Wedding Officiated by a Deacon

[jessep28]

Good Evening,

I’m going to be part of the wedding party for a couple Roman Catholic friends of mine getting married this weekend. I found out tonight during the rehearsal that the parish’s Deacon will be officiating the wedding, not an ordained Pastor/Priest, which kind of surprised me.

Since this isn’t the norm, are there any special provisions or approvals that have to be made beforehand by either the Priest or the Bishop?

Thank you.

 

[adrift]

Good Evening,

I’m going to be part of the wedding party for a couple Roman Catholic friends of mine getting married this weekend. I found out tonight during the rehearsal that the parish’s Deacon will be officiating the wedding, not an ordained Pastor/Priest, which kind of surprised me.

Since this isn’t the norm, are there any special provisions or approvals that have to be made beforehand by either the Priest or the Bishop?

Thank you.

No a deacon may witness a marriage for the Church. My son also had a deacon even though a priest said the Mass:shrug:

 

[PatriceA]

No a deacon may witness a marriage for the Church. My son also had a deacon even though a priest said the Mass:shrug:

Yes, they can. If its just the Catholic wedding ceremony and not the nuptial mass.

 

[adrift]

Yes, they can. If its just the Catholic wedding ceremony and not the nuptial mass.

I think you misread what was said.
I was answering this question

Since this isn’t the norm, are there any special provisions or approvals that have to be made beforehand by either the Priest or the Bishop?

So the answer is no there aren’t any specila provision or approvals that have to be made beforehand.
Notice that after I said “no” I wrote a deacon may witness a marriage for the Church.

Sorry that I confused you.

 

[PatriceA]

I think you misread what was said.
I was answering this question

So the answer is no there aren’t any specila provision or approvals that have to be made beforehand.
Notice that after I said “no” I wrote a deacon may witness a marriage for the Church.

Sorry that I confused you.

I give up, you all holier than thou Catholics win. Yes. I’m a liberal Catholic, happy?
\

 

[Vico]

Good Evening,

I’m going to be part of the wedding party for a couple Roman Catholic friends of mine getting married this weekend. I found out tonight during the rehearsal that the parish’s Deacon will be officiating the wedding, not an ordained Pastor/Priest, which kind of surprised me.

Since this isn’t the norm, are there any special provisions or approvals that have to be made beforehand by either the Priest or the Bishop?

Thank you.

The witness can be a bishop, priest, or deacon as long as the Catholic marriage is not to an Eastern Catholic, who only allow bishop or priest to bless the marriage.

CIC Canon 1111[1] grants to the local ordinary and the parish priest the ability to delegate to deacons the facility (even a general facility) to assist at marriages within the limits of their territory.

 

[adrift]

I give up, you all holier than thou Catholics win. Yes. I’m a liberal Catholic, happy?
\

What caused this off the wall comment. What does any of this have to do with you being liberal.

 

[paperwight66]

In our parish, our Permanent Deacon regularly does baptisms and weddings that don’t involve a Nuptial Mass.

 

[PrayForMeStJude]

I give up, you all holier than thou Catholics win. Yes. I’m a liberal Catholic, happy?
\

Where on earth did this come from?

 

[churchsecretary]

Good Evening,
Since this isn’t the norm, are there any special provisions or approvals that have to be made beforehand by either the Priest or the Bishop?

Thank you.

Yes, the Pastor of the parish must approve the wedding as well. All weddings have plenty of paperwork to go with them…even when both parties are Catholic & never married before. The Pastor is the one ultimately responsible for making sure that the paperwork is OK & that the couple is legitimately able to marry. Our deacon occasionally performs a wedding ceremony, and does quite a few baptisms. I’m afraid, with the shortage of priests, both will become much more commonplace.

 

[agnes_therese]

I give up, you all holier than thou Catholics win. Yes. I’m a liberal Catholic, happy?
\

Wow, nobody said anything to prompt this. What does a question about a deacon have to do with someone being a “liberal Catholic”?

 

[1ke]

the parish’s Deacon will be officiating the wedding, not an ordained Pastor/Priest, which kind of surprised me.

Why did this surprise you?

And, Catholic deacons are ordained. They have received Holy Orders.

 

[Deo_Gratias42]

As others have reiterated, a deacon is an ordained minister in the Church and can perform baptisms and officiate weddings. If you don’t want a deacon to officiate the wedding, have a Nuptial Mass.

 

[929dad]

What may be important to note is that the couple confers the sacrement on each other, it is not conferred by the clergy (deacon, priest, etc.).

It is for this reason that the bride and groom, in the context of a nuptial mass, are permitted to act as an EMHC to each other.

Of course, the sacrament of matrimony is equally valid when conferred in a Liturgy of the Word or a Nuptial Mass.

 

[Sarabande]

As others have mentioned, it is permitted and I don’t believe any special provisions need to be done, with the exception of maybe receiving permission by the pastor, based on the Catholic weddings I’ve cantored where the deacon witnessed the marriage. The first one I did was at a parish where there was only one priest. The parish, though, had a lot of weddings and he couldn’t possibly do all of them, so the couples had no choice, but to use one of their many deacons. They did not have a mass, but really wanted to have communion for their wedding, so the pastor permitted them to have a communion service using already consecrated hosts.

The other weddings were either just ceremonies, or also had a priest there for the wedding to do a mass. For two of them, the bride’s or the groom’s fathers were deacons and they did the witnessing of the marriage along with a parish priest to celebrate the mass.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Good Evening,

I’m going to be part of the wedding party for a couple Roman Catholic friends of mine getting married this weekend. I found out tonight during the rehearsal that the parish’s Deacon will be officiating the wedding, not an ordained Pastor/Priest, which kind of surprised me.

Since this isn’t the norm, are there any special provisions or approvals that have to be made beforehand by either the Priest or the Bishop?

Thank you.

Yes, a deacon may assist at a wedding. “Assist at” means he asks for and receives the couples’ consent in the name of the Church. The deacon must have been delegated to assist. This delegation may come from the Ordinary or parish priest (called pastor in some countries). He may have a general delegation or he may have been specifically delegated for this wedding.

 

[puzzleannie]

Good Evening,

I’m going to be part of the wedding party for a couple Roman Catholic friends of mine getting married this weekend. I found out tonight during the rehearsal that the parish’s Deacon will be officiating the wedding, not an ordained Pastor/Priest, which kind of surprised me.

Since this isn’t the norm, are there any special provisions or approvals that have to be made beforehand by either the Priest or the Bishop?

Thank you.

it is the norm and no special permission is required where bishops have given the deacons this authority. The delegation is given by the bishop and does not need to be requested for every wedding, unless the bishop has not given that delegation when the deacons are ordained.

what it means is that there obviously no nuptial Mass, which requires a priest, so it will only by the rite of Matrimony, possibly with Liturgy of the Word and/or a communion service.

If the deacon is asked to witness a marriage outside his diocese he will have to get permission from that bishop as well as from his own bishop.

 

[jessep28]

Thank you all for the prompt answers. Since Marriage is confessed to be a Sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church, that’s what threw me for a loop.

 

[FAB]

Good Evening,

I’m going to be part of the wedding party for a couple Roman Catholic friends of mine getting married this weekend. I found out tonight during the rehearsal that the parish’s Deacon will be officiating the wedding, not an ordained Pastor/Priest, which kind of surprised me.

Since this isn’t the norm, are there any special provisions or approvals that have to be made beforehand by either the Priest or the Bishop?

Thank you.

A deacon is an ordained minister in the Church, one of his facalities is to wittness weddings. No special permision needed unless he does so out of parish that he is assigned, but even then the permission comes form the pastor were the wedding is taking place.

Peace,
Dcn. FAB

 

[Phemie]

It is for this reason that the bride and groom, in the context of a nuptial mass, are permitted to act as an EMHC to each other.

No, they are not. In fact, it’s expressly forbidden.

Redemptionis Sacramentum [94.] It is not licit for the faithful “to take . . . by themselves . . . and, still less, to hand . . . from one to another” the sacred host or the sacred chalice.[181] Moreover, in this regard, the abuse is to be set aside whereby spouses administer Holy Communion to each other at a Nuptial Mass.