Question from Catholic Answers Show

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SyroMalankara said:
No problem with spending your entire lives together, no problem in even getting it legalized civilly, but the Church cannot allow the Liturgy of Matrimony if the spouses cannot ever complete the Liturgical Rite - it’d be like Mass with Communion omitted. There is no Mass.
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No playing dumb, here, but what do you mean by the bolded sentence? Maybe you can post a link here to the Liturgical Rite so I can read what it says…

thanks!
 
spedteacherita said:
No playing dumb, here, but what do you mean by the bolded sentence? Maybe you can post a link here to the Liturgical Rite so I can read what it says…

thanks!
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Consummation can be rightly considered the proper conclusion to the rite of marriage. It’s a very reasonable position to hold.

Without consummation, the marriage is valid, sacramental and ratified. But unless it’s consummated, it can still be dissolved. Only upon consummation does a valid, sacramental marriage become indissoluble, to be broken only by death.
 
I don’t know what all the rules are, but I attended my grandfather’s wedding, and it was held in our local Catholic Church. Both he and his bride were well past the childbearing age.
 
Kay_Cee said:
I don’t know what all the rules are, but I attended my grandfather’s wedding, and it was held in our local Catholic Church. Both he and his bride were well past the childbearing age.
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Kay Cee, what I’m understanding on this thread it’s the consummation of the marriage that matters the most. Those who cannot consummate their marriage are the problems.
 
So, the elderly seniors who met each other in the Catholic rest home decide to get married, side by side in the chapel, in their wheelchairs. Whether they could actually perform the “marital act” is questionable. Who believes the priest or deacon would actually refuse to marry them?

I believe there are actually scenarios like this.
 
spedteacherita said:
Hi, all…

I’ve been listening to the Catholic Answers show and Patrick has their Chaplain Father Serpa on.

Throughout the show there have been issues questioning the “conditions” for allowing marriage. Maybe I heard them wrong but I got the impression from a couple of the calls that if a couple is past childbearing age they are not allowed to marry? This, I understand, is because the sacrament of marriage is primarily for bringing children into the world?

Am I understanding this wrong?

Thanks all!

Rita
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Maybe I was listening to the same show. My ear caught another sort of related issue that had Fr. Serpa advising a single mother of an 8 year old daughter to not date or seek a husband until her daughter was out of high school. Sounded pretty strange to me. Fr. S. asked her why she wanted to find a husband and the woman replied that she would like to be married and have a father figure for her daughter. He advised against it. Strangest advice I ever heard. :confused:
 
spedteacherita said:
Kay Cee, what I’m understanding on this thread it’s the consummation of the marriage that matters the most. Those who cannot consummate their marriage are the problems.
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I have no idea if it was consummated or not. Not a subject I would have approached my grandfather with.

My point is that the wedding was held in a Catholic Church.
 
Kay_Cee said:
I have no idea if it was consummated or not. Not a subject I would have approached my grandfather with.

My point is that the wedding was held in a Catholic Church.
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Sorry, I misunderstood… 🤷
 
Kay_Cee said:
I have no idea if it was consummated or not. Not a subject I would have approached my grandfather with.

My point is that the wedding was held in a Catholic Church.
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Then the presumption is that there were no impediments.

If it were to be found out later that one or both of them had a permanent inability to consummate the marriage, then the marriage is invalid and can be annulled on those grounds.

If neither of them had the inability to consummate the marriage, but it wasn’t consummated anyway, the marriage remained valid. The difference is that if the marriage is unconsummated, it can be dissolved, i.e. ended.
 
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