Attending a Non-Catholic Wedding

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A friend of mine, Protestant, is marrying a Catholic. They are getting married soon because he wants to be wed before he ships out with the Army. They don’t have time to be married in the Church before he leaves, but he wants to once he returns.

Is it ok to attend this wedding, or not (under Canon Law)?

Is it ok to attend the reception?

Is it ok to give them a gift?

Sources with any answers when possible please!!
 
You can search the “ask the apologist” section as this question has been asked many times. In general, no you should not attend an invalid attempt at marriage. I suggest you talk to your own pastor for guidance.
 
1ke said:
You can search the “ask the apologist” section as this question has been asked many times. In general, no you should not attend an invalid attempt at marriage. I suggest you talk to your own pastor for guidance.
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In general you shouldn’t attend a wedding that’s outside of the Church? I didn’t know that. :eek:
 
I am pretty confident I won’t attend the wedding. My bigger concern is attending the reception and the issue of a gift?
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
In general you shouldn’t attend a wedding that’s outside of the Church? I didn’t know that. :eek:
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That’s not what the poster said. The poster said an attempt at an invalid marriage. There are many valid marriages between 2 Protestants or 2 non-baptized people that take place outside of the Church. The marriage in question would likely be invalid because one participant is Catholic and ignoring the Church’s rule on this (of course, some Catholics get dispensations to marry elsewhere but this doesn’t seem to apply with the OP’s question).
 
I’d be going and I’d be bringing a gift also. Is this a friend or not.
 
If my husbands family had not come to our wedding, I wasn’t Catholic and we got married in another church, I would never have become Catholic. If they would have skipped our wedding I never would have given the faith a second thought and I doubt my husband would have come back to the faith! And you know what…they all came a couple of years later when we got married in the Catholic Church too!
 
Why could he not get a dispensation?

This happened to me and my siblings. They decided not to get married in the Church, and I was told by my confessor that I could not go since it would be giving my blessing to an invalid union. I followed his advice and have been as charitable as possible. My brother has come back to the Church (had his marriage blessed) and his wife is considering becoming a Catholic. Even my brother admitted that I was standing up for what I believed, and he recognized that. What made him really decide to come back was when he wanted his child baptized, and he couldn’t receive Communion at the Baptism Mass.

Remember, this is not your decision - it’s your friend’s decision. He decided to turn his back on the Church and the sacraments. He is not seeking a dispensation, he is simply creating a false sense of urgency and putting his relationship with God in second place behind his relationship with his fiancee (whether he realizes this or not).

Be charitable, but stand your ground. I wouldn’t even mess with a gift. That sends mixed signals. What are you celebrating here? There is no union in the eyes of the Church, so they are basically shacking up. He will be excluding himself from receiving communion or penance until he regularizes his situation, so he is now putting his soul in peril - and for what? His girlfriend. Sad.

This is a huge mess that is laid at the feet of parents and the hierarchy for not forming children in the Faith and teaching them about the importance of the sacramental life.
 
happymommy said:
If my husbands family had not come to our wedding, I wasn’t Catholic and we got married in another church, I would never have become Catholic. If they would have skipped our wedding I never would have given the faith a second thought and I doubt my husband would have come back to the faith! And you know what…they all came a couple of years later when we got married in the Catholic Church too!
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And other people would take the attendance as approval, and not do anything about convalidating later because everything is fine as it is. If someone charitably explains why they cannnot attend, their standing up for the faith might be a great witness and make the couple pause before deciding to leave the church.
 
Catechism:

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:
  • by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
  • by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
  • by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
  • by protecting evil-doers.
They need to get actually married. The Catholic is bound to Catholic form --or there is no marriage.

I do not attend such or the reception nor would I give any ‘gift’ for such would be my approving what the couple was doing. I pray and if I can I seek to help them so they can be married in Christ. Truth with charity.
 
““Being concerned for each other” also entails being concerned for their spiritual well-being. Here I would like to mention an aspect of the Christian life, which I believe has been quite forgotten:* fraternal correction* in view of eternal salvation. Today, in general, we are very sensitive to the idea of charity and caring about the physical and material well-being of others, but almost completely silent about our spiritual responsibility towards our brothers and sisters. This was not the case in the early Church or in those communities that are truly mature in faith, those which are concerned not only for the physical health of their brothers and sisters, but also for their spiritual health and ultimate destiny. The Scriptures tell us: “Rebuke the wise and he will love you for it. Be open with the wise, he grows wiser still, teach the upright, he will gain yet more” (Prov 9:8ff). Christ himself commands us to admonish a brother who is committing a sin (cf. Mt 18:15). The verb used to express fraternal correction - elenchein – is the same used to indicate the prophetic mission of Christians to speak out against a generation indulging in evil (cf. Eph 5:11). The Church’s tradition has included “admonishing sinners” among the spiritual works of mercy. It is important to recover this dimension of Christian charity. We must not remain silent before evil. I am thinking of all those Christians who, out of human regard or purely personal convenience, adapt to the prevailing mentality, rather than warning their brothers and sisters against ways of thinking and acting that are contrary to the truth and that do not follow the path of goodness. Christian admonishment, for its part, is never motivated by a spirit of accusation or recrimination. It is always moved by love and mercy, and springs from genuine concern for the good of the other. As the Apostle Paul says: “If one of you is caught doing something wrong, those of you who are spiritual should set that person right in a spirit of gentleness; and watch yourselves that you are not put to the test in the same way” (Gal 6:1). In a world pervaded by individualism, it is essential to rediscover the importance of fraternal correction, so that together we may journey towards holiness. Scripture tells us that even “the upright falls seven times” (Prov 24:16); all of us are weak and imperfect (cf. 1 Jn 1:8). It is a great service, then, to help others and allow them to help us, so that we can be open to the whole truth about ourselves, improve our lives and walk more uprightly in the Lord’s ways. There will always be a need for a gaze which loves and admonishes, which knows and understands, which discerns and forgives (cf. Lk 22:61), as God has done and continues to do with each of us.”

–Pope Benedict XVI from message for Lent 2012

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/lent/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20111103_lent-2012_en.html
 
Bookcat said:
Catechism:

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:
  • by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
  • by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
  • by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
  • by protecting evil-doers.
They need to get actually married. The Catholic is bound to Catholic form --or there is no marriage.

I do not attend such or the reception nor would I give any ‘gift’ for such would be my approving what the couple was doing. I pray and if I can I seek to help them so they can be married in Christ. Truth with charity.
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There can be various opinions as to what to practically in truth and charity be done (here one reading cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=137)
 
God made Man and Woman before the Fall, for mutual companionship and for the propagation of children. This is a message and a holy mystery for all humanity, not only for Christians, let alone only for Roman Catholics. Believers and Unbelievers alike should celebrate and relish the union of a man and a woman in this holy estate, even if the participants don’t explicitly recognise that God is there too.

Go for it, enjoy the party, and, as you are a friend in Christ, help them on the way if and when things become difficult for them.

And give them a nice present too.

God bless,
 
agapewolf said:
And other people would take the attendance as approval, and not do anything about convalidating later because everything is fine as it is. If someone charitably explains why they cannnot attend, their standing up for the faith might be a great witness and make the couple pause before deciding to leave the church.
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True, but for me it would have made me dislike the Catholic faith even more! I was very anti-Catholic when we were married. That is how I was raised. I still have many doubts about it…
 
I don’t get it.

The state can govern how a resident gets married. They have certain rules they have to follow for it to be valid-- get a license at a certain time, possibly have witnesses, most likely someone legally authorized to make it happen. If they do not do these things it isn’t a legally valid marriage.

Well, the CHURCH…which is the bride of Christ and has been authorized by Christ to guard the sacraments have certain rules for her members to follow in order to have valid marriages.
Yet people are arguing that a Catholics don’t have follow these rules and they can still have a valid marriage.

Sorry, nope. Doesn’t work that way. A catholic is bound by form in their marriage. (The sacramentality is dependant on the baptismal statuses of the couple). The validity though can also be effected by following form.
 
Ones a Protestant and ones a Catholic, both are still Christians, and belong to the body of Christ. To say a marriage outside the RCC is not valid, well is a man made rule or a church rule.
 
Anna_Claire said:
Me too…it may not be a sacramental marriage but it certainly is a valid one in the eyes of God.
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There is only one kind of marriage that two baptized persons can enter into. And that is a sacramental marriage. And even in the case of a marriage between one who is a Baptized Catholic and another who is not baptized (natural marriage) such in order to be valid currently would need to observe the Catholic form of Marriage or the Catholic may get a dispensation from from from his Bishop. While God may see that a particular couple is in “good faith” (when they do not know better but are misinformed etc) he still knows what is a valid marriage and what is not yet a valid marriage.
 
agapewolf said:
If someone charitably explains why they cannnot attend, their standing up for the faith might be a great witness and make the couple pause before deciding to leave the church.
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Before my husband and I married in the Catholic Church, his aunt wrote a politely-worded letter to us explaining why she and her husband would not attend. According to their pastor they could not, she explained, witness a Catholic ceremony or show their approval of their nephew marrying a Catholic by attending our wedding.

Were their actions a great witness to their faith? They certainly thought so, and I’m sure their church leadership and many of their fellow church members believed they were perfectly justified in their actions.

Me? If I were for some reason run out of the Catholic Church, theirs would be absolute last religious institution I would consider joining. Even my husband and his parents, non-Catholics all, were put off by their display of sanctimonious righteousness.

Luna
 
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