Jersey, UK: "End of Legal Catholic Marriages?" (So Catholic Priests Won't Be Ordered By the Authorities to Perform Gay Marriages)

[mdgspencer]

End of legal Catholic marriages? - Jersey Evening Post

The Church there is considering giving up its privileges of performing legal marriages. “The move would mean that all Catholic couples would have to have a civil wedding with a registrar before opting to have a religious ceremony according to Catholic canon law.”

“Monsignor Nicholas France said that the changing definition of marriage following proposals to legalise same-sex weddings meant that the Catholic church in Jersey was considering giving up its privileges under the current law to perform a joint civil and religious ceremony.”

“He said the system was fairly common practice in Europe and worked well.”

 

[JimG]

Such a system may be a common practice in places in Europe; but it’s a sad commentary on the state of religious intolerance in such places.

 

[exnihilo]

I don’t understand the civil wedding first. Shouldn’t the Church marriage be more important? Shouldn’t the Church marriage be independent of the state rather than rely on it?

 

[stupidisasstupiddoes]

I think it’s inevitable that legislation will come and declare that if churches don’t marry gay couples then they will face discrimination law suits. I think that was the real intention behind gay marriage all along. I don’t think it really came from the LGBT community either, the vast majority of them were perfectly happy with civil partnerships. It’s a powerful athiest movement designed to get religion out of politics in every way possible.

On the flip side, we actually had a registry office wedding 4 months before our real, Catholic wedding. It was necessary due to our visa situation and didn’t change anything for us. We didn’t take the registry office seriously, just got the paper. Actually felt sorry for the poor woman ‘marrying’ us because she tried to make our ‘special day’ feel special. I couldn’t really tell her that we were indifferent and just doing it to get a visa though as thats a bit of a no no there.

 

[Feanor2]

I don’t have any problem with this. I think an arrangement like this would make sense over here in the US.

 

[ByWhatAuthority]

Absolutely! The sacrament should definitely trump the civil side of the marriage covenant.

As long as the government insists on perverting marriage, the Church should stop requiring couples to aquire permission from the state, via a marriage license, to receive the sacrament of matrimony.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

The requirement for a marriage license is really an invention of the state in the last 4 to 6 centuries or so. Before that, marriages were usually private contracts between families and the extent of outside documentation generally stopped with the local parish and diocese records. In those days, the Catholic Church could even accept the validity of a marriage based on a couple’s testimony that they had exchanged vows.

Civil marriage licensing laws originated with the state-controlled Church of England in an effort to regulate who could marry and to create another source of revenue. These laws migrated to America and eventually evolved as controls on common-law and interracial marriages. While the last of the anti-interracial marriage laws was struck down in 1967, licensing laws are still used as a revenue source and to apply family court and tax laws.

In the last several years there has been some degree of controversy regarding civil marriage vs religious marriage, mostly taking place in smaller non-Catholic denominations. Some of the justifications are worth reading over and thinking about with respect to the legitimacy of the role of the state in marriage. For instance, Catholic marriages in the US are currently assumed to be civil marriages as well. The application for annulment often requires the dissolution of civil marriage before the Church can consider the application. So what happens if the couple choose to be married in the Church without a marriage license and then separate? If they weren’t married civilly then what law regulates their separation? At this point, I’m out of my depth …

 

[ByWhatAuthority]

Civil marriage licensing laws originated with the state-controlled Church of England in an effort to regulate who could marry and to create another source of revenue. These laws migrated to America and eventually evolved as controls on common-law and interracial marriages. While the last of the anti-interracial marriage laws was struck down in 1967, licensing laws are still used as a revenue source and to apply family court and tax laws.

@Zzyzx_Road You are very well informed on this! So we have the Church of England to thank… Yikes! All the more reason to make it not mandatory for couples who want to marry in the Catholic Church. I heard that ML were not even required in the US until 1930 something?? Now every priest has to act as a state official when marrying a couple. The sacrament happening should not require the states permission.

 

[Phemie]

The Church always tries to obey just civil laws.

She will not perform a marriage for someone who can’t be civilly married, unless the law preventing the civil marriage is unjust. If the law is considered unjust she may allow a secret marriage to take place, for example in places where interracial marriage was outlawed.

I know a marriage between first cousins can be celebrated in the Church, with a dispensation, as long as it’s in a jurisdiction where such marriages are allowed. AFAIK, she would not marry first cousins in a state where such a marriage is illegal because the civil law preventing such marriages is not considered unjust.

We tend to forget that the state has a vested interest in marriage. It affects the care of children, inheritance, etc. That’s why the Church sees no problem following a law that says that a civil marriage must have taken place before a religious marriage can occur in countries such as France, Germany, and Switzerland, to name a few.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

You are very well informed on this! So we have the Church of England to thank… Yikes! All the more reason to make it not mandatory for couples who want to marry in the Catholic Church. I heard that ML were not even required in the US until 1930 something?? Now every priest has to act as a state official when marrying a couple. The sacrament happening should not require the states permission.

The first marriage licenses in the US originated in 17th century Massachusetts. They have been with us a long time.

With respect to the Church of England, I’m sure there are other countries where governments have inserted themselves into the marriage business regardless of religious affiliation. Need more research there.

 

[ByWhatAuthority]

Yes they have been around a long time!
I don’t think they were mandatory for Catholics to get prior to receiving the sacrament before 1930 something though.

 

[Phemie]

In at least one jurisdiction in Canada a civil license is not required if the church they attend publishes banns.

But in this day of transient populations banns are almost useless. The last time we published banns in my parish, nobody knew the parents, or the couple getting married. The parents might have lived here at the time of the child’s Baptism but nobody remembered them so likely someone who came and worked for a year or two then left. There are a great many who come here for 3 years, come to Mass but are not really noticed because that’s what they choose.

OTOH, we were posted in for 3 years but within a month of our arrival I’d volunteered to read and be an EMHC and was volunteering in the office two days a week. Even if we’d left after 3 years people would have know who we were. As it is we’ve been here 20 years and I ended up being hired to be the parish secretary and was there 11 years. I still read and do baptismal preparation.

 

[SusanneT]

I am sure it is not beyond the wit of man to arrange for a Civil Registar to attend the ceremony ! The important thing is to complete the religious element !