Unconventional wedding and "ordination"

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A buddy of mine will be married soon. He and his live-in intended regard themselves as “practically married already”—you know the routine.

Anyway, they want all their friends to go online and get “ordained” through any of several quicky ordination “churches” like the Church of the Subgenius, et. al., so they can be “married” by all their friends collectively. (You fill out a form or answer questions, you may or may not pay a fee, and then you get “ordained.” I looked at some of the sites the couple suggested, and one even said it provided a fancy document with a seal, designed to “look official.”)

Of course, I’m not going to get ordained like that–it seems to me a mockery of the Sacrament, but should I or should I not attend the wedding?
 
Are either of them baptized Catholics? From what I understand, if either one of them are, and are not being married in a Cathoic Church or without dispensation, you should not attend.
 
I would agree with the previous post. By going to their wedding you would be showing your support for them.

matt
 
It seems whether or not you “could” go, you should not go.
At a minimum, you would be participating in a sham.
 
This sounds like the stupiest wedding ever. I wouldn’t go just on account of that. There’s got to be other dumb things happening there besides. You know - some stupid ritual that is embarrassing to everyone, but no one says anything out of politeness. Like an “earth dance” where all participants join hands and circle about. Or a fertility rite with the tossing of the fruits in the air.

Plus I imagine if they are this far gone from the whole idea of marriage being a sacrament and not a free-for-all, there is bound to be some mention of God as a woman, or other non-Catholic notions.

Plan an out of town trip so that you can honestly say to them, “I’m sorry I can’t attend your wedding; I’ll be out of town that weekend.”
 
About the Unconventional wedding and ordination, I really cannot judge the intent of the couple as to whether or not their intentions are rooted conscienciously in a form of anti-church (ie anti - catholicism) However, about the wedding itself it should be pointed out to them it is they who are the ones who are doing the marriage the sacrament of marriage (if there is a sacramentin this situation) is between the women and man - it’s not the priest who is marrying them. Also, I would ask to please don’t make a double mockery of sacraments of vocation (vocation = a call to life-long giving of ones self to service).
 
Well, first off, I would never consider going through with a phony “ordination.”

As for the couple, they say they are still trying to decide who will do the main conducting of vows, but they also want to do this thing where everybody “gets ordained” and helps.

I know nothing of the background of the bride. The groom has a Jewish father. I don’t know about his mother, but he doesn’t seem to belong to any particular faith.

He’s a nice guy, but I have had to distance myself from him now and again. A few years back when the economy was at its worst and I was job-hunting after a lay-off (I still am hunting, but that’s another story), I got seriously depressed and he tried to get me into some cultish thing he was involved in, the Landmark Forum/Landmark Education, which is a spin-off of Werner Erhard’s old “est” thing. I read up enough about it online to know I didn’t want to get within a mile of junk like that, and told him thank you no.
 
I should add the “service” will be outdoors and the reception in a rented indoor hall.
 
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seeker63:
A buddy of mine will be married soon. He and his live-in intended regard themselves as “practically married already”—you know the routine.

Anyway, they want all their friends to go online and get “ordained” through any of several quicky ordination “churches” like the Church of the Subgenius, et. al., so they can be “married” by all their friends collectively. (You fill out a form or answer questions, you may or may not pay a fee, and then you get “ordained.” I looked at some of the sites the couple suggested, and one even said it provided a fancy document with a seal, designed to “look official.”)

Of course, I’m not going to get ordained like that–it seems to me a mockery of the Sacrament, but should I or should I not attend the wedding?
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if your buddy and his friends are Catholic, this is a grave abuse and would probably result in automatic excommunication for everyone involved. if they are not Catholic, they better check with the civil authority and find out what is required for a valid marriage.
 
Actually, when he heard I converted to Catholicism last year his exact words were “what possessed you?” So no, I’m pretty sure he isn’t Catholic.

From my brief research into these…what I’ll call “mail order churches/ordinations”…most seem to take the position that the law doesn’t allow religious discrimination, and so will not weigh in on what religion is a real one and what religion is bogus, so these “churches” hold that if Church XYZ says Joe Blow is one of their ordained ministers, then he in fact is a minister, and as such can perform weddings.

But if you have so little regard for organized religion as that, wouldn’t it just be easier to declare yourself man and wife through a common law arrangement?

And let’s not even get into the whole bit about gay marriage ceremonies…

Anyway, the more and more I think about this wedding the more weirded out I get. I just need to think up a good excuse now for skipping it, because I’d initially said I’d try to make it—but that was before I knew how weird the service would be.
 
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seeker63:
A buddy of mine will be married soon. He and his live-in intended regard themselves as “practically married already”—you know the routine.

Anyway, they want all their friends to go online and get “ordained” through any of several quicky ordination “churches” like the Church of the Subgenius, et. al., so they can be “married” by all their friends collectively. (You fill out a form or answer questions, you may or may not pay a fee, and then you get “ordained.” I looked at some of the sites the couple suggested, and one even said it provided a fancy document with a seal, designed to “look official.”)

Of course, I’m not going to get ordained like that–it seems to me a mockery of the Sacrament, but should I or should I not attend the wedding?
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Isn’t that sort of a take off on the “Friends” wedding on TV ? Life imitating art…
 
Hmm. I don’t know. I think the last time I saw a “Friends” episode was when Tom Selleck was on there.

Anyway, I crunched the numbers and figured out I’ve been to three times as many funerals as weddings. But I rarely enjoy weddings as it is. They’re quite often in very bad taste. (I went to one ten years ago and was deeply embarrassed when the groom removed the bride’s garter with his teeth. Other guests later said, “You must not go to many weddings–that’s pretty much commonplace these days.”)

And I’m very cynical. I don’t care to listen to people get all mushy and declare, “Oh, our love is unlike any other in history! No two people have loved each other the way we do! Our love will never die!,” and then they get divorced a few years later.

And so many marriages these days are entered into for the wrong reasons. Most seem to marry because they’re sexually compatable. Others because they’re at the stage in life where society tells them they should marry, that it’s “the grown-up thing to do.” Two male friends have told me most men reach a point where they want a woman to tell them what to do! And it seems in most marriages now, it’s pretty much accepted that the wife has the final say in all things.

One friend had nothing in common with his girlfriend, but since they’d been together for eight years he felt he owed it to her to marry her. (She later cheated on him and they divorced.)

And immaturity and insecurity seem so much the order of the day. I’m 41, and it appears with my generation and the one after mine that after a male and female pair off they disappear from view. They often avoid their friends and kept to themselves. It’s as if they’d died or went into a witness protection program. And all too many young women these days seem very threatened by the idea of their men having friends.

I just am very cynical about the state of marriage these days. I’m not married, but I think I know what marriage ought to be, and I’m not seeing a lot of that now. I can’t say as I know many people my age or younger who have a marriage or relationship of which I’m envious. If marriage is nothing better than what I see all around me, you can have my share of it. Too many people have turned a sacrament into a life-support system for their neuroses.
 
This answer is easy…stay away…Make plans, go away, enjoy your weekend with your own family…Sorry, I cannot make it! This is a farce and a sacrilege. My question, are they going to have a real judge or minister there? Are they even going to get a marriage license? I don’t even think the township they are getting “married” in would accept a group of ministers performing this one? God help them!
 
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seeker63:
But I rarely enjoy weddings as it is. They’re quite often in very bad taste. (I went to one ten years ago and was deeply embarrassed when the groom removed the bride’s garter with his teeth. Other guests later said, “You must not go to many weddings–that’s pretty much commonplace these days.”).
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Saturday I was Sacristan at a friends wedding mass. He’s Catholic and teaches confirmation, she’s Protestant, and graciously agreed to a mass at their wedding. Its the first wedding of young Catholic friends I’ve attended since becoming Catholic myself. Very beautiful, stringed quarted, very uplifting, until the vows when he said “good times and bad, in sickness and in health, in hiking and skiing . . .” Oy. To me thats a mockery.
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seeker63:
And so many marriages these days are entered into for the wrong reasons. Most seem to marry because they’re sexually compatable. Others because they’re at the stage in life where society tells them they should marry, that it’s “the grown-up thing to do.”
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In one of his talks Christopher West states that when he was in charge of marriage prep at the Denver archdiocese, he felt the majority of his couples were marrying the person they were sleeping with when they turned 27 years old. Looking around at my family and friends, I’d say he hit the nail on the head.
 
Well, I appreciate that you see I’m not down on marriage totally—just marriage as it mostly appears to be these days. It just seems like some people are content to stay on the mansion’s front porch instead of going inside and seeing all that is available in there—to use an awkward analogy.
 
Catholics are not allowed to rewrite their marriage vows. This is highly unconventional and not acceptable.If they wanted to do something like that, they were obliged to wait until the reception and have a spoof wedding…or mock wedding. How did they sneak that one in???I bet the priest was stumped on that one. Or I at least hope he was.
 
Well, I have explained that neither of these people are Catholic, to my knowledge, so technically no Church law is being violated, though it is obvious they are mocking the seriousness of marriage.

I’m just seeing red flags as far as the question goes of me, as a Catholic, attending the service. It’s pretty clear to me I should steer clear of the “service.”
 
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stbruno:
Catholics are not allowed to rewrite their marriage vows. This is highly unconventional and not acceptable.If they wanted to do something like that, they were obliged to wait until the reception and have a spoof wedding…or mock wedding. How did they sneak that one in???I bet the priest was stumped on that one. Or I at least hope he was.
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The priest was so disappointed in the groom. He has them memorize their vows so that they are ingrained in their memory. Since the groom teaches confirmation, he particularly disappointed in the lack of reverence for what he was undertaking.
 
Well, this wedding is on July 4th, at 11am, outdoors in the Texas heat, but I still haven’t thought up a good excuse/lie for skipping. I really don’t wanna go to this thing. I wouldn’t want to go even if it was a good and proper church wedding with no mockery of the sacraments.

I just need to come up with an explanation that’s not gonna cause recriminations, ill feeling, and bad blood amongst me and all the friends expected there.
 
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