Can I attend and participate in this wedding?

[ToucanSam12]

I am a practicing Catholic, and take my faith very seriously. I have a difficult problem I am wrestling with that I hope can be answered. I searched back through a checklist for attending weddings, published by Michelle Arnold, but I couldn’t find an answer to my question.

The problem:

A childhood friend of mine is getting married, at a golf course, and I have been asked to be part of the wedding.

The facts:

• My friend (the groom) grew up Catholic, attended the same private Catholic school as me, but has been living outside the Church since 2004; he is a professed atheist now. This is a complicated and painful point of discussion.
• His bride was raised Catholic. I don’t know as much about the particulars of her upbringing, but I don’t believe she is practicing the faith at the moment.
• I have been asked to sing at the wedding and to be a groomsman.

My struggle:

Can I attend? I feel that not attending and participating may push my longtime friend further from the truth, and would damage our relationship, which I value greatly. I know I am one of only a handful of true Catholic friends to him. I don’t know what to do. At the same time, I don’t want to cause scandal or endorse something that is ultimately damaging souls.

Please help!

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

The checklist to which you referred answers your question. It states, in part:

For Catholics marrying other Catholics or marrying a non-Catholic Christian or non-Christian, a wedding is presumptively valid if it is done in accordance with Catholic marital law. Catholics marrying non-Catholic Christians or non-Christians need a dispensation from cult to marry the non-Catholic party and a dispensation from form if they are marrying in a non-Catholic ritual.

Your friends are both baptized Catholics, which means they have an obligation to marry according to Catholic marital law, whether or not they still practice the faith they once espoused. If they do not do so, their marriage will be presumptively invalid. Which leads to the next applicable point:

The Church does not explicitly forbid Catholics from attending presumptively-invalid marriages. Catholics must use their own prudential judgment in making the decision, keeping in mind the need to uphold the Catholic understanding of the sanctity of marriage. One rule of thumb that may be helpful in making such decisions might be to ask yourself if you believe the couple is doing the best that they can to act honorably and according to the truth that they have. So, for example, you might decide to attend the presumptively-invalid wedding of a couple who is expecting a child; but decline to attend the presumptively-invalid wedding of a couple who have engaged in adultery and destroyed previous marriages and families.

You have not stated whether or not you believe your friends to be acting honorably in accordance with the truth they have. Rather you have talked about your own discomfort about talking with them about their responsibilities as Catholics and your own fear of losing the groom’s friendship.

You are still free to make your own decision, but if this constitutes your only justifications for attending this wedding, then I can only recommend that you accept the fact that you seem to be going for your own benefit and not for their benefit. (As you say that you are “one of only a handful of true Catholic friends to [the groom]” that suggests to me that you are not his only Catholic friend, and therefore not the only Catholic who has a connection to him.)

Finally, we have this point:

While there may be just reason to attend a particular wedding that will be presumptively-invalid, I cannot recommend participating as a member of the wedding party in such weddings. There is a difference between attending as a non-participating observer and actively involving yourself in the wedding as an honor attendant.

Acting as a groomsman constitutes “participating as a member of the wedding party,” while singing is even more serious. Singing at a marriage ceremony is considered a form of ministry in a Catholic liturgy, and should be treated as such by Catholics asked to perform at marriage ceremonies, whether Catholic or non-Catholic. In other words, what you are being asked to do is not just to “perform” but to minister to the couple through your music.