Convalidating marriage

[A417]

Hi!, I have some questions I hope you can help me answer them. My husband and I got married at the courthouse last December. He is a Bulgarian Christian orthodox and I am catholic. I found a website with very useful information for people on my situation home.earthlink.net/~rickpen16/catholicmarriages/id22.html and I already called my parish to contact the Deacon, to whom I havent spoke yet. Now, we wanted to Convalidate our marriage in October, in mexico and actually one of the requirements in mexico to have a catholic wedding is to bring your civil wedding certificate (I know its different than in the US, but thats the way it is there, i grew up there and already talked to a priest in mexico) so my question is, we were planing to Convalidate our marriage in October, but somewhere here I read something about a one year waiting period before Convalidating a marriage?

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

You’re probably going to have to check with the Orthodox church as well to make sure that they will also view your marriage as valid. You may find this document from the USCCB interesting: usccbpublishing.org/client/client_pdfs/7-050BI.pdf

It says in part: As a general rule, the Orthodox do not allow their faithful to be married in a non-Orthodox ceremony. For example, the dialogue between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox in the United States has recommended that all weddings between their faithful take place in an Eastern Orthodox ceremony, since this is the only way the Orthodox party can remain in good standing in his or her church. If the Orthodox party does not practice his or her faith, a Catholic ceremony might be the best option.

 

[cjmclark]

Hi!, I have some questions I hope you can help me answer them. My husband and I got married at the courthouse last December. He is a Bulgarian Christian orthodox and I am catholic. I found a website with very useful information for people on my situation home.earthlink.net/~rickpen16/catholicmarriages/id22.html and I already called my parish to contact the Deacon, to whom I havent spoke yet. Now, we wanted to Convalidate our marriage in October, in mexico and actually one of the requirements in mexico to have a catholic wedding is to bring your civil wedding certificate (I know its different than in the US, but thats the way it is there, i grew up there and already talked to a priest in mexico) so my question is, we were planing to Convalidate our marriage in October, but somewhere here I read something about a one year waiting period before Convalidating a marriage?

This may vary by diocese.

My wife and I had our marriage Convalidated in the Diocese of Charleston (SC) and we were required to wait for a year. A little aggravating as the pre-Cana wait here is only 6 months, but oh well.

 

[maryjk]

This may vary by diocese.

My wife and I had our marriage Convalidated in the Diocese of Charleston (SC) and we were required to wait for a year. A little aggravating as the pre-Cana wait here is only 6 months, but oh well.

My husband and I had our marriage convalidated in the Harrisburg Diocese. From our first meeting with the priest to our ceremony, it was 3 months. We did not have to go to Pre-Cana classes.

We did need our civil marriage certificate.

 

[1ke]

Talk to your priest. The fact that he is Orthodox adds a level of complexity to the situation.

 

[icamay]

It is my understanding that the waiting period is to discourage couples from rushing into a civil marriage with the intention of going through convalidation on the back end.

You will still have to do pre-cana. My husband and I have been legally married for 9 years with no children or prior marriages, and our pre-cana was set to be 3 sessions (we crammed them into one afternoon due to his military obligations; I’m sure that the deacon allowed this only because he personally knows us and our families, so he was confident that we could pass on certain issues that require entire classes as they do not apply to us). If you are convalidating in Mexico, then you will need to consult that parish for their guidelines and to determine if your can do your pre-cana with your local parish.