Marriage refusal

[Br.Rich_SFO]

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Could be – the priest based his decision on what he perceived was to be a lack of participation by the groom to be. The OP stated the groom was in the service miles away. Miles away could mean anything from across the state to across the country etc. — where his distance could cause an impediment to the priest – to get to know them and determine if they were in a good position to wed. If the groom was miles away – this could cause problems in his attendance of the marriage prep classes etc.

Quote=Sarahj26
I was 19 when my husband and I wanted to get married,** my husband was 20 and he was in the service miles away**.

Just for clarification. Those in the service can prepare for Marriage whereever they are stationed and their spouse-to-be can prepare at his or her local parish. It is not necessary for them to be in the same place.

 

[Phemie]

Just for clarification. Those in the service can prepare for Marriage whereever they are stationed and their spouse-to-be can prepare at his or her local parish. It is not necessary for them to be in the same place.

I’ll vouch for that. In the two years before we got married DH and I only saw each other for a total of 30 days, including the week before the wedding.

We were anywhere from a few hundred to 5000 miles apart during that time. He prepared for marriage with the Catholic chaplain on the Base where he was posted, meeting with him several times since we were having a mixed marriage back when he had to promise to raise the kids Catholic (not a problem we’d discussed that long before we were ready to get married). I didn’t prepare in any way, shape or form. I met with my priest once, filled out the paper work and then saw him again at the door of the church the night of the wedding.

 

[Walking_Home]

Just for clarification. Those in the service can prepare for Marriage whereever they are stationed and their spouse-to-be can prepare at his or her local parish. It is not necessary for them to be in the same place.

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Thanks for the clarification. I know that a similar procedure is done – say for baptism. The Godparents if not local area – receive instruction in their respective parish. I was basing myself on the priest getting to know them well enough to determine if they were in a position to marry. Seems it would be a difficult assessment to make when the bride to be and groom to be are in two different areas. Thanks again for the clarification.

 

[thomasf]

The priest has a responsibility to look out for the best interests of the couple, even if they don’t see it that way. Military marriages have a lot of stress on them and they often end in divorce. Not to mention, the OP indicated that her husband was living far away from her at the time, which is another added stress. What if this couple were to marry in the church, in a valid sacramental marriage, and then broke up? There would be no basis for annulment, the marriage would be valid, and if the parties remarried they would then be living in mortal sin. By refusing them at that time the priest may have been looking out for this kind of situation.

 

[Claire_from_DE]

I was 19 when my husband and I wanted to get married, my husband was 20 and he was in the service miles away. The priest I talked to refused to marry us at that time saying we had not known each other long enough and were too young and the divorce rate was high for our age. My husband and I did not refuse to not do anything that was asked of us…I just find this odd and have never brought it up. My husband and I got married civially 3 months after the Priest told me this and do not regret it, we practice NFP and have 5 children and another on the way. I was very disappointed how this was handled and wondered how anyone could refuse a sacrament if they agree to do everything asked based on age. We are still going strong 7 years later and I am very much involved in being a catholic. The Priest later told me he was wrong and will do a blessing which we are going to do after my husband gets home from deployment.

I just wondered if this is standard practice, refusing the Sacrament of Marriage to people who are young and seem like they are at high risk for divorce. Personally I know many people who were in their early 30’s got married years after knowing and living with each other, even having children together and were divorced 2 years later…

Thanks

Good grief, you’ve been in an irregular marriage for 7 years and are ‘very much involved in being a Catholic’? Why didn’t you get the marriage blessed years ago?

 

[G_S]

Remember, the couple, barring impediments, have a right to marry in the Church. The priest or deacon may delay but not disallow the marriage if there are no canonical barriers. The main thing is to forget about what the priest said and did. Maybe he was right, maybe he was wrong. Go and get your marriage solemnized (blessed) and have a wonderful married life together.

 

[KCT]

The priest I talked to refused to marry us at that time saying we had not known each other long enough and were too young and the divorce rate was high for our age.

Our 20 yr old, military son married a girl he knew for less than 4 mos. What the minister was thinking, I can’t imagine.

Frankly, I think couples who have not known eachother long should have to wait. (though I don’t know how long the OP knew her fiance when she spoke to the priest)

 

[whatevergirl]

I was 19 when my husband and I wanted to get married, my husband was 20 and he was in the service miles away. The priest I talked to refused to marry us at that time saying we had not known each other long enough and were too young and the divorce rate was high for our age. My husband and I did not refuse to not do anything that was asked of us…I just find this odd and have never brought it up. My husband and I got married civially 3 months after the Priest told me this and do not regret it, we practice NFP and have 5 children and another on the way. I was very disappointed how this was handled and wondered how anyone could refuse a sacrament if they agree to do everything asked based on age. We are still going strong 7 years later and I am very much involved in being a catholic. The Priest later told me he was wrong and will do a blessing which we are going to do after my husband gets home from deployment.

I just wondered if this is standard practice, refusing the Sacrament of Marriage to people who are young and seem like they are at high risk for divorce. Personally I know many people who were in their early 30’s got married years after knowing and living with each other, even having children together and were divorced 2 years later…

Thanks

Considering the outcome–It would appear that he was ‘wrong,’ but hindsight is 20/20, and like others stated, he was probably trying to help you both to see the need of waiting, for the sake of preserving your marital future. Congrats on your marriage and family, and so glad you’ll be having your marriage blessed.

 

[Mintaka]

What I don’t understand is why you didn’t find some other priest to marry you. I know it’s hard, but surely a Catholic military priest or a priest close to the base would have been more sympathetic?

I also don’t understand how your relatives and friends refrained from stringing up your pastor.

 

[panoikei]

A priest has the right to refrain also in good conscience of witnessing the marriage. I heard Fr. Mitch Pakwa explain on EWTN the other night. I also rememer reading lots about this many years ago. If a priest suspects that you are not sincere in the confessional he can refrain from absolving you too. Now, would that cause confict, you bet you. He was being prudent. The young couples actions seem to have proved part of his point, though misguided.

The problem is that most people don’t know what the difference between “divorce rate” really means. The divorce rate is about 50%, right? It is… just trust me on this for now while i make my next point.

a marries b
c marries d
e marries f
g marries h
i marries j
k marries l
m marries n
o marries p
q marries r

g divorces h
q divorces r
g marries s
q marries h

q divorces h
t marries u
v marries w
x marries y
q marries z
g marries h
etc, etc.

The problem is that the rate make the numbers look really worse than when you look at individual marriages.

The Key question should be: How many of the new marriages are from previously divorced people. Thus the wrong question is then realized to have been asked in the first place. We love to hear the negative side of things…its dooms day…the sky is falling…well to some degree there is truth in that but let me give an answer to why I address it in this way.

First, the best question to ask would be the following:
What percentage [rate] of all marriage last? About 78% of all marriages last between first time marriages. That means the other 22% are corrupting the entire system of ratings. I postulate that there is a correlation between the negative connotations regaurding “divorce rate” and the number of peole that have just decided not to marry because they believe they only have a 50/50 chance of surving…which is based on a gross misunderstanding of the facts. I wrote down a litany of the statistics because the Protestant preacher was trying to make a point.

The point is that we are focusing on the negative and negetivity feeds negativity to the point of disaster or “self-actualizing”. We do what we project will happen. We fear the worse so rather than feel like a statistic we just avoid marriage and either justify living together or just simply not marrying, though they still get “benefits” as I’ve heard it said.

Follow me yet. I verified this by calling in on Catholic Answers Radio. Fr. Vincent Serpa I believe confirmed it but could not recite the numbers without looking them up. The problem, Spiritual Fathers, is that we need to focus on the positive side to encourage people that marriage has an 80% survival rate. That’s not what we want but it better represents the truth that to say we have a 50% chance to divorce. We have to remap our thinking to see it from the better perspective. We self-actualizing these numbers and chasing people away from a wonderful sacrament and society is going along with it. We’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water.

 

[panoikei]

Sorry about the grammatical errors above.

I challenge the clergy to learning the statistics better and see them in their correct framework. I believe there is an agenda marked at trying to get society to reject marriage. How many priests do you know that can work out a statistics problem? I know many priests and only 2 would be qualified to calculate the numbers. Most priests are Liberal Arts people. Mathematically speaking the numbers actuall lie in this case. People recite the statistics to scare people into trying harder, but rather we are scaring many away from potentially good marriages.

Am I making sense yet? I know numbers and I firmly believe with time I could address this in a class to make my point. Some people just panick at the thought of number crunching. We shoudl be using this statistic in the more positive light and using it to encourage people, not take the negative aspect of it and discourage folks.