Being married at a side altar

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VincentO

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I have a question. I was speaking with my cousin today about a great-aunt of ours who died recently.

She got married either during or after the second world war. She married a protestant - Church of Scotland.

Anyway, my cousin mentioned that while the aunt had been married in the Catholic church that the marriage was not held at the high altar - because it was a mixed marriage. They were married at one of the side altars in the church.

I was wondering if anyone had heard of this practice before. It’s not something I think is particularly great - particularly when her sister, not long after, got the ‘full works’ for marrying a Catholic.

My aunt, interestingly, remained strong in faith, and was an active member of the parish until she could no longer do so through illness.
 
At the time of WWII it was not allowed to mary a non-Catholic Christian. A special dispensation needed to be granted by the Bishop to allow it.

It is easier now; with the permission of the Bishop, it is now allowed to marry a nonCatholic Christian.
 
Still interesting though that even with the permission of the bishop, the marriage was held ‘at the side’.
 
VincentO said:
Still interesting though that even with the permission of the bishop, the marriage was held ‘at the side’.
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A mixed marriage was a done with a great deal less ceremony to show the Church’s general disapproval of mixed marriages. The priest would not wear full vestments, a minor altar instead of the high altar would be used, and the whole ceremony would be a lot more austere and sober.
 
When a Catholic friend married a non-Catholic they had a very small wedding and wanted to have it in a side chapel rather than at the main altar. Their priest said it was fine with him but to “please, please, please let your friends and family know that it was your choice, not something we made you do because of the mixed marriage!”
 
When I was engaged about four+ years ago to a non-Catholic, we were going to be married in the chapel, not in the main Church - this was our choice because the group would be small, and the chapel is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! The Church holds 3,000, our party of 60 would be lost in there, so we decided on the chapel. Well - everyone I told, even non-Catholics, that we were being married in the chapel said in an off handed understanding way “oh yes, I’m sure they won’t marry you at the main altar” :rolleyes: So even today people think that a mixed marriage can not happen at the main altar. This is a misunderstanding that still exists today, like it or not.

Oh - and I corrected every single one of them and said that we could be married at the main altar if we wanted to - but it didn’t seem to matter, I think they still felt we were going that route because he was not Catholic.

In the end, I married my sweet Catholic husband - at the main altar - and with no raised eyebrows. 😃

~Liza
 
I seem to recall back in the 1950s and 1960s, that some people got married inside the communion rail and some people outside. I don’t know why since I was a little kid, but I sang at weddings almost every week, and never understood the difference…
 
My parents (one Catholic, one not) were married at a side altar in the 50s. I don’t remember all the particulars but it was because of the mixed marriage. My parents never seemed to have any ill feelings about this, I think they were just happy that my grandparents let my mom marry a n/Catholic at all. 😃
 
Sometimes people were not even married in the Church at all, but in the rectory when there was mixed marriage or convalidation. It would be kept very simple, perhaps. Just the couple, the priest, and the witnesses.
 
I *think *it was toned down somewhere down the line pre-Vatican II, but at the time of Pius IX, the injunctions were very strict. Marry at the altar rail or outside the Church, not in the sanctuary. Also no “extra” sacramental rites other than the bare minimum, and no nuptial blessings.
 
I found the story, as told to me, very sad. This is one issue where I’m definitely glad practices have changed!
 
My mother-in-law, a Congregationalist, married my father-in-law, a Catholic, in 1940 in NJ. They were married in the sacristy of his parish church with just the two witnesses present. To make matters worse, the officiating priest smoked a cigar throughout the ceremony :eek: and repeatedly addressed my mother-in-law by the wrong name.

For my father-in-law, it was the beginning of the end for him and the Catholic Church. His hurt must have been very great because he stopped practicing and refused to have either of his children baptised in the Church although his wife was more than willing to have them raised as Catholics. He died in 1990, unreconciled.
 
VincentO said:
I have a question. I was speaking with my cousin today about a great-aunt of ours who died recently.

She got married either during or after the second world war. She married a protestant - Church of Scotland.

Anyway, my cousin mentioned that while the aunt had been married in the Catholic church that the marriage was not held at the high altar - because it was a mixed marriage. They were married at one of the side altars in the church.

I was wondering if anyone had heard of this practice befores.
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my mother and father were married in the rectory, because she was not Catholic at the time (Methodist-1943). it used to be once upon a time that marriages were witnessed on the steps of the church rather than inside.
 
VincentO said:
I found the story, as told to me, very sad. This is one issue where I’m definitely glad practices have changed!
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I actually think that while some “toning down” (as AJV put it) may have been pastoral, we could do with more strictness than we have now because many no longer recognize the serious (though not insuperable) difficulties posed by mixed marriage.
 
Mine is also a ‘mixed’ marriage. It took place here in Ireland where such marriages have shall we say ‘a history’😦 With the permission of my bishop, we had a full nuptial Mass and the officiating priest went out of his way to welcome my husband’s family and to guide them through both the liturgy and the marriage ceremony. My mother-in-law came from the US for it and wept throughout, still mindful of her own experience on her wedding day.

We’ve been married fifteen years now and we’re still going strong:D I would say that we’ve had more arguments because of our differing cultures/nationalities than because of our differing religions.
 
chicago said:
Sometimes people were not even married in the Church at all, but in the rectory when there was mixed marriage or convalidation. It would be kept very simple, perhaps. Just the couple, the priest, and the witnesses.
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This was true for my parents, who married in 1949, in a small town in Southeast Texas. My father was Catholic…my mom-Presbyterian at the time. The had to marry in the rectory. Mom converted shortly after the marriage. Thanks be to God. 👍
 
In those days, she was lucky to be married in the church building at all. It was even common to hold the marriages in the rectory with only the witnesses present.

An interesting side note…

When my parents were married in the 1960s, my mother’s parish priest was furious about the Catholic/Lutheran aspect of it. He tried to bully my grandparents into disowning her and invited the entire family not to return to the parish. He very, very grudgingly allowed the wedding. As for my grandparents, they stayed with the parish, and reminded him with consant updates on my parent’s successful marriage, until he retired.
 
chicago said:
Sometimes people were not even married in the Church at all, but in the rectory when there was mixed marriage or convalidation. It would be kept very simple, perhaps. Just the couple, the priest, and the witnesses.
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Yes, this is true. My grandmother (Catholic) and my grandfather (Lutheran) had their marriage convalidated in the rectory when he came back to the states after being injured in Saipan during WWII. Two years earlier, they had eloped and were married by a JP before he was shipped out with the marines (priest wouldn’t marry them without her parents’ consent with good reason - she was only 16), but my grandmother was a devout Catholic and refused to consummate the marriage until they could get a convalidation. They were married 50 years before he passed away - and he was actually preparing to enter RCIA and become a Catholic before he died.

Funny thing is that it was my grandfather’s family who was against the marriage at first. She was a “papist” and Irish/English. My grandfather’s family was all-German. After the shock of the news that she was married (she kept it secret for two years while he was away and she was finishing high school), her family accepted it. But I think that was because two previous generations of women in her family also married Protestants, but raised all the kids Catholic. 🙂
 
Canon 1109 of the 1917 code of canon law placed restrictions on where a mixed marriage could be celebrated, and this excluded sacred places: parish churches, oratories, and shrines. The local ordinary could permit a wedding in a Catholic church, although not a nuptial Mass therein, to avoid a graver harm (such as inviting anti Catholicism). Typically diocesan statutes provided for marriage in the rectory.
 
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