Banns of Marriage

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I remember growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s and going to mass on Sunday and hear marriage banns being announced. I came home about four years ago after being away for twenty-five years and although there have been wedding in my parish I have not heard banns being read. Do they do that anymore?
 
I have seen them written in the church bulletins, but never announced in the church.
 
I only witnessed a bann about a person getting ordained into deacon.
 
I have had three weddings in my family this year. The two in Ohio had bands listed in the church bulletin the one in Connecticut did not. All three were Catholic weddings. Not sure why some did and some did not. Anyone know?
 
Wedding banns became optional in the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
 
I never heard of wedding banns.

I learn something new on CAF every day. Sometimes its even true! 😉

-Tim-
 
In my parish they are written in the Bulletin for three weeks in a row.
 
In this day and age wedding banns are not very useful. Their purpose was to make sure that everyone knew a marriage was supposed to take place and if anyone knew of any reason why the marriage should not take place they were to immediately contact the Pastor.

Today where there is so much mobility, proclaiming banns in a parish often only yields a puzzled look on faces. We last published banns about 8 years ago, as the parish of Baptism of the groom I think, at the request of the Parish where the couple was getting married. No one in our parish had ever heard of the person or his family.

Whoever they were they had not lived in the area for any length of time. That’s not unusual in a parish where only about 10% of the names listed in the register of Baptism for the first 10 years of our existence ('58-'68) are known today. It reflects the transient nature of our population in those early years.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Wedding banns became optional in the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
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Yes and no - it depends upon the particular law within a bishop’s conference:

Can. 1066 Before a marriage is celebrated, it must be evident that nothing stands in the way of its valid and licit celebration.

Can. 1067 The conference of bishops is to establish norms about the examination of spouses and about the marriage banns or other opportune means to accomplish the investigations necessary before marriage. After these norms have been diligently observed, the pastor can proceed to assist at the marriage.

It would be interesting to see if there are any territories where reading the banns is still a mandatory component of establishing freedom to marry.
 
Andreas_Hofer said:
It would be interesting to see if there are any territories where reading the banns is still a mandatory component of establishing freedom to marry.
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I have no idea about religious territories but I find it interesting that some countries where only civil marriages are recognized require banns to be published. France, for example, requires banns be posted at the City Hall of the town where the marriage will take place at least 20 days ahead of the wedding.
 
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