Nuptial Mass where one member of the couple doesn't answer

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A friend just messaged me on Facebook to ask me a question and it’s far above my pay grade.

At his Nuptial Mass he did not hear his wife answer “I do” to the question “will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”

He thought at the time that she either answered quietly or was caught off guard by the question and he didn’t hear the answer. He was always told that she was unlikely to be able to have children due to a medical condition.

A few years after their wedding he found artificial birth control pills. Confronting his wife she admitted she had been on them the whole time. Remembering the “I do” problem at his wedding, he asked her and she admitted that she did not answer the question at the wedding.

The priest did not stop the ceremony and went on with it.

She refuses to stop using artificial birth control and thus for the past little while (several months? a year?) he has been living as a roommate with her.

His questions are -
Is his marriage invalid?
Does he have good grounds for annulment?

My expertise is more in the early church and the Council of Trent…
Help me help him?
 
Good advice.

My first advice to him was to contact the priest that celebrated his wedding to see if he remembered anything odd about the vows. He said he would feel awkward, since the priest might feel he was “accusing” him of not stopping the wedding to get clarification when he should have.
 
tlm4life said:
A friend just messaged me on Facebook to ask me a question and it’s far above my pay grade.

At his Nuptial Mass he did not hear his wife answer “I do” to the question “will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”

He thought at the time that she either answered quietly or was caught off guard by the question and he didn’t hear the answer. He was always told that she was unlikely to be able to have children due to a medical condition.

A few years after their wedding he found artificial birth control pills. Confronting his wife she admitted she had been on them the whole time. Remembering the “I do” problem at his wedding, he asked her and she admitted that she did not answer the question at the wedding.

The priest did not stop the ceremony and went on with it.

She refuses to stop using artificial birth control and thus for the past little while (several months? a year?) he has been living as a roommate with her.

His questions are -
Is his marriage invalid?
Does he have good grounds for annulment?

My expertise is more in the early church and the Council of Trent…
Help me help him?
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Is the use of the pills to treat a medical condition?

Invalid consent exists if there is a positive will to exclude an essential of matrimony. If there was a justified reason to not become pregnant then it excuses from the obligation of having children. Even with birth control there is a chance of pregnancy. Would she accept the child in that event?
 
Vico said:
Is the use of the pills to treat a medical condition?

Invalid consent exists if there is a positive will to exclude an essential of matrimony. **If there was a justified reason to not become pregnant then it excuses from the obligation of having children. ** Even with birth control there is a chance of pregnancy. Would she accept the child in that event?
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There is no “obligation to have children.” There is an obligation to be open to life.
 
tlm4life said:
The priest did not stop the ceremony and went on with it.
1ke;13122548:
Odd.
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It happens.

At one wedding in my parish the couple answered “No” to the same question. The priest, who was filling in and was not the one who had prepared the couple, was so taken aback he didn’t know what to do so he continued with the ceremony.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
There is no “obligation to have children.” There is an obligation to be open to life.
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I referring to, " providing for the preservation of mankind" as given by Pope Pius XII:The matrimonial contract, which confers on the married couple the right to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of providing for the preservation of mankind. This is the characteristic service which gives rise to the peculiar value of their state, the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the State, the Church itself, depend for their existence, in the order established by God, on fruitful marriages. Therefore, to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life.

Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called “indications,” may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life. From this it follows that the observance of the natural sterile periods may be lawful, from the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned. If, however, according to a reasonable and equitable judgment, there are no such grave reasons either personal or deriving from exterior circumstances, the will to avoid the fecundity of their union, while continuing to satisfy to the full their sensuality, can only be the result of a false appreciation of life and of motives foreign to sound ethical principles.

Address to Midwives, Given by His Holiness Pope Pius XII, 29 October 1951
 
The wife was clearly acting dishonestly and practicing a deception.

What I find odd about the story is that the husband never knew, apparently never even suspected, what was going on. How did he allow himself to be taken in like that? Getting married to a woman without really knowing her very well is a naive thing to do, to say the least.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
There is no “obligation to have children.” There is an obligation to be open to life.
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While you are correct there is no obligation to have children, many people do not end up having any for a variety of reasons, a permanent intention against children at the time of exchange of consent is an impediment to valid marriage.

There is a difference between not ending up with children and setting out not to have any.
 
tlm4life said:
My first advice to him was to contact the priest that celebrated his wedding to see if he remembered anything odd about the vows. He said he would feel awkward, since the priest might feel he was “accusing” him of not stopping the wedding to get clarification when he should have.
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I would certainly ask the priest about this. I would not be surprised, however, if he could not remember this incident from a wedding some years ago.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
I would certainly ask the priest about this. I would not be surprised, however, if he could not remember this incident from a wedding some years ago.
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Perhaps the priest need not remember, if the OP has a video of the wedding.
 
At my friend’s wedding, she answered that question by saying, “many”.

The priest was taken aback because he misheard her answer and said, “You can’t say maybe!”

She clarified and said, “Yes, many” and they continued on.

It was clear however that he would not have continued the ceremony without the right answer.

(She ended up with 3 children: 2 right away and then a happy surprise baby 10+ years later.)

Posted from Catholic.com App for Android
 
1ke said:
In an investigation of nullity, you DO need witnesses.
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Yes, and it bears noting that this question about children does not have to be asked in order for the marriage to be presumed valid. Furthermore, silence in response to the question about children is not the same as saying “no.”

It seems to me that the woman’s subsequent behavior (contraception) is a “no” and so is of more concern.

Dan
 
1ke said:
In an investigation of nullity, you DO need witnesses.
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Yes, that was slightly tongue in cheek. If the bride says she did not answer in the affirmative to the question about accepting children, and has been contracepting the whole marriage, and has no intention of having children, then, yes, the witnesses need to be called and the questionnaires answered, but she has admitted to something that can be used to nullify the marriage.
 
BartholomewB said:
The wife was clearly acting dishonestly and practicing a deception.

What I find odd about the story is that the husband never knew, apparently never even suspected, what was going on. How did he allow himself to be taken in like that? Getting married to a woman without really knowing her very well is a naive thing to do, to say the least.
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Not to mention the fact that he found the contraceptive pills several years later. They obviously had not had children, so what did he figure was going on? Yes, I know that he was told that she was “unlikely” to have children, but didn’t they discuss children, etc.? Something is missing here.
 
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