Banns of marriage were recently announce for a man I do not know and a woman I do. The facts are:
- I know for a fact this woman has been married twice, the first marriage being a Christian one that has not been dissolved by death or shown to be invalid by annulment.
- I know for a fact the woman believes in “open” marriage and that both the marriage and pseudo marriage were plagued by adultery.
- I am in possession of this knowledge as a result of my job. HIPPA regulations concerning patient privacy do apply to my job but I am not a doctor/nurse/psychologist such as are exempted by Church decree from revealing such information.
My questions are:
- Is this any of my business?
- Should I tell somebody and who?
There are a whole lot of questions brought up by this; I would guess that you might be in administration of healthcare and learned of the information as to her attitutdes there.
Assuming that HIPPA applies, and assuming that you have no other independent source of your knowledge that would not lead back directly to your job, you might want to speak with an attorny as to what results might occur should you release the information you have. I would hazard a guess that it might cost you your job, if not other sanctions. I am not familiar with sanctions available, but it would not surprise me if there were criminal sanctions possible. An attorney could advise you.
If you have other, indpendant sources for your information that will not lead back to your job, or if you are willing to risk defending yourself against a claim that it was HIPPA privileged, then who would you tell? The priest? Assuming there is only one priest involved and you can clearly identify who that is, you may find that your information is either ignored, or there is an appearance of it being ignored - for the reason that there may be more to the whole story than you are aware of. There could be a change of heart; there could be much more to prior history than you have access to, or any number of other issues.
You could tell the future husband; and you risk him ignoring you (amazing how many people do that), or continuing with the wedding because they either know or believe there has been a change. And again, all of the above issues apply.
Since you appear to have come by the information through privilege, and contrary to what lizaanne says, you need to approach this as a legal matter first and foremeost. Banns, if I understand them, go back a long ways in history and were directed to the question of whether or not there was an impediment to marriage. Since the parish has seen fit to publish banns, one would think that any prior marriages would have been resolved. It may be that she has lied, or it may be that you do not have enough information upon which to make a decision as to that aspect. Either way, unless you can separate your information from the job as your source, you invite serious trouble.
And as to her attitutde towards open marriage, see my coments about seeing an attorney.
