Is this a valid wedding?

[JohnPaul]

Two lapsed, baptized Catholics decide to get married in the Botanical Gardens by some kind of ordained Protestant minister.

They are both lapsed Catholics (i.e., they did not officially become Protestant and do not attend any church at all).

Is this a valid, sacramental wedding? If not, is there a source from an official church document somewhere explaining why not?

Thanks in advance !

 

[1ke]

Code of Canon Law on the Sacrament of Marriage:

Can. 1108 §1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. ⇒ 144, ⇒ 1112, §1, ⇒ 1116, and ⇒ 1127, §§1-2.

 

[JohnPaul]

Code of Canon Law on the Sacrament of Marriage:

Can. 1108 §1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. ⇒ 144, ⇒ 1112, §1, ⇒ 1116, and ⇒ 1127, §§1-2.

thanks !

A friend of mine was arguing that since Protestant weddings can be considered valid, that this one was as well. I told him that Catholics are bound by different rules … I believe he thought that a wedding is either valid or it is not … that it has nothing to do with the faith of the participants. From what I understand, it does matter.

thanks again

 

[PhilotheaZ]

A friend of mine was arguing that since Protestant weddings can be considered valid, that this one was as well. I told him that Catholics are bound by different rules … I believe he thought that a wedding is either valid or it is not … that it has nothing to do with the faith of the participants. From what I understand, it does matter.

You are absolutely right. Your friend is wrong.

The Catholic Church, in possession of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, can and does make laws which govern its members. All baptized Catholics are bound by them.

Each sacrament has its own “matter” (the “stuff” of the sacrament, in the case of matrimony, one unmarried man and one unmarried woman with proper intent). Each sacrament also has proper “form” — the words and actions that are part of it. For any marriage where at least one of the partners is Catholic, proper form includes being married before a Catholic priest or deacon (or with proper dispensation from the Church if an alternative form is sought).

If the couple did not follow these requirements — neither getting married by the Catholic Church, nor getting a dispensation — the marriage is invalid by “defect of form.” In other words, they are not married.

The Church cannot hold non-Catholics (those never baptized in the Catholic Church nor received into the Catholic Church later in life) to the same rules. Therefore it recognizes as valid those marriages entered into by two non-Catholics, assuming they have the proper matter (one man and one woman, not already married, with the proper intent).