Invitation to Catholic wedding

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Wildrover

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Hi

I’ve been invited to a Catholic wedding but am a little unsure as to how the couple have been allowed to have one.

The groom is a divorced nominal protestant with children from the previous marriage and the bride is Catholic, never having been previously married.

As the groom isn’t Catholic an annulment of his previous marriage would not be possible, as far as I know.

How can they be allowed to marry in the Catholic Church?

The only thing I can think of is that the groom’s previous marriage was also to a Catholic but was a civil ceremony so would therefore not have been valid according to the Church. Would this now allow the second marriage to go ahead as, according to Church law, it would be his first marriage?

Any help would be appreciated.
 
The Catholic Church does grant decrees of nullity (annulments) to divorced non-Catholics, so you must assume that the groom was granted one. That’s the only way they could get married in the Church.

Non-Catholics may marry in any way and anywhere they want and the Catholic Church presumes that those marriages are valid. That said, there are sometimes things about those marriages that later prove to have rendered the marriage invalid.

For example, if one or both said their vows while feeling pressured to marry or still intending to divorce if things didn’t work out or had no intention of ever having children or planned an ‘open marriage’, the marriage could be found to be invalid because marriage is always to be freely entered into and intended to be 1) for life, 2) for procreation, if possible, and 3) to the exclusion of all others.
 
Phemie said:
The Catholic Church does grant decrees of nullity (annulments) to divorced non-Catholics, so you must assume that the groom was granted one. That’s the only way they could get married in the Church.

Non-Catholics may marry in any way and anywhere they want and the Catholic Church presumes that those marriages are valid. That said, there are sometimes things about those marriages that later prove to have rendered the marriage invalid.

For example, if one or both said their vows while feeling pressured to marry or still intending to divorce if things didn’t work out or had no intention of ever having children or planned an ‘open marriage’, the marriage could be found to be invalid because marriage is always to be freely entered into and intended to be 1) for life, 2) for procreation, if possible, and 3) to the exclusion of all others.
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I agree with Phemie and I would presume that the priest who is marrying the couple has done what is required to make sure that the wedding he performs will be a valid sacrament.
 
Maybe the priest has not done his homework and has decided to ignore the “issues.”

I would ask the bride in a friendly way.
 
Samuel63 said:
Maybe the priest has not done his homework and has decided to ignore the “issues.”

I would ask the bride in a friendly way.
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From our experience going through the process in one of the most liberal diocese in the country (we’ve since moved) I’d say this is unlikely. There were a lot of things they ignored (like even mentioning contraception in the engaged encounter) but they were pretty obsessive about making sure we were free to marry (a good thing in my opinion).

If they’re being married by a Catholic priest in a parish I think it’s probably safe to assume he’s gotten his annulment (now if they’re being married by the “catholic” rainbow monks of light you may have a problem… there was a couple in my engaged encounter who was being married by a group with a similar name who does “marriages” in the SF area).

Frankly, I’d think it would be rather rude to ask. If the priest is alright with doing the marriage, you aren’t going to be in trouble for going.
 
Wildrover said:
As the groom isn’t Catholic an annulment of his previous marriage would not be possible, as far as I know.
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This is not correct. A non-Catholic can petition for a decree of nullity, and also for dissolution of the bond via the Pauline or Petrine Privilege if they qualify.
Wildrover said:
How can they be allowed to marry in the Catholic Church?
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Both parties have been determined free to marry.
Wildrover said:
The only thing I can think of is that the groom’s previous marriage was also to a Catholic but was a civil ceremony so would therefore not have been valid according to the Church. Would this now allow the second marriage to go ahead as, according to Church law, it would be his first marriage?
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That is one possibility. The other possibilities are that he was granted a decree of nullity or he obtained a dissolution of the bond via the Pauline or Petrine Privilege.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. So it seems he could have had his previous marriage annulled or it may have been invalid anyway.

It all just seems a bit odd but I think I should just assume the priest has done everything by the book.

The wedding is a fair distance away from me and is taking place in a school’s catholic chapel rather than at the parish church which raised my suspicions.

Perhaps I should just ‘mind my own business’!?
 
Wildrover said:
It all just seems a bit odd but I think I should just assume the priest has done everything by the book.
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Yes, certainly you should.
Wildrover said:
The wedding is a fair distance away from me and is taking place in a school’s catholic chapel rather than at the parish church which raised my suspicions.
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This is not at all unusual, and Catholics receive permission all the time to be married in chapels affiliated with their universities, or chapels affiliated with a shrine church, etc. This is allowed by canon law.
Wildrover said:
Perhaps I should just ‘mind my own business’!?
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Yep.
 
Wildrover said:
Hi

The only thing I can think of is that the groom’s previous marriage was also to a Catholic but was a civil ceremony so would therefore not have been valid according to the Church. Would this now allow the second marriage to go ahead as, according to Church law, it would be his first marriage?

Any help would be appreciated.
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yes this is certainly a possibility. but anyone can petition the Catholic canon law tribunal for a marriage investigation. If this scenario is the right one, either he or his ex did this. In any case, if they are being married by a priest according to church law you must assume that in some way his previous marriage has been deemed null. Since those types of proceedings are confidential and relate to the state of a person’s soul, in Christian charity we do not speculate.
 
Wildrover said:
Thanks for the replies guys. So it seems he could have had his previous marriage annulled or it may have been invalid anyway.

It all just seems a bit odd but I think I should just assume the priest has done everything by the book.

The wedding is a fair distance away from me and is taking place in a school’s catholic chapel rather than at the parish church which raised my suspicions.

Perhaps I should just ‘mind my own business’!?
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Hmmmm. Get involved, call the priest, raise your suspicions with him, call the bride’s mother and demand an explanation, call the bride and voice your concerns, irritate the heck out of everyone, and then feel good about it, because clearly the involved parties cannot or do not make the best decisions and do not know what they are doing, while YOU know all the circumstances. 👍 And that whole school chapel thing…young people NEVER have a fondness for a school chapel setting, because we all know no sensible young person actually LIKES school, so clearly they are trying to escape the radar and running a scam… Or…MYOB. Your choice. 🤷

(this is a sarcastic post…can’t believe how much people want to stick their noses where they do not belong…).:mad:
 
I would only bring it up discreetly if, well, you really cared about them.
 
Catholic90 said:
Let’s say it again, together this time…“MYOB”.
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Unless it is someone close to you and you do think they might be entering into an invalid marriage… there are certain situations you do not MYOB, as you you put.
 
I have to admit it would be hard to bring this subject up. If it were my daughter, I could do it easily. If it were a cousin of mine, it would be questionable. If a mere aquaintance was getting married, I probably would not get involved.

I know however, it is a work of mercy, to admonish the sinner. Further, it is not that hard just to ask the question. In the worst case scenario, you will be dis-invited from the wedding. Big deal.

In the best case, you will have caused a pause in the proceedings, that just may save someone’s eternal life. Now that is a big deal.
 
My first thought was that if the person was very close to the person getting married, they would probably already know. I imagine my best friend would tell me if she was going through the annulment process (if she’d been married). On the other hand, since in my experience most places are very thorough in these matters I would think this is a case where Catholic 90’s advice is the best.

There is a time to admonish the sinner… but to go prying into someone else’s business when you have no good reason to believe that there is an actual sin (and there is certainly very plausible explanations) does not seem right to me at all.
 
I get the message and will be minding my own business.

It is a close relative, although he’s the [edited] [Protestant]
! He does keep marrying these Catholic girls, someone must be giving him the nudge! 🙂

I’ll maybe ask just out of curiosity… after the event. 😉
 
[edited]

The groom is over forty [edited]
. And it’s in the UK so by school I mean public school (to you Americans that’s a private boarding school for 11-16 year olds), hence the suspicion. Although I do agree, I should not and will not raise the issue, except possibly out of interest after the wedding because I’m in a similar, although not identical, position.
 
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