Catholics and marriage licenses

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If this situation met the above requirements, then a marriage would have been celebrated validly.
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Yes, I’m in the US. Parish is where you are registered.

We traveled 45+ minutes to my husband’s college. He did not live there for 5 years. I had never been there before. We did not live there at any point in time, nor intend to.

That said, although we lived in our apartments for more than a month, our Mass attendance was highly based on work, social outings, and family—so technically we were itinerant.

So perhaps we did break cannon law…but I still don’t think so. He was a pretty solid priest and I doubt he would of done anything wrong.
 
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Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
You’ll have to check with @Don_Ruggero or @frdavid96 …but that doesn’t sound entirely correct.

My husband and I were validly married…and we didn’t do it in our parish. I had a parish but the priest I was familiar with changed so it was pointless as he had no idea who I was, my husband was not registered because of college and several moves.

We were married at the church he attended during College (5+ years before)…he was never registered at.

The priest asked for our baptismal certificates, asked where we attended Mass (it was scattered due to us both living and working in random places as we got our careers off the ground) and went from there.
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Registration has nothing to do with anything. Parish membership is by territory.

In any case, I’m sure that whatever priest officiated at your marriage knew what sort of permission or delegation he needed, and he followed canon law to get it.

This sort of thing is done all the time, so long as it’s done for legitimate reasons.

What you describe about your own marriage is just a situation where someone needed delegation and obtained it.

That’s a far cry from asking for a free-lancing priest who is going to ignore canon law.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
Yes, I’m in the US. Parish is where you are registered.
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No. It isn’t. That is a common misconception. The same canon law applies universally; parish membership is determined by residence. Registration has no effect in the law. None whatsoever. It is irrelevant as far as canon law is concerned.

Please note my earlier comment. I’m sure that whatever permission or delegation the priest needed, he obtained it. It’s a simple thing that happens all the time.
 
Please don’t even go that far. Given that they were married by a priest, the “benefit of the doubt” is that whatever delegation or permission he needed, he obtained it. And I don’t think the other member is worried about the validity anyway.
 
ByWhatAuthority said:
They are a very good Catholic family who loves their country
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What they are doing is not “loving their country”.
You love your country, you follow its reasonable rules. Just like if you love your parents, you follow their reasonable rules.

You are not building any sympathy for your friends by constantly going on about what “good people” they are because their behavior is showing the opposite. They think they are special and don’t have to follow the rules, and then you expect us all to support that. This is exactly the attitude that is causing a lot of trouble on many levels in the USA right now.
Your friends are not special.
 
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I never asked anyone to ignore canon law. It’s not canon law for a couple to have to get a license. What I am asking for on behave of my friends should not be so threatening to you. You sound so angry with me and you don’t know me or my friends but have this anger towards us that shows so clearly in practically every post. I never suggested anyone break the rules of our Holy Church. Making couples get permission from the state to marry ( a marriage license) is not canon law. You’d think we could have a semi grown up conversation about this without people becoming so defensive. You’d think I was asking around for a priest to preside over my friends doggy wedding.

FrDavid96, I’m sure you are a wonderful priest (irl). I would never ask you or any priest to break or bend a rule of the church. But Is it so very wrong for me or others, to be asking these questions? I think it’s absurd that a priest can be charged a felony for delivering a sacrament without state paperwork! This is just more evident to me than ever that something is wrong here and I hope it changes soon for the good of the Church.
 
They are living their lives in a way that should not threaten you so. They are not breaking any laws. If you can’t take my word for it, that’s to bad.

The point of my posting here was not to try and build “sympathy” for my friend. ( I guess I’m not so good at that, lol) It was merely her situation that opened my eyes to this issue and I am curious to see what other Catholics think.
 
This issue is silly beyond belief. If they can’t get married in the US, they should go to their own country to get married. End of story
 
They are not breaking laws perhaps, yet they have chosen to not be bound by any.

And then the debate starts about changing Church laws for a family that chooses not to be bound by any laws to begin with. For a sacrament that is binding.
 
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What church “laws” would they be breaking if they marry without a marriage license?
 
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ByWhatAuthority said:
Are you saying the church needs the state to legitimize marriage? I think the government should recognize marriages within the Catholic Church without us first having to getting permission from the state for the sacrament.
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The Church thinks otherwise.
Asking permission from the state to marry is in and of itself an undermining of the sacrament. Just look up the word "license ".
“,… a license may be issued by authorities, to allow an activity that would otherwise be forbidden.”

So is marriage considered a “forbidden” activity by the state ?
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Under some conditions, yes, and rightly so. Since you are unable to divulge the actual conditions of your friends that prevents the state for giving them a license, we are unable to pass judgment on the priest’s decision not to marry them.

I’m sure that under conditions of total anarchy or under a grossly illegitimate government so that there is no legitimate authority, the Church would grant the marriage without need of a government license. But that is not the case in the US. I frankly cannot imagine what conditions could possibly fulfill everything you have said about them, so I have to wonder is your reluctance to give the details because of your concern for the privacy of your friends, or is it that you suspect that we will not agree with some of the judgments you have given us on the strength of your word?
 
Again I will say; The family in question are not law breakers. In fact they happen to be sticklers to that detail.
 
ByWhatAuthority said:
Again I will say; The family in question are not law breakers. In fact they happen to be sticklers to that detail.
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In no state can I find a legitimate driver’s license that requires less documentation than a marriage license.

Unless they are exempt from that rule, too.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
This issue is silly beyond belief. If they can’t get married in the US, they should go to their own country to get married. End of story
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These are “Americans”. They are just “Americans” who believe they can remove themselves from society (and pay no taxes) by not requiring anything of the government. They reject their citizenship and refuse to get basic documents for their children. They cannot legally, drive (which they do), vote, hold office, attend public schools, hold a job, use public facilities, go to a legitimate doctor or hospital, get married, get a passport, etc. It is a fringe of a fringe of a fringe group in the US who are (usually Protestant) and believe that families (although typically men) have a sovereign right to be their own government.
 
ByWhatAuthority said:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”

I’ve always thought the words of Our Lord were rather harsh towards lawyers. Until I read your post that is…
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Please do not call other posters hypocrites.
 
ByWhatAuthority said:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”

I’ve always thought the words of Our Lord were rather harsh towards lawyers. Until I read your post that is…
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But even Jesus submitted to the laws of his time. This is about Pharisees who bar people from Heaven by withholding sacrifices and deeming people “unworthy”.

Following civil rules is a basic necessity of human society. Jesus not only was supportive of civil authority but subjected Himself TO civil authority in cooperation with God’s will for the salvation of man.

And again, this is not being a “lawyer” or a “Pharisee”. The church chooses to work with civil laws for a reason. It makes it easy for all parties to be married. Again there is no evidence should the church decide that they no longer want to act as a witness for the state that they would not require basic state-provided documentation. The church is not going to marry two people to whom they are not 100% sure of their identity. Right now they have the state doing the checking for them. If they did not, this would no doubt change.
 
ByWhatAuthority said:
She and her family are not here illegally. From what I gather. Her father found a way to remove her family from the incorporated status of the US. Thus disqualifying them from state sanctions, licenses, property taxes, etc… (you can only imagine the many benefits to having done that.
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Yeah…I’m pretty sure a person can’t do that.
Reminds me of a situation I’m personally familiar with. Two prison inmates (convicted of violent crimes, but that’s beside the point) filed complaints that they had been wrongly convicted because they, as individuals, had never agreed to abide by the laws of the state. In other words, “I can’t be in prison for murder because I never agreed to abide by the law that says murder is illegal.”

Doesn’t quite work that way. You can’t remove yourself from a system and then expect the system to make accommodations for you.
 
ByWhatAuthority said:
Do you hear the obsurdity in what you are saying?

A priest is breaking the law if he presides over the sacrament without them getting the states permission??? All they want is a sacramental marriage.

This ridiculous law has to change! Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Why don’t they want a legal marriage?? That doesn’t make sense.

Why does the Church follow the law of the land in this? Because it’s not an unjust law (unlike, say, a law prohibiting an interracial marriage). If you’re willing to be in a sacramental marriage you should be willing to be in a legal marriage. It’s very suspicious that they don’t want to be and I don’t buy that they can’t get a marriage license.
 
ByWhatAuthority said:
Anyway, my friends situation has really opened my eyes to this. I never knew the US Catholic Church needed the states permission to perform the sacrament of Marriage. I am more convinced then ever that this should change and at the very least, it should be optional for couples.
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This is not a US thing. Canada has the same laws (in some provinces you can get married without a license if banns are published in church) and in the countries where both a civil and a sacramental ceremony are necessary (France and Germany come to mind), most countries require that the civil marriage take place before the religious marriage. The Church follows the law because it’s not unjust.
 
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