to present some kind of post-apocalyptic or marooned-desert-island sort of scenario? Are you writing a book? I can’t see how these hypothetical situations would be in any way relevant to the real world. In any case, 1ke is one of our most knowledgeable posters on the subject of marriage in particular, and she is correct.

There is already a clear single answer for you: Yes, Catholics are bound by Canon Law - the others shouting things to the contrary are merely dissenting and engaging in wishful thinking.
Can. 11 Merely ecclesiastical laws bind those who were baptised in the catholic Church or received into it, and who have a sufficient use of reason and, unless the law expressly provides otherwise, who have completed their seventh year of age.
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Can. 12 §1 Universal laws are binding everywhere on all those for whom they were enacted.
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1ke said:
Can. 1108 §1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. ⇒ 144, ⇒ 1112, §1, ⇒ 1116, and ⇒ 1127, §§1-2.

None of the criteria in the canons mentioned as exceptions is met in the scenario presented.

If you want to assert that it **would **be valid, you would need to present a canon specifying such.
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I already mentioned Ecclesia Supplet and Deus Providet (CCL192.2 and CCL 144.1). The bottom line is that the CCL is not the only source of legality in the Church and I believe that anyone that is not a canon lawyer is too ambitious to make universal judgements in regard to cases like the ones presented. I am sure that we agree on the rule of thumb that that is way far out from an absolute statement.
I am mentioning that because I have seen cases where Ecclesia Supplet in regard to marriage have been accepted and other cases where a sanatio in radice was mandated by the bishop. I also want to paraphrase a Msgr. that is also a canon lawyer that said that Ecclesia supplet is not a ship to sail but a life vest for emergencies.
 
I understand Ecclesia Supplet, and we have seen extensive defense of it by e.g. SSPX for Confessions, but could you explain precisely how that works in terms of the sacrament of Matrimony?

And what is Canon 192.2? I see no evidence of it at the Vatican or IntraText sites hosting CIC.
 
Cristiano said:
I already mentioned Ecclesia Supplet and Deus Providet (CCL192.2 and CCL 144.1). The bottom line is that the CCL is not the only source of legality in the Church and I believe that anyone that is not a canon lawyer is too ambitious to make universal judgements in regard to cases like the ones presented. I am sure that we agree on the rule of thumb that that is way far out from an absolute statement.
I am mentioning that because I have seen cases where Ecclesia Supplet in regard to marriage have been accepted and other cases where a sanatio in radice was mandated by the bishop. I also want to paraphrase a Msgr. that is also a canon lawyer that said that Ecclesia supplet is not a ship to sail but a life vest for emergencies.
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This is not a case of jursidiction, but of form. I do not believe Ecclesia Supplet or Deus Providet apply here.

The application of radical sanation seems the proper course, or simple convalidation.
 
Elizium23 said:
OP: Are you trying to present some kind of post-apocalyptic or marooned-desert-island sort of scenario? Are you writing a book? I can’t see how these hypothetical situations would be in any way relevant to the real world. In any case, 1ke is one of our most knowledgeable posters on the subject of marriage in particular, and she is correct.

There is already a clear single answer for you: Yes, Catholics are bound by Canon Law - the others shouting things to the contrary are merely dissenting and engaging in wishful thinking.
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Hi Elizium, thanks for your participation in this thread. My intention was to give an example that my question, “are baptized catholics permanently bound by canon law”, could be applied to in the reality. It seems I opened a can of worms. I did not intend to make some crazy desert island scenario, I thought I could imagine this scenario happening in the real world.

My original question has been answered, all baptized Catholics, whether they be excommunicated, mortally sinful, lapsed, or apostate, are bound by Canon law.

(I do assume that the Catholic-Baptized infants a poster mentioned a while ago had such a severe impediment to their understanding (by not being told they were baptized Catholic and by being raised Lutheran) that any violation of Canon law they might perform because of their Lutheran upbringing would be ignored or forgiven, though I would hope the Holy Spirit would motivate them to give assent to the Catholic Faith)
 
Birdmanman said:
Hi Elizium, thanks for your participation in this thread. My intention was to give an example that my question, “are baptized catholics permanently bound by canon law”, could be applied to in the reality. It seems I opened a can of worms. I did not intend to make some crazy desert island scenario, I thought I could imagine this scenario happening in the real world.

My original question has been answered, all baptized Catholics, whether they be excommunicated, mortally sinful, lapsed, or apostate, are bound by Canon law.

(I do assume that the Catholic-Baptized infants a poster mentioned a while ago had such a severe impediment to their understanding (by not being told they were baptized Catholic and by being raised Lutheran) that any violation of Canon law they might perform because of their Lutheran upbringing would be ignored or forgiven, though I would hope the Holy Spirit would motivate them to give assent to the Catholic Faith)
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Ok, just for further clarification, is it unchanging that they are bound by Canon Law? I understand that the fact that the current discipline is that once someone has been baptized a catholic they cannot marry validly without either following the Catholic form or receiving a dispensation, and that this particular issue is one that could change. So if this issue were to change there would presumably be a change to Canon law which would allow a baptized Catholic to marry validly if they formally renounced Catholicism. In which case they would be able to marry validly without Catholic form or dispenssation still only because they were following a provision set up in canon law. Basically, would a change in discipline with respect to which canons apply to Catholics of various standings have to come about through a modification of canon law?

ETA: ok, so my post really isn’t that clear. The question I am asking is:
Could the fact that all baptized Catholics are bound by Canon Law ever change or is it something unchangable due to the nature of baptism?
The rest of the post was trying to separate the discipline of when a baptized Catholic can validly marry from the above question, but I think I only made things more confusing by doing so. :o
 
I don’t think it could be reasonably considered to be something which is changeable. Jesus gave the Apostles the power to bind and loose. By establishing his Church, he conferred authority on her to govern His people. Nearly all of Canon Law is disciplinary and ecclesiastical, and can clearly be substantially changed, as we have seen throughout history and just in the period 1917-1983. But it ultimately derives its authority from the Church herself, so I don’t think you’re going to see her making a lot of exceptions in the foreseeable future.
 
thewanderer said:
ETA: ok, so my post really isn’t that clear. The question I am asking is:
Could the fact that all baptized Catholics are bound by Canon Law ever change or is it something unchangable due to the nature of baptism?
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They are bound to the laws of the Church by virtue of their baptism. Even the changed law is itself Church law. So any allowances are by way of the law, not outside the law.
 
1ke said:
They are bound to the laws of the Church by virtue of their baptism. Even the changed law is itself Church law. So any allowances are by way of the law, not outside the law.
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Thanks, thats what I was looking for. 🙂

Does this all tie back to the bible passage where Jesus gives the power to bind and loose to Peter?
 
thewanderer said:
I have a question about this. Is this something unchangeable or is this just the current discipline?
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LilyM knows. And the Church was more restrictive before 1965, when marriage was allowed with Orthodox, and then in 1970 when providing for permission to be given rather than dispensation for a Catholic to marry other non-Catholic Christians. Finally in 1983 the new canon law allowed for baptized Catholics, formally defected (a rare occurrence) to not be bound by the canonical form of marriage. This caused many problems so the Church reversed it. Three months after it was published in AAS it became effective, which means canonical form is required for marriages before 1983 and Dec 22, 2010 and later.

Art. 3. The text of can. 1086 § 1 of the * Code of Canon Law* is modified as follows:

“A marriage between two persons, one of whom was baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it, and the other of whom is not baptized, is invalid”.

Art. 4. The text of can. 1117 of the Code of Canon Law is modified as follows:

“The form prescribed above must be observed if at least one of the parties contracting the marriage was baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it, without prejudice to the provisions of can. 1127 § 2”.

Art. 5. The text of can. 1124 of the Code of Canon Law is modified as follows:

“Marriage between two baptized persons, one of whom was baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it after baptism, and the other a member of a Church or ecclesial community not in full communion with the Catholic Church, cannot be celebrated without the express permission of the competent authority”.

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_letters/documents/hf_ben-xvi_apl_20091026_codex-iuris-canonici_en.html
 
Notice that it is not only those baptized Catholic, but also those received into the Catholic Church that were baptized elsewhere. Same in the eastern Catholic canon law. No exception existed in the eastern Catholic canon law (CCEO) promulgated in 1990:

CCEO Canon 834
  1. The form for the celebration of marriage prescribed by law is to be observed if at least one of the parties celebrating the marriage was baptized in the Catholic Church or was received into it.
  2. If, however, a Catholic party enrolled in some Eastern Church celebrates a marriage with one who belongs to an Eastern non-Catholic Church, the form for the celebration of marriage prescribed by law is to be observed only for liceity; for validity, however, the blessing of a priest is required, while observing the other requirements of law.
 
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