My cousin and her...man she married

[Stylus]

My cousin is Catholic, though not very practicing. She recently married a man of a different religion in his church. My mom says that the marriage is not valid and therefore she does not refer to him as my cousin’s husband. Should I also not acknowledge their marriage?

 

[deb1]

Stylus:

My cousin is Catholic, though not very practicing. She recently married a man of a different religion in his church. My mom says that the marriage is not valid and therefore she does not refer to him as my cousin’s husband. Should I also not acknowledge their marriage?

How do you not acknowledge the marriage? What kind of actions do you take to let them know that you don’t consider the marriage real? Anything that I could think of would be rude and uncharitable.

Personally, I don’t know what the rules are about marrying outside the Catholic church. I am only in RICA. But I think that being rude to this couple would only serve as a bad witness for the Catholic faith. For all we know the man might be on his way toward Catholism.

 

[Madia]

My mom says that the marriage is not valid and therefore she does not refer to him as my cousin’s husband. Should I also not acknowledge their marriage?

First off, make sure you have all the information concerning the marriage. Once you do, consult The Code of Canon Law and/or ask on the Canon Law forum at EWTN to find out whether or not the marriage is valid:

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM
ewtn.com/vexperts/question.asp

If the marriage is invalid then I’d suggest letting your cousin know so that she can convalidate her marriage in the Catholic Church. To tell her her marriage is valid when you know it is not would be a sin against charity. However, make sure you have all the facts first so you know for sure if the marriage is invalid.

 

[Ham1]

Your cousin may be validly married or she may not. She may have received a dispensation of form to be allowed to marry in a non-catholic Church. Either way, you don’t gain much or do much good by investigating her marriage and then telling her it is invalid…unless you think she’ll be particularly receptive to such a thing.

The best thing…presume the marriage is valid (you don’t know that it’s not).

And pray for her.