Marrying in the U.S

[maryjk]

Hi, I have scheduled a Marriage to a non-US citizen. The government is taking longer than they said they would to process our paperwork. The way it works is once approved you have to marry within a 90 day time frame and they can stay. I wonder, if we marry in the Sacrament of Matrimony, then once the papers process get married civilly, would the Church do that?

**The benefits and the legalities surrounding the Sacrament don’t matter to us, just the ability to bring ourselves together does. ** Does the Church have to put through the government paperwork as part of the ceremony?

I guess this is a legal question, but it would be sad if the Church, in the form of something so vital as Matrimony, denied two Orthodox Catholics because they were beholden to the state.

Thanks for reading and God bless you all!

I think the OP’s concern is quite the opposite. He/she has planned the wedding but the INS process is delayed and documents will not be ready in time. The OP wants a religious only wedding to be followed later by the civil marriage when the INS paperwork is completed.

The OP himself said the reason he wants a religious wedding is so he and his future wife can live together as husband and wife. Or as puzzleannie said, so they can share the marriage bed.

 

[puzzleannie]

I think the OP’s concern is quite the opposite. He/she has planned the wedding but the INS process is delayed and documents will not be ready in time. The OP wants a religious only wedding to be followed later by the civil marriage when the INS paperwork is completed.

if he is marrying in the US the Church must follow the civil law, thought I explained that.
he should get the advice of his attorney but attempting to marry “early” in this way might jeopardize his dealings with the INS

my original point was OP should have seen the priest first, when marriage was first broached, before even starting the rest of this, then he would know where he stands and have the benefit of the priest’s help from the get go.

 

[Brendan]

In the United States the witness to a marriage in any religious ceremony is also the witness for the state, and so yes the civil law documents and reporting must be complied with, and so must immigration laws.
That is still not a bar to couples who must marry civilly, here or elsewhere, because of an immigration situation. It merely means they may have to wait to “live as husband and wife” ie enjoy the privileges of the marriage bed in the old fashioned term, until the marriage can be witnessed by the Church. dioceses deal with these situations all the time, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel for every case.

You are correct that the witness of Sacramental marriage is often also the witness for the civil marriage. But neither the Church nor US law require the person to witness a civil marriage.

In my example from the first page, my wife and I were married in the Church with a priest as the Sacramental witness. He did was not the witness of my wife and I entering into a civil contract of marriage, because we did not.

There were no legal requirements for us to enter into such a contract at that time, nor was there a legal requirement (canonical nor civil) for the priest to witness a civil contract.

My point ( to all) is that the OP is on solid ground in requesting that the Church provide the Sacrament of Marriage and while contracting a civil marriage at a later time.

It breaks no laws, canonical or civil.