If a couple gets a separate courthouse wedding approved, is it still a convalidation?

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More of a terminology question than anyone else. I know when a couple has a civil wedding, and then later seeks to bring their marriage into conformity with the church, it’s called a convalidation. My question is, in a case where the civil marriage is performed separately for practical reasons, with the approval of the priest, is it still considered a convalidation? Or would it just be a regular marriage?
 
I think you’re talking about a case in which a couple (typically, one Catholic and the other non-Catholic) get a dispensation from the form of marriage. Then, they are able to marry validly outside a Catholic church building, and by a minister other than a deacon or priest. Correct – is this the situation you’re describing?

In that case, the marriage (before a JP or another minister) is a valid marriage. A convalidation only occurs when an invalid attempt at marriage had already happened (resulting in a marriage that was civilly valid, but not valid ecclesiastically).

In some countries, though, it’s necessary to go to the civil office first, for a civil ceremony, before a ceremony at one’s place of worship is even possible. Is this the situation you’re describing?
 
The latter, where for some reason the couplr needs to perform a civil marriage apart from the church wedding - especially if they are separated by some time. I’ve seen it happen in the U.S. where one partner was not a citizen.
 
In many countries, France for example, the Church does not have the legal authority to marry couples. The couple must first undergo a civil marriage, followed as soon as possible by a valid Church marriage. There is no other option. The Church won’t marry the couple until they have the civil ceremony first.

It’s just a legal reality in many parts of the world. In Canada and the US, priests are delegated the power to witness a legal marriage, so the legal and religious parts occur at the same time.
 
DarkLight said:
The latter, where for some reason the couplr needs to perform a civil marriage apart from the church wedding - especially if they are separated by some time. I’ve seen it happen in the U.S. where one partner was not a citizen.
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In that case, you really are talking about a convalidation.
 
DarkLight said:
My question is, in a case where the civil marriage is performed separately for practical reasons, with the approval of the priest, is it still considered a convalidation?
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What do you mean by this?

If a mixed married couple receives a dispensation from form and marries civilly, then that is the marriage. There is no convalidation.

Two Catholics cannot receive a dispensation from form, so this situation cannot occur between Catholics.
 
When we got married, we went to the County Courthouse in the city where we lived, paid the fee, and filled out the paperwork. Poof, we’re legally married in the eyes of the State. The church wedding Mass was a week or two later, at my old church about 200 miles away. Poof, we’re validly married in the eyes of the Church. But I don’t think of it as being two weddings. One was paperwork that we did for legal reasons/tax reasons/etc, and the other was a ceremony that formed a sacramental bond. But in our day and age, we couldn’t have received the sacrament without going through the civil paperwork part of things, whereas just over 100 years ago, the federal government started getting involved in the marriage biz, and it wasn’t until 1929 that every state finally had laws about marriage licenses.

My parents, on the other hand, got married in a different state, in a different decade. Somehow, they were able to take their County Courthouse paperwork and sign it (at the altar?) during the Church wedding Mass. Poof, they’re legally and validly married in the same day-- just gotta get that paperwork back to the County Courthouse to get it properly on-file.
 
1ke said:
What do you mean by this?

If a mixed married couple receives a dispensation from form and marries civilly, then that is the marriage. There is no convalidation.

Two Catholics cannot receive a dispensation from form, so this situation cannot occur between Catholics.
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I was thinking in the sense where there was some reason where the couple needed to be legally married, at a point in time where they were not yet ready to be sacramentally married. (The case I actually know of personally, there were legal immigration reasons why they needed to wed within a short time frame that did not permit they to finish pre-cana and other such requirements.) So I know it can happen, although it’s not a typical situation.

My question is whether the sacramental wedding would be considered a convalidation or simply a wedding. I suspect the latter.

(Before anyone asks, yes, I’m simply curious here, the answer has no bearing on much of anything.)
 
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It’s also good to remember that even in Canada, not every priest can celebrate a legal marriage. The power must be granted to them, usually at their bishop’s request, by the provincial authority.

My former pastor found that out to his dismay when he celebrated the wedding of his niece in Ontario and the province wouldn’t register it because he’d moved away to Newfoundland and Labrador and had his
faculty to witness legal marriages in Ontario revoked.
 
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1ke said:
Correct. It is a convalidation.
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Now I’m curious what the technical definition of a “convalidation” is. In the U.S. I know priests are allowed to conduct legal marriages, but I know that’s not the case in those countries. My understanding is that in those countries they prefer to have the civil paperwork signed before the sacramental wedding. I presume in such a case it would not be considered a convalidation, at least if the church wedding was following soon after the legal one.

I know my friend’s situation was unusual, and I presume that they abstained from relations until after they were married by the priest (for obvious reasons, I didn’t ask). The whole immigration system gets a bit labyrinthine, which is why the legal marriage had to be performed on USCIS’s timeline.

Sorry for all the questions, this is what happens when you let bored philosophers loose on the internet.
 
DarkLight said:
My understanding is that in those countries they prefer to have the civil paperwork signed before the sacramental wedding.
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It’s not a preference, it’s a requirement.
DarkLight said:
presume in such a case it would not be considered a convalidation, at least if the church wedding was following soon after the legal one.
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It’s still a convalidation.
 
What you describe your parents doing is the norm for church weddings in the US. It is what I, and millions of other church goers did.
 
Here’s a long story, but maybe helpful. I, a Catholic married a Protestant in a Protestant church. We divorced several years later. Then I remarried. This time, to another divorced Protestant, in the Unitarian Church. Several years later, I returned to the Catholic Church and my husband converted to Catholicism. We wanted to marry in the Church. Here’s what the Church required:

Because my first marriage, although not by a Catholic priest, WAS in a Christian church and it still had to be annulled. However, since my first marriage was never valid in the eyes of the Church, the annulment process for me was brief and uncomplicated.

My husband was first married to a Protestant in their Protestant Church. His marriage was considered valid and had to be annulled, via the long form :). His annulment was granted and THEN our marriage was convalidated in the Catholic Church. That’s convalidation.

I think I’ve covered every base. Oh, and we’ve been married for 39 years:)
 
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Sure. That’s why I was a little confused, when the OP said–
in a case where the civil marriage is performed separately for practical reasons
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and that’s just it-- it seems to either be “do your paperwork this day, and have your church wedding some other day” or “do your paperwork in the middle of Mass”-- but either way is pretty normal, because you can’t have the church wedding without the paperwork either having already been filled out, or filled out at the time of the service. So I was hoping it would prompt the OP to clarify whether “separately” was a matter of multiple months/years “separate”, or if “separately” was just a few weeks or something.
 
In the case I knew of it was a couple of months. Basically, the problem was USCIS pretty much required them to marry almost immediately upon him entering the country with the appropriate paperwork, while the parish required them to complete the normal 6 months pre-cana and and a few other things.
 
If we really want to strictly stick to the letter of the law when we define what a “convalidation” is and when this term applies–which I will do here–then such a sequence of events as described by the OP does not involve a convalidation. The canons on convalidation (cc. 1156-1160, I think) do not include the scenario of a Catholic marrying merely in accord with civil law (which is an inexistent marriage in the Church’s law) and then marrying in accord with canon law. Those canons address marriages which are invalid (not inexistent) due to an impediment, a defect of consent, or a defect (not a lack) of form.

There was a response from the Apostolic Signatura…oh, I guess it was in 2007 or so… which made this point. The reason for the response was there were some ecclesiastical Judges who were saying that people who married in accord with civil law, then later in accord with canon law, could have an invalid marriage due to “invalid convalidation.” The Signatura said, among other things, that this is not really a convalidation. It is simply a “wedding” and so the exchange of consent should be examined in the same way as any other case, using the established, legal grounds (which do not include “invalid convalidation”).

That being said, I admit that I will sometimes still refer to such weddings as a “convalidation” (with the scare quotes) since it is an easy way to refer to what is going on.

Dan
 
My understanding is that dispensation from canonical form is typically only used when one party is not Catholic.
 
It may well be easier but, yes, this dispensation is almost never give in the case of two Catholics (in this case, it is a dispensation which can only be given by the Holy See, by the way). The Church could decide to do away with the requirement of canonical form in those countries, or in all countries. I don’t think that will happen any time soon.

Speaking personally, I did not want a dispensation. I simply viewed the civil wedding requirements as part of the entire process of marrying (in the Church).

Dan
 
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