Can I attend my son's invalid marriage ceremony?

[justthetruth]

you know your son and what would benefit him in the stand you take. but I have a ? what does god say. if you feel he is sinning ,should one stand with him in sin. what if it were a gay marriage would you go. sin is sin.

 

[Bonnie]

Question for the OP - I’ve been reading your posts & trying to understand your logic, but I’m not getting it. Apparently it’s OK with you to be with your son & his girlfriend, even tho they are living together. And you plan on still being friendly with them after their wedding. Yet you want to boycott the wedding to please God.

They are “living in sin” now, and will be after an invalid marriage ceremony. I’m wondering if it is the sin that bothers you, or something else.

 

[Memaw]

I am so disappointed in the majority of the responses I received to this very personal and difficult question.

Most of you, not all, accused me of being cold, rejecting, and judgmental. I find it interesting that the very things you accuse me of, you are doing to me. Is that how it goes?

I realize that when you post your personal life in a public forum, that you open yourself up to all kinds of people and opinions. I would have expected these hurtful answers in a non-religious forum, but I certainly did not expect it in a Catholic forum. A valuable lesson learned.

I’m glad I gave so many of you an opportunity to feel superior and self-righteous. To judge me, my love for my son, and my Catholic faith.

I’m a Catholic. You can’t be Catholic and ignore God, or Church teaching. So many of the responses never mentioned this. Never even considered that the Church has authority. I don’t know who is Catholic and who is not, but if you are Catholic and just ignore whatever Church teachings don’t fit your personal opinions, you’re in serious trouble.

I love my son. I love him so much I’m willing to sacrifice for him. I never said I wasn’t going to attend, I was only looking for honest, Catholic understanding and advice. I got very little of that.

If your child was drinking too much would you say something? If your child was making choices that put his physical life in danger would you try to stop him? If you do are you being judgmental? Cold? If you care for his physical life why don’t you care for his eternal life?

This idea that we know God and God is just like us, is a dangerous notion. Amazing how many of you feel that you know the mind of God. Or that any religion that would even suggest that you not attend your son’s wedding, is unchristian. Wow…it boggles the mind that so many professed Christians and Catholics tell God what he can and cannot do.

Jesus says that divorce is wrong. That to remarry is to commit adultery and to cause the new spouse to commit adultery. But your recommendation is to ignore Christ, his words means nothing when faced with the possible loss of a family relationship. I worry about all of you.

I do not yet know if I will attend. I do know I will talk to my son. I love him there is nothing judgmental in this at all. I want the best for him, I want salvation for him. So many of you have lost your way. I assume you don’t even believe in Hell, because it doesn’t fit your “ideal” of God.

If in deed, I do attend he will understand that his marriage is invalid. That’s not my judgment, or even the judgment of the Church. That is Christ himself who said so. I don’t care how many people on this forum say otherwise, Jesus’ words are more important to me than yours.

I will not be reading any more of your responses. I am done with you. Thank you to the very few people who actually tried to help. Your responses mean a lot, and I will most certainly take them into consideration. To the others, I will pray for you.

I agree with what you said, so many ‘Catholics’ either don’t even know their faith or don’t care what the Church teaches yet still consider themselves a Catholic. If our child was going to ‘rob a bank and be happy with all that money,’ would we help him, or celebrate he did it. I think not. But one mortal sin is serious enough to loose our soul over, imagine a lifetime of mortal sins. They just seem to multiply. God Bless, Memaw

 

[MacQ]

Hi

I was born and raised Methodist. My son was baptized Methodist. After my divorce when he was 5, I stopped going to any religious services. I did not raise my children in any faith, or even with a good knowledge of Christ.

After years away from any faith, I was called back by God and eventually to the Catholic Church. When my son was 12 we converted to Catholicism. We were brought in to a very liberal parish (I didn’t know that at the time). My children were taught the faith, quickly by a married couple who had just moved to the area. According to my children their instruction in the faith was rather pitiful. The priest told us new converts that we did not have to go to confession, since our first Eucharist would absolve us of our sins. I now know that this was wrong, but I didn’t know it then.

Anyway, my son never liked going to confession. This has been a constant sticking point for him. Because we weren’t instructed in it, we didn’t go for years. Eventually, as I learned more about the faith, I realized that we needed to go. Under duress, my son went maybe 2 times. Eventually when he moved out he stopped going to Mass at all.

Prior to meeting his fiancé, he was turning his life around and had told me that he planned to go to confession and return to the Church.

But that all changed, and they have moved in together and plan to marry in a Lutheran service. She is divorced as well. My son has rejected the idea that she should get an annulment. He thinks the Catholic Church holds no authority, and an annulment is just giving "a bunch of old men money so they can say that God says her first marriage was never valid. "

My question is this. Can I attend his wedding. Obviously, I love my son. I pray for him to return to the Church. I don’t want him t be living in sin, but I realize his marriage cannot be valid as long as this situation persists. I just don’t know what to do. At this point he is not open to any discussion. He responds to all Catholic positions with typical anti-Catholic statements.

My concern is that he is already on the road to total denial of the Catholic faith. To reject his wedding ceremony, would be (in his eyes) to reject him and his fiancé. I was hoping to keep the door open for discussion. I pray that eventually he will return and bring his fiancé with him.

I was divorced and remarried in a civil ceremony. I had no idea this was invalid until a priest told me. I received an annulment and then had my marriage blessed.

Thanks for your help.

Go to your son’s wedding.
Love him. Love your new daughter in law.
Put the Catholic discussions aside. Preaching to them that they’re living in sin and that their marriage isn’t valid will drive them away. That’s not the goal here.
Do what Jesus would do.
Just love them.
Like Pope Francis says: Meet them where they are.

 

[Memaw]

Go to your son’s wedding.
Love him. Love your new daughter in law.
Put the Catholic discussions aside. Preaching to them that they’re living in sin and that their marriage isn’t valid will drive them away. That’s not the goal here.
Do what Jesus would do.
Just love them.
Like Pope Francis says: Meet them where they are.

Put the Catholic discussions aside!!! My goodness, that’s not Catholic at all !!
Do what Jesus would do, YES but HE always told them to “Go and sin no more!”
“Meet them where they are,” Yes, but don’t leave them there. You misunderstood what he was saying. I am sure the Pope wouldn’t accept that for them! God Bless, Memaw

 

[MacQ]

Put the Catholic discussions aside!!! My goodness, that’s not Catholic at all !!
Do what Jesus would do, YES but HE always told them to “Go and sin no more!”
“Meet them where they are,” Yes, but don’t leave them there. You misunderstood what he was saying. I am sure the Pope wouldn’t accept that for them! God Bless, Memaw

Jesus dined with sinners.
And when Pope Francis said that, he was exhorting us not to get in people’s faces with a bunch of lectures about their sins, but instead, to build a relationship. IN this case, it applies.
Sorry, but that IS Catholic.

 

[Memaw]

Jesus dined with sinners.
And when Pope Francis said that, he was exhorting us not to get in people’s faces with a bunch of lectures about their sins, but instead, to build a relationship. IN this case, it applies.
Sorry, but that IS Catholic.

HE only dined with them to teach them, not to condone their sins. To let someone know what they are doing is wrong is NOT getting in their face!. In fact, they are getting in our ‘face’ when the expect us to go along with them in their sins. One of the Spiritual Works of Mercy is to admonish the sinner. I don’t think anyone said anything about “a bunch of lectures about their sins”!! Pope Francis would never condone someones sins. Sorry but I think your putting the wrong slant on all this. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Book_Worm]

OP, I know you said you’re done with this thread, but in case you do read it again, I just wanted to suggest you ask yourself a few questions:

What is your ultimate objective?

Are you hoping to bring your son back into the Church and possibly his wife?

What is the best way to achieve that objective?

Will he be impressed by your devotion to the rules of the Church and rethink his beliefs?

Or will he be hurt and wounded by not having you share one of the most important days of
his life?

In my world, my child would know my feelings on his marriage, but I wouldn’t chance having him cut off contact with me because I would want to be present in his life so that I could continue to try to bring him (AND his future children) back to the Church. (Just so you know why I feel as I do, my DH was raised in the Methodist faith but converted just before we got married. Had my MIL not attended the wedding because of that, she would never have seen me again or met her granddaughter.)

You may very well feel that your son will be more positively influenced by your refusal to attend, but that’s a call only you can make.

 

[MacQ]

HE only dined with them to teach them, not to condone their sins. To let someone know what they are doing is wrong is NOT getting in their face!. In fact, they are getting in our ‘face’ when the expect us to go along with them in their sins. One of the Spiritual Works of Mercy is to admonish the sinner. I don’t think anyone said anything about “a bunch of lectures about their sins”!! Pope Francis would never condone someones sins. Sorry but I think your putting the wrong slant on all this. God Bless, Memaw

We’ll settle on disagreeing then.
Everyone Pope Francis meets is a sinner. (Likewise everyone Jesus met was too)
I don’t think he greets them with admonishments.
Look into what he’s said about it.

I think someone who goes around taking inventory of people’s sins and admonishing them might ought to be concentrating on the log in their own eye instead.

 

[Kelt]

We’ll settle on disagreeing then.
Everyone Pope Francis meets is a sinner. (Likewise everyone Jesus met was too)
I don’t think he greets them with admonishments.
Look into what he’s said about it.

I think someone who goes around taking inventory of people’s sins and admonishing them might ought to be concentrating on the log in their own eye instead.

Well said.
There seems to be a lot of certainty about who is sinning, going to be saved, going to hell - whatever one thinks that is… Lots of collateral damage is done while people argue over the tiny details of the ‘rules’.
Didn’t someone say judge not lest ye be judged??
Can’t imagine a god with a tick-box sheet…

 

[MacQ]

Well said.
There seems to be a lot of certainty about who is sinning, going to be saved, going to hell - whatever one thinks that is… Lots of collateral damage is done while people argue over the tiny details of the ‘rules’.
Didn’t someone say judge not lest ye be judged??
Can’t imagine a god with a tick-box sheet…

Aye…not to mention that “Love one another…” thing.

 

[EasterJoy]

Listen to the priest. His answer was very, very good.

Your attendance at that wedding is a scandal. Period…

You can’t follow your son around through your life as he makes an absolute mess of his. Be there for him. Walk with him. But don’t follow him into catastrophes like this. Welcome his fiancé, spend time with them, be open to them. But don’t attend a sacrilegious wedding.

Well, no, there is not just a “period.” She has to consider not just what message she intends to send by attending, but what message is actually going to be taken away from it. She may just be ensuring that it will be a cold day in Hell before either of those two ever set their feet in a Catholic church again. Or she may be helping them harden their hearts. She has to discern which it is, act accordingly, and make as certain as she can that her son and the woman he is with understand her meaning. That isn’t a simple thing, and we ought not imply that it is.

 

[EasterJoy]

Aye…not to mention that “Love one another…” thing.

We need to remember that sometimes love means leaving a town that refuses to hear the Gospel and shaking its dust from our feet in protest.

Love doesn’t mean doing what people like. It means acting according to God’s will in order to bring them into relationship with him and with us. That is a “narrow way” that isn’t found so easily as steering as hard to the right or to the left as we can.

 

[Memaw]

Well said.
There seems to be a lot of certainty about who is sinning, going to be saved, going to hell - whatever one thinks that is… Lots of collateral damage is done while people argue over the tiny details of the ‘rules’.
Didn’t someone say judge not lest ye be judged??
Can’t imagine a god with a tick-box sheet…

Judging the action to be sinful is not the same a judging the person’s eternal destiny. That is a common mistaken thought. The Bible and the Church teaches us not to take part in another’s sins. Our first responsibility is to save our own soul and then to try to help others. Adultery is a sin, not because I say so but because Jesus said so. These are NOT “tiny details.” It is a very serious situation and far to common. Mostly because it seems to be an acceptable situation today. We will have to answer for our part in that. We are blending right in with our society and some even arguing for it. God Bless, Memaw

 

[MacQ]

We need to remember that sometimes love means leaving a town that refuses to hear the Gospel and shaking its dust from our feet in protest.

Love doesn’t mean doing what people like. It means acting according to God’s will in order to bring them into relationship with him and with us. That is a “narrow way” that isn’t found so easily as steering as hard to the right or to the left as we can.

Well, I don’t see that staying away from a son’s wedding is a very loving move.
She may be shaking a lot more than dust from her feet.
And I do believe they preach the gospel in the Lutheran Church.
Not like he’s marrying a fire-breathing Satanist.
She may be ensuring that neither her son nor his wife ever consider Catholicism.
As for “relationships”…well, I’d be happy if my son had a solid and loving Lutheran marriage and was a good person, and married a good person and just love them and let God do the rest.
I reckon there will be plenty of Lutherans in Heaven.

 

[MacQ]

Listen to the priest. His answer was very, very good.

Your attendance at that wedding is a scandal. Period. Your son needs to know how much you love him, how much you want him to be happy, and how much you want him to near our Lord. You aren’t being unloving to your son by not attending. You are showing him love by demonstrating to him that the only way to be truly happy in this life and the next is by serving God obediently.

You can’t follow your son around through your life as he makes an absolute mess of his. Be there for him. Walk with him. But don’t follow him into catastrophes like this. Welcome his fiancé, spend time with them, be open to them. But don’t attend a sacrilegious wedding.

Scandal? Catastrophe? Sacreligious?
Good grief.

If you were my mother, you’d never get a chance to “walk with me” or “be there”.
At all. If that’s how you branded the person I love and marry, we’d be done.

 

[Memaw]

We’ll settle on disagreeing then.
Everyone Pope Francis meets is a sinner. (Likewise everyone Jesus met was too)
I don’t think he greets them with admonishments.
Look into what he’s said about it.

I think someone who goes around taking inventory of people’s sins and admonishing them might ought to be concentrating on the log in their own eye instead.

I read a lot about what the Pope says but I try not to put my own spin on it. I look at it through the teachings of the Church and how he really means it. We’re all sinners but we ought not to condone our own sins or anyone else’s or make excuses for them. Like I said before, I would talk to my child, let them know I love them and only want what’s best for them but I cannot condone his decision in this situation and hope they would go talk to a priest and see if it can be worked out They should not expect the parents to “go along with” everything they want, right or wrong!! God Bless, Memaw

 

[Memaw]

Scandal? Catastrophe? Sacreligious?
Good grief.

If you were my mother, you’d never get a chance to “walk with me” or “be there”.
At all. If that’s how you branded the person I love and marry, we’d be done.

That’s called love??? God Bless, Memaw

 

[Memaw]

Well, I don’t see that staying away from a son’s wedding is a very loving move.
She may be shaking a lot more than dust from her feet.
And I do believe they preach the gospel in the Lutheran Church.
Not like he’s marrying a fire-breathing Satanist.
She may be ensuring that neither her son nor his wife ever consider Catholicism.
As for “relationships”…well, I’d be happy if my son had a solid and loving Lutheran marriage and was a good person, and married a good person and just love them and let God do the rest.
I reckon there will be plenty of Lutherans in Heaven.

He’s not a Lutheran, he is a Catholic and that makes a big difference. I can’t believe either one would condone adultery! God Bless, Memaw

 

[masuwerte]

I can’t believe either one would condone adultery!

That’s why I liked EasterJoy’s suggestion that she talk to her future DIL’s Lutheran pastor about why he would marry them, considering her prior marriage. While the DIL probably won’t want to seek a decree of nullity, the MIL might see a reason that she would likely be granted one. And that might ease her mind considerably.

A Declaration of Nullity only recognizes a fact, a fact which exists independently of the declaration. The first marriage was either valid or it wasn’t, regardless of whether a tribunal rules on it or not.

BTW, can you imagine if the Methodists were to say, the mother and son were baptised Methodist, so they remain Methodist and subject to our rules for the rest of their lives, whether they want to be or not. Nobody would take them seriously. And yet Catholics feel that way about anybody who has been taken into the Catholic Church.