Non religious marrages

[michael-kaw]

This post is simply out of curiosity, if or when I get married I would like to do so in the Catholic Church. But if an atheist couple were to get married not in a church would the couple (in the eyes of the church) technically be fornicating every time they had sex because the marriage was not a catholic one, or would it be valid like any other marriage

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

Assuming that the marriage was otherwise valid (for example, neither of them had been married previously) and that neither of them was baptized Catholic or Orthodox, their marriage at a courthouse, a hotel, etc. would be completely valid. Non-Catholics are not bound to the Catholic form of marriage.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Marriage was instituted by God long before Christ’s time on earth. Non-Christians contract valid natural marriages. Christ raised marriage to a Sacrament for Christians. However, non-Christians still marry validly as before.

 

[nunsuch]

Just one minor correction. Not all Christians recognize marriage as sacramental. For example, Congregationalists and many other Reformed Christian churches understand marriage as civil, not religious, even if there is a ceremony in a church (see the history of Puritan New England in the US).

 

[Dan_Defender]

Luther himself said marriage is not a sacrament, so probably it is not to most Protestants.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Not all Christians recognize marriage as sacramental.

You are correct about that. However, this is a Catholic forum, and the Catholic Church recognizes all valid marriages between baptized Christians as sacramental. Their possible ignorance of that fact does not change the situation.

 

[JulianN]

So does the Church. Unless one of them is Catholic and there was no dispensation from form.

 

[TheOldColonel]

It’s a natural marriage.