Do priests screen for consanguinity level 4?

[1ke]

If 2nd is out, they’re going to allow 1st?

Yes first cousins can marry if dispensed.

In the past if they caught this they were excommunicated.

This is patently false. You don’t even know what you are talking about.

 

[CatholicRules]

Depends on the odds of passing it down.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

With all due respect, OP, 1ke has expertise in the area of canon law pertaining to marriage because she has worked in this area. You are not doing your credibility any good by arguing with her, especially over an issue that is not pertinent to the cancer screening issue.

 

[dochawk]

However, here/now, you can’t do that— because there’s a 72-hour waiting period between getting your marriage license vs performing the marriage.

That’s state law, not universal.

Here, if you planned ahead, you could be from the wedding license office to a chapel in 72 seconds . . .

 

[Phemie]

Grounds for dispensation is she is past menopause or one is sterile. I am saying – do they ask and check. The answer seems to be NO.

Dispensations for consanguinity were commonly given. You can see it quite clearly when you peruse marriage registers in small communities. It was certainly not limited to circumstances where children were unlikely to result from the union. After all my mom was 28 and dad 39 when they, first cousins, married and produced three children.

 

[midori]

That’s state law, not universal.

Here, if you planned ahead, you could be from the wedding license office to a chapel in 72 seconds . . .

Indeed. Some places, like Las Vegas, build a big part of their economy on impulse weddings!

But the OP had said, “They weren’t married at City Hall, so wouldn’t the civil aspect be junk also?” and I was trying to make the point that you don’t have to be married at City Hall— but people who get a church wedding don’t magically get to neglect their civil paperwork, and I used the time element to illustrate the fact that even though the word “marriage” was the same, civil marriage and sacramental marriage are two different things, and have varying degrees of separation based on where you are.

 

[Phemie]

CatholicRules:

Since they were not married at City Hall, wouldn’t the civil aspect be junk also if the Church recognized it as invalid?

I’m in the US, so I don’t know if Canada is different, but when we got married, we had a church wedding, but about two weeks previously, we went to our local County Courthouse and filled out all the civil marriage license paperwork and paid the fee.

In Canada it depends on the province. I know Ontario doesn’t require a marriage licence if banns are announced in church. It was that way in New Brunswick when We married but now you require a licence.

I’m in Newfoundland and Labrador. Here you need a licence and it has to be in the celebrant’s hands 4 days before the wedding. Here the priest returns the signed documents to the marriage licence issuer.

 

[acanonlawyer]

I am saying – do they ask and check. The answer seems to be NO.

Those who prepare a couple for marriage are obligated to ensure that nothing stands in the way of (“impedes”) a valid and licit marriage. Who knows what happened or didn’t happen in a particular case but, legally and generally, the answer is yes, they ask.

Dan

 

[poche]

I don’t know of any priests doing background checks for consanguinity. They expect people to be truthful about their relationship. In the Notre Dame archives there is a case of someone who was asking for a dispensation because 12 years after the wedding they discovered that they had a either a grandfather or a great grandfather in common and they needed to have their union regularized.

 

[CatholicRules]

Thanks. And what would happen had the priest found out later?

I saw the word VOID – as in automatic annulment – no formal annulment process or further action required. If you Google it you’ll see if it was caught after the fact, both parties were ex-communicated but this was in the 1500s.

It’s not like they had a religious and a civil wedding (with a justice of the peace), each of which was independent, so I was wondering if there would be a retroactive domino effect. Priests don’t do civil only. This is crazy – it would mean they were never legally married for 27 years from the perspective of the government, because it’s like bundled cable TV and internet. If you drop the cable TV, the internet goes too.

If you divorce, the Church still considers you married. If they can marry you in a 2 for 1 (religious and civil), I don’t know how the Church can still see them as married when Civil says they’re not married anymore. If you are in a state where it is illegal (civil), they will seek no dispensation so the marriage is a BUNDLE. Meaning, he cannot marry you in the eyes of the RC Church without marrying you CIVIL also.

It is legal for same sex couples to marry in Ontario, but the Church won’t do such marriages on a civil only basis. It’s a bundled deal that can’t be bought a la carte.

This is a huge major disconnect. They have to align. Or, everyone gets married at City Hall and then again in a Church if the Church’s conditions are met, because the Church’s status doesn’t seem to carry much weight when doing tax returns or ‘are my kids legit or bas***?’. There must be a documented precedent out there, where it happened to someone else.

If they were asked, they said no of course. I was 3 years old then, but I know these two people. When you marry knowing you might cause serious harm to future children, that is a selfish act unless the risk can be assessed by DNA testing. If it is determined to be very low, fine, but you have to scan for all the problem genes to make sure both parents don’t carry the same ones that are autosomnal dominant.

 

[jrgmercado]

In Florida, a blood test is no longer needed to obtain a marriage license but even when it was, it was to screen for disease not a DNA…it would take alot longer then the required 72 hrs (for FL residents) for the results to come back.
I would like to point out that most legal documents ask for both parents names (maiden for women) so there would have been some documentation showing a possible family relationship.

 

[Phemie]

Thanks. And what would happen had the priest found out later?

If they needed a dispensation and didn’t get one before, once the priest found out he could ask the bishop for one and either do the paperwork for a radical sanation without telling them or call them in and do a convalidation.

I still don’t understand why you are so concerned. What’s done is done, they are divorced, their kids are grown. Their marriage is presumed valid until proved otherwise.

 

[1ke]

And what would happen had the priest found out later?

The priest could ask for the dispensation from the bishop. Then the marriage is convalidated by simple convalidation or radical sanation.

I saw the word VOID – as in automatic annulment – no formal annulment process or further action required.

If there was no dispensation for a valid impediment, the marriage is canonically invalid. No, there is no automatic annulment. They were married in the church. Evidence would need to be presented and it would indeed go through a tribunal process.

Be careful with what you read online— the situation you are reading about may not apply to this situation, the person may be incorrect, etc.

If you Google it you’ll see if it was caught after the fact, both parties were ex-communicated but this was in the 1500s

This is also highly inaccurate. Canon law on consanguinity was fluid and local for most of the early church. Computation was first in the Roman manner then the Germanic. The fourth Lateran Council standardized he computation and returned the prohibited degree to 4 from 7. There is no mention of excommunication in the council documents for marrying without a dispensation. The canons of this council remained the standard until modern times.

Some individual nobles were excommunicated by the Pope for various marriages— but those were individual cases and usually political in nature. Typically the couple paid a fine or founded a religious house and all was forgiven. Occasionally the couple (usually the man) took the opportunity to declare the union null and contract a new one.

I don’t know how the Church can still see them as married when Civil says they’re not married anymore

Because civil divorce does not dissolve a valid marriage. Nothing short of death can dissolve a valid, sacramental marriage and only a few things— The Pope and Baptism + contracting a new marriage— can dissolve a valid, natural marriage.

 

[adgloriam]

@Trishie fortunately human nature is stronger than might seem. In pondering these issues I’ve frequently thought I’d be lucky enough for the children to simply not inherit any disease. For the genetic problem not to be passed on to them and be resolved permanently in a single generation. Because, that too, seems like a possibility.

 

[mythbuster1]

Now, what is the rule for a couple who did not know they were first cousins, and only later discovered their consanguinity via DNA test? This could certainly happen if one or both were illegitimate or adopted.

 

[1ke]

If a couple learns after the fact that they have an undispensed impediment, they should contact their priest who can work with the bishop to obtain a dispensation. And the priest would also determine what is necessary regarding convalidation.

 

[acanonlawyer]

Now, what is the rule for a couple who did not know they were first cousins, and only later discovered their consanguinity via DNA test? This could certainly happen if one or both were illegitimate or adopted.

Ignorance of the impediment itself (“I didn’t know first cousins couldn’t marry”) and/or unawareness of the applicability of the impediment (“I didn’t know we were first cousins”) does not cause the impediment to cease or not apply. So, the impediment would have to be dispensed and the marriage convalidated somehow (either “simply” or through a “radical sanation”).

Dan

 

[jrgmercado]

The blood tests normally only checks for sexually transmitted diseases (syphilis) not relationships. Regardless of what we see on TV, it takes weeks to get a DNA profile and then there’s the time needed to analysis the results. The Clerk of the Court (who handles marriage licenses in FL) doesn’t not the time (72 hours) or the resources to provide that kind of detail.

 

[CatholicRules]

Who knows. If the priest is the officiant, logic would dictate the civil marriage never happened either, right?

 

[CatholicRules]

You make it seem like they hand those out like flyers.