The Church requires nothing from the witnesses at a marriage other than their presence. Their religion, etc doesn’t usually even come up in the prenuptial interview. Neither of our witnesses was Catholic, they just happened to be my best friend and DH’s brother.
As for the Nazi salute – it’s part of that warm fuzzy feeling that some priests go for. Nothing in any document I’ve ever seen endorses this practise but I’ve seen it at different times in different parishes. Is something permitted just because it’s not specifically prohibited? I don’t think so.
Perhaps this citation from the document, On Certain Questions on Collabration of the Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of the Priest will help:
§ 2. To promote the proper identity (of various roles) in this area, those abuses which are contrary to the provisions of canon 907 are to be eradicated. In eucharistic celebrations deacons and non-ordained members of the faithful may not pronounce prayers — e.g. especially the eucharistic prayer, with its concluding doxology — or any other parts of the liturgy reserved to the celebrant priest. Neither may deacons or non-ordained members of the faithful use gestures or actions which are proper to the same priest celebrant. It is a grave abuse for any member of the non-ordained faithful to “quasi preside” at the Mass while leaving only that minimal participation to the priest which is necessary to secure validity.
This would, as I read it, seem to address the issue of having the people join in on any type of blessing whatsoever.
My father had some concerns regarding a seprate issue that is being taken care of at the CDWDS and he asked me if I could serve as his translator while we placed a call to the Congregation. Oddly enough, we are both of Italian extraction, but, I’m the one who speaks it and the chances of getting an English-speaking operator on the first try are hit and miss.
Having gone through the switchboard, we got to the Congregation, but, the operator there only spoke Italian, but, we managed to quickly speak to a cleric who was fluent in English (by the way, the Vatican has excellent customer service-hold time was under 60 seconds). He asked if we had any questions, and I brought up the issue of both EMHCs and laity, for that matter, imparting a blessing during Mass. His response was that the only ones who could impart any such blessing were clergy. He also referenced this document in his explanation.
I realize that a phone conversation doesn’t qualify as a valid interpretation, but, he said that if we send the request in writing, we will receive a response in writing that pretty much jibes with what we were told. This would also apply to the type of blessing the OP described.
, was it proper to do?