Excommunicated and Married?

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Here, an excommunicated person describes how she was not able to be married in the Church. Is her marriage outside the Church a valid marriage?

Pokora said that in some ways, she has not acknowledged the excommunication because she never felt separated from the church in her heart and soul. But she also described being denied the Eucharist by a priest she respected, and how she could not marry in the church a year and a half ago.

 
if she cannot marry in the Church she can bring her man to the Church and modified the marriage
 
I’m confused. If these people’s excommunication didn’t apply beyond the boundaries of their diocese, why couldn’t she just go to some other diocese and get married there?
 
As I understand Canon Law, she would have to move to another diocese to do that. As long as she lives in the Lincoln diocese her Pastor and her Bishop would have to agree to allow her to marry in another diocese and since she’s excommunicated they are unlikely to allow it.
 
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Phemie said:
As I understand Canon Law, she would have to move to another diocese to do that. As long as she lives in the Lincoln diocese her Pastor and her Bishop would have to agree to allow her to marry in another diocese and since she’s excommunicated they are unlikely to allow it.
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What you say appears to be correct.

Can. 1115 Marriages are to be celebrated in the parish in which either of the contracting parties has a domicile or a quasi-domicile or a month’s residence or, if there is question of vagi, in the parish in which they are actually residing. With the permission of the proper Ordinary or the proper parish priest, marriages may be celebrated elsewhere.
 
Shoot, a lousy month’s residence is nothing. I’d just move somewhere else and take care of it.
Of course, I’d like to think I would not do things that would get me excommunicated in the first place, but I don’t want to have pride.
 
Why do you assume that she married a man? Do you know what “Call to Action” is?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m confused. If these people’s excommunication didn’t apply beyond the boundaries of their diocese, why couldn’t she just go to some other diocese and get married there?
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You misunderstand. Excommunicated is excommunicated. They aren’t “only” excommunicated when in their diocesan boundaries.

Bishop Bruskewitz’s excommunication order for members of Call to Action, Planned Parenthood, Freemasons, etc., only applies to those members who are in his diocese, his subjects.

In other words, he couldn’t excommunicate a Call to Action member who lives in New Jersey. Only their own bishop could do that.

Once excommunicated, they are excommunicated wherever they go.
 
Seems really unfair that if they were going to excommunicate the ones in Lincoln, all of them didn’t get treated equally. Or at least some across the board rule like excommunicating the leaders of the movement but letting all the underlings off with a warning.

Reminds me of a professor I had in school who was Jewish and had gone off to college during the McCarthy era. His father gave him advice before he left for college, “Don’t join ANYTHING.”
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Seems really unfair that if they were going to excommunicate the ones in Lincoln, all of them didn’t get treated equally.
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It is too bad other bishops did not have the same fortitude as Bishop Bruskewitz. A bishop has authority over his own people, not others.

It isn’t about “fairness” it is about obedience to your own bishop, it is about the bishop shepherding his flock in the way he sees as the best way.

See the full text of the notification. They were given the opportunity to disassociate themselves from the organizations in question. They were first under interdict only and then under excommunication if they persisted. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Tis_Bearself said:
Or at least some across the board rule like excommunicating the leaders of the movement but letting all the underlings off with a warning.
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The Pope could certainly do that. But he hasn’t.
 
poche said:
Pokora said that in some ways, she has not acknowledged the excommunication
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There’s this weird meme that gets expressed in the article by many people – it’s the notion that, if one doesn’t ‘accept’ the excommunication, it doesn’t exist.

One could try that with a speeding ticket, for instance (“I’m sorry, officer, but I don’t accept that I was going 70 in a 25 zone”)… but they would soon find out that their lack of ‘acceptance’ of it really doesn’t mean that it isn’t real.

In a particular way, “I don’t accept your authority to do this” is the heart of the problem itself…
 
As a follow up does that mean that If I were to fall in love with an excommunicated person who was otherwise free to marry that I would be unable to be validly married in the Catholic Church?
Does the Lincoln excommunication also apply to spouses?
 
A Catholic would not consider marriage to an unrepentant excommunicated person.
 
poche said:
If I were to fall in love with an excommunicated person who was otherwise free to marry that I would be unable to be validly married in the Catholic Church?
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You would not be able to validly mary until the person had the excommunication lifted.
poche said:
Does the Lincoln excommunication also apply to spouses?
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The excommunicated person can not marry in the church.

The excommunication doesn’t apply to anyone but the person. The consequences of excommunication certainly impact a person who aims to marry them because they can’t proceed until the excommunicated person is reconciled with the Church.
 
You’d not be able to marry licitly, at least, until a special permission was given and you, perhaps, fulfilled the requirements imposed on “mixed marriages” (see c. 1071.4 (marriage of someone who has notoriously rejected the Catholic faith), 1071.5 (marriage of someone under censure–excommunication is a “censure”); c. 1125 (on mixed marriages)). Since canon 1071.5 says nothing about the censure needing to be remitted, it is possible for even an excommunicated person to validly marry.

Furthermore, the canon on the effects of excommunication does not say that an excommunicated person cannot validly receive the Sacraments (c. 1331.1.2). Such persons are “forbidden to celebrate/receive the Sacraments.” So, the excommunication, by itself, does not necessarily result in an invalid marriage.

Dan
 
Is an excommunication recorded somewhere that would allow a priest in a new diocese, should the person decide to change dioceses, to be made aware of it if the person approached him for marriage? Or is it strictly the responsibility of one who was excommunicated to recognize and obey the censure?

I’m thinking of the situation in Germany when a person declares they are not Catholic to avoid paying the church tax. That declaration is recorded in the baptismal register and they are prevented from receiving further sacraments but that would show up anytime they had to get a certificate of Baptism.
 
I would surmise that basically all actual excommunications in existence are undeclared (they are the so-called “automatic excommunications”). I say that only because I suppose there are people out there who have committed a crime in the Church, with the knowledge that they would be excommunicated as a result. The article being discussed in this thread is an example: there is a law which said that a person who does a certain thing will be “ipso facto” excommunicated. I don’t think there is a single case of any of these excommunications being declared. “Declared” means the fact of the “automatic” excommunication was established in a ecclesiastical trial/process. This would be a “recording” of the excommunication (as well as making a few other canonical effects of the excommunication come into play). In the absence of this public declaration, no one other than the person him/herself can be expected to know about the penalty.

Therefore, it is only the excommunicated person’s conscience and honesty which would make the effects of excommunication applicable.

The situation in Germany regarding church tax/formal defection/excommunication is a problematic one. I will only say that recording a “formal defection” in a baptismal register is not the same as declaring an excommunication.

Dan
 
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