Attendence at a Protestant Wedding?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BrandonW
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
B

BrandonW

Guest
My cousin is a non-practicing Catholic (baptized and confirmed) who now attends a Protestant church. In June, he is getting married for the first time to a Protestant. he has requested my brothers and I to participate in the wedding ceremony as ushers, ring bearer, and candle lighter.

Is it OK to attend/participate in this ceremony? We understand not to accept their communian bread/wine. Our family is very devout Catholics but we want to show our support for our extended family.

Is it wrongful for my cousin, a now-Protestant convert, to be married into the Protestant faith? Should we show our support at the service?

Much Thanks.
 
Only God is your cousin’s judge. The state of his mind and soul is in God’s hands. You don’t know how sincere he is in his conversion. He has, I’m sure, your family’s prayers.
“The depths of a person can only be known by his own spirit, not by any other person.” [1Corinthians 2:1]

In going to your cousin’s wedding you are supporting family, not the Protestant church he is marrying in, and not his change of faith. If it eases your mind to politely and kindly tell him this, so that it is clearly understood, that’s up to you, but it would be a quiet expression of your faith.
You are clear in your mind and spirit that you are respecting family and not supporting either his conversion or the Protestant faith; and you don’t intend to accept the bread and wine.

“Do not let your love be pretence, but sincerely prefer good to evil. Love each other as brothers should, and have a profound respect for each other…If any of the saints are in need you must share with them; and you must make hospitality your special care.” [Romans 12:9-13]

“We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves…For Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.’” [Romans. 15:1-3]
 
Why is everyone anti protestant? Just because they are different from you doesn’t mean they are wrong.
 
noclevername said:
Why is everyone anti protestant? Just because they are different from you doesn’t mean they are wrong.
Click to expand...
In this case it’s not being ‘anti-protestant’, it’s being aware that the ‘fallen away’ Catholic is doing something very wrong in marrying outside the Catholic Church. There would be no problem with attending the wedding of two Protestants.
 
BrandonW said:
Is it OK to attend/participate in this ceremony? We understand not to accept their communian bread/wine.

Much Thanks.
Click to expand...
Which Protestant denomination may I ask? I have only ever seen the bride and groom share a first communian together?
 
This is a question for your Priest.

Personally, I would not attend or participate in the wedding of a Catholic who was getting married outside of the Church. I’d hope my family member or friend would resepect my faith enough not to ask me to be part of such.

Unless your brother has made an act of formal defection, he is still bound by the Catholic laws on marriage.

jimmyakin.org/2006/04/formal_defectio.html
 
BrandonW said:
My cousin is a non-practicing Catholic (baptized and confirmed) who now attends a Protestant church. In June, he is getting married for the first time to a Protestant. he has requested my brothers and I to participate in the wedding ceremony as ushers, ring bearer, and candle lighter.

Is it OK to attend/participate in this ceremony? We understand not to accept their communian bread/wine. Our family is very devout Catholics but we want to show our support for our extended family.

Is it wrongful for my cousin, a now-Protestant convert, to be married into the Protestant faith? Should we show our support at the service?

Much Thanks.
Click to expand...
You said he was a non-practicing Catholic and is now regularly attending a Protestant church. He obviously (probably out of ignorance) found the Catholic church to be deficient in some way. Now, if he asked you to participate and you refuse on religious grounds that he probably wouldn’t even understand, wouldn’t it just make him think that he was *right *in leaving the Church and cause him to abandon it further? Afterall he isn’t attending Church to begin with, I doubt he would care about the proper form for a Catholic marriage.

The good thing is he’s a Christian, and a practicing one at that. He hasn’t abandoned Christianity altogether. What I would do is go to the wedding and go to it in order to maintain a close relationship with him and then you can work on winning him (and his wife) back to the Church - with the help of the Holy Spirit, of course! 👍
 
I tend to agree with Pprimeau. It depends in part on your relationship with your cousin, your respective ages, etc (ring bearers are usually pretty young). Are you in a position to talk with him about what has caused him to stop attending the Catholic church and seemingly join this other church? Have your parents talked with his parents about it?

Ideally, you want to express your concerns, but preserve a relationship and leave lines of communication open. Boycotting the wedding might not be the best way to do that.
 
My eldest daughter married a divorced Anglican last Sunday (4th Jan). When first informed of her intentions I told her that I could not attend. Another daughter asked that I talk to my PP who is quite orthodox.

He told me that we could attend as family members but not be participants or witnesses. It was very hard. I felt enormous stress.In some ways it would have been easier to shake the dust off my feet as I have always made it plain that I would never put a family member before God.

I suggest you attend, to keep the lines of communication open, but you let your couin know that you cannot participate…and why.

Previously a brother-in-law had married a divorcee. We didn’t attend the ceremony but went to the reception - for reasons of family harmony.
 
Here are the links from the Catholic Answers Apologists on the matter:

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=42365

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=167154

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=64951

Is this a close cousin? Or is this a cousin you’ve hardly seen until this wedding? Did he convert to another religion all by himself, or was he taken into this church as a child? Does he make fun of Catholics, or is a nice guy? What kind of family brou-ha-ha will be made? Will it be a matter of “OK, we’ll ask somebody else” or will all manner of villification within extended family happen? Is one of your parents close to the parent of this cousin?

All those questions have to be answered before you can decide on the Catholic end of it.

There’s also the matter of being able to afford to be in the wedding. Being in a wedding isn’t cheap.
 
Out of respect to your cousin’s fiancee, one should hesitate to attend. She should think about divorce and the fact that as a Catholic, he more than likely can divorce her and marry some Catholic girl ten years from now in a nuptial Mass because his attempt at marrying her will be deemed invalid. He is marrying outside form without a dispensation. He too should think that she may find a nice Catholic man and be able to bail and save her church wedding for her second marriage.

Clearly he is not that serious in his new faith or he would have an appreciation of the position he is placing you in. I would never ask a Jehovah’s witness to a birthday party, or expect a Muslim neighbor to have chicken cooked in wine. His new pastor is not very pastoral because he should be aware that the Church frowns on fallen aways and that he would be doing well to get any of you to attend the reception let alone participate.
 
kage_ar said:
This is a question for your Priest.

Personally, I would not attend or participate in the wedding of a Catholic who was getting married outside of the Church. I’d hope my family member or friend would resepect my faith enough not to ask me to be part of such.

Unless your brother has made an act of formal defection, he is still bound by the Catholic laws on marriage.

jimmyakin.org/2006/04/formal_defectio.html
Click to expand...
I agree. My brother is going to be doing the same thing and we will not be in attendance which is very sad but that is just the way it has to be.
 
Tough situation . . . when faced w/ something similar, 2 priests gave me 2 different answers.

Both agreed the person in question was putting himself in a state of sin and would not be able to receive Communion (as if he wanted to) until the marriage was blessed in the Church.

They disagreed on attendance. One said don’t attend, why would you go celebrate someone sinning? Attendance would be lying with my actions.

The other said go to keep lines of communication open. Lines of communication were not and are not closed.

Ugh! I feel for you. Pray hard!
 
If the cousin were to make a fromal act of defection from the Catholic Church, would that change anything? Does the Catholic Church treat those who have formally defected, any different from other non-Catholics?
 
I know none of you probably care about my thoughts as I am protestant and of course probably in your eyes don’t know what I am talking about, but if it were me I would never do this to family members. Even if that meant that I not participate but just attended. I can tell you that I just married nearly 2 years ago to my Catholic husband and no HE didn’t do it as the Catholic church told him to do it, BUT if his parents had not attended (all of his cousins are Baptist, so that was not an issue), but if they had not attended, I would have NEVER spoken to them again, as I find this very wrong. I think I look it at is as though, my brother passed away in 2002, and I would give anything to have him back here on earth with me, so to take a chance in offending a family member to cause this much family tension, I would never do. I would never think of not attending a wedding even if it was a protestant family member marrrying a Catholic in a Catholic church. I don’t know…to me for parents especially to consider not attending a childs wedding because of this is just wrong. I mean after all, Jesus associated himself with sinners in mingling than he did with the self rightous church people. Just my 2 cents anyway, as I am sure it accounts for nata.
 
masuwerte said:
If the cousin were to make a fromal act of defection from the Catholic Church, would that change anything? Does the Catholic Church treat those who have formally defected, any different from other non-Catholics?
Click to expand...
Yes. That releases them from the obligation to marry according to the laws of the Church.
 
BTW, I think that one of the reasons that my inlaws decided to attend probably was because they had lost a daughter to cancer and my son is their only living child left and I think they see the importance of family and keeping those ties also. They went well above the call of duty to participate in our wedding day also. And BTW my FIL is a deacon in the Catholic church. They are faithful Catholics, but first of all good Christians.
 
1ke said:
Yes. That releases them from the obligation to marry according to the laws of the Church.
Click to expand...
So now I’m curious. If someone formally leaves the Catholic Church and not obligated to her rules then it is no longer a sin to marry and have sex? Yet if they leave for another Christian community they are still Christian in the Church’s eye yet not sinners that he would be without a formal declaraion.

Does the formal declaration to leave, even in favor another body of Christians considered a sin?
 
1ke said:
Yes. The sin of heresy, schism, and/or apostacy depending upon what they leave for.
Click to expand...
I guess depending what they leave for is more key then where they go when they leave?

The question is asked do I attend and support the sin and/or sinner. But to leave the church is a sin. Is the family suppose to shun or silence the ex-Catholic like a JW or INC family would do?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top