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Author Topic: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?  (Read 3659 times)

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Offline BernardoGui

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Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
« on: December 03, 2022, 08:45:16 AM »
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  • If only a valid Catholic priest can administer the sacraments(marriage being one of them) then doesn't it
    stand to reason that all the people who were married in false churches and sects or the local courthouse or by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas, aren't really married at all?
    If they then get a divorce are they free to marry in the Catholic faith since their first "marriage" wasn't really valid?


    Offline Gunter

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #1 on: December 03, 2022, 10:33:19 AM »
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  • A baptized Catholic cannot marry in a non-catholic religion or ceremony. To Novus ordo persons marrying our validly married because they belong to the same religion and took a vow of marriage.  Same goes for two Jєωs or any other religion. That's my understanding.


    Offline SimpleMan

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #2 on: December 03, 2022, 11:37:59 AM »
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  • If only a valid Catholic priest can administer the sacraments(marriage being one of them) then doesn't it
    stand to reason that all the people who were married in false churches and sects or the local courthouse or by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas, aren't really married at all?
    If they then get a divorce are they free to marry in the Catholic faith since their first "marriage" wasn't really valid?
    In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, the priest does not administer the sacrament.  The spouses administer it to each other.

    Marriages of people, neither of whom is a member of the Catholic Church, are presumed valid unless it can be proven otherwise.  Non-Catholics are not subject to the Church's canon law on marriage (canonical form, etc.)

    Offline Comrade

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #3 on: December 03, 2022, 07:23:05 PM »
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  • A baptized Catholic cannot marry in a non-catholic religion or ceremony. To Novus ordo persons marrying our validly married because they belong to the same religion and took a vow of marriage.  Same goes for two Jєωs or any other religion. That's my understanding.
    By Catholic, do you mean someone instructed in the Faith? There are many souls who were baptized and were never instructed. Just because they were baptized does not necessarily you mean their non catholic marriage is invalid.

    Online Ladislaus

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #4 on: December 03, 2022, 07:24:57 PM »
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  • By Catholic, do you mean someone instructed in the Faith? There are many souls who were baptized and were never instructed. Just because they were baptized does not necessarily you mean their non catholic marriage is invalid.

    No.  Canon Law states that anyone who was baptized a Catholic, even if they were not raised Catholic, are required to marry before a priest for the marriage to be valid.  Obviously they are not guilty of fornication if they're ignorant regarding the status of their "marriage," but it's not valid in the eyes of the Church and therefore of God.


    Offline BernardoGui

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #5 on: December 03, 2022, 08:06:43 PM »
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  • Thanks for all the responses but perhaps I didn't make myself clear.
    In the following hypothetical situation...let's say I, or some other single Catholic gentleman,
    were to meet a divorced woman who was not baptized Catholic, nor was their former spouse.
    She had been married in a civil ceremony or whatever kind of pastor that wasn't Catholic.
    Is she considered to have been never married and therefore able to date?

    Offline Comrade

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #6 on: December 03, 2022, 08:26:29 PM »
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  • Thanks for all the responses but perhaps I didn't make myself clear.
    In the following hypothetical situation...let's say I, or some other single Catholic gentleman,
    were to meet a divorced woman who was not baptized Catholic, nor was their former spouse.
    She had been married in a civil ceremony or whatever kind of pastor that wasn't Catholic.
    Is she considered to have been never married and therefore able to date?
    18] [All marriages where both parties are not baptized] The Church's law does not govern infidels.  Such persons are capable of contracting natural marriages that are valid and lawful inasmuch as they meet the conditions established for validity and liciety according to whatever governing body to whom they answer.

    Offline Comrade

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #7 on: December 03, 2022, 08:28:11 PM »
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  • No.  Canon Law states that anyone who was baptized a Catholic, even if they were not raised Catholic, are required to marry before a priest for the marriage to be valid.  Obviously they are not guilty of fornication if they're ignorant regarding the status of their "marriage," but it's not valid in the eyes of the Church and therefore of God.
    Thanks for the correction. 


    Offline BernardoGui

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #8 on: December 03, 2022, 08:33:25 PM »
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  • 18] [All marriages where both parties are not baptized] The Church's law does not govern infidels.  Such persons are capable of contracting natural marriages that are valid and lawful inasmuch as they meet the conditions established for validity and liciety according to whatever governing body to whom they answer.
    Just to be clear, I'm not trying to look for loopholes in Church law. Just trying to understand what constitutes a valid marriage outside the realm of Catholicism.
    How could a Mormon marriage, or one conducted by a witchdoctor, or lesbian Episcopalian, or Elvis impersonator be valid in any way? 
    Were any of Elizabeth Taylor's marriages valid? 

    Online Quo vadis Domine

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #9 on: December 03, 2022, 08:39:37 PM »
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  • No.  Canon Law states that anyone who was baptized a Catholic, even if they were not raised Catholic, are required to marry before a priest for the marriage to be valid.  Obviously they are not guilty of fornication if they're ignorant regarding the status of their "marriage," but it's not valid in the eyes of the Church and therefore of God.

    I question this. It would stand to reason that if this were true then all validly baptized Protestants who contracted a marriage would necessarily be in an invalid marriage. Can you quote the Canon that supports this ? 
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    Offline Nadir

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #10 on: December 03, 2022, 09:08:34 PM »
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  • Just to be clear, I'm not trying to look for loopholes in Church law. Just trying to understand what constitutes a valid marriage outside the realm of Catholicism.
    How could a Mormon marriage, or one conducted by a witchdoctor, or lesbian Episcopalian, or Elvis impersonator be valid in any way?
    Were any of Elizabeth Taylor's marriages valid?
    Again, the ministers of marriage are the couple themselves, however to be legal the contract must be have witnesses.

    A mormon marriage would be valid, as long as the spouses were not committed to a previous marriage and they intended to stay married to each other till one spouse dies.

    I haven’t followed Taylor’s saga, but I would assume that only her first marriage would be valid, as long as her first spouse was free to marry her. There are no special laws for actors.

    The witch doctor and the Elvis impersonator would not make any difference to the validity of a natural marriage provided the conditions were right as far as the intentions of the prospective spouses were concerned. After all, the ministers of marriage are the couple themselves.
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    Online Ladislaus

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #11 on: December 03, 2022, 10:22:01 PM »
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  • I question this. It would stand to reason that if this were true then all validly baptized Protestants who contracted a marriage would necessarily be in an invalid marriage. Can you quote the Canon that supports this ?

    The have to be baptized in the Catholic Church to Catholic parents.  If they were baptized by Prots and raised by Prots, their marriages would be valid.

    Taught not only at STAS, but explained to me also by several Catholic priests, including then-Father Sanborn:
    Quote
    Canon 1070

    § 1. That marriage is null that is contracted between a non-baptized person and a person baptized in the Catholic Church or converted to her from heresy or schism.

    Canon 1094

    Only those marriages are valid that are contracted in the presence of the pastor, or the local Ordinary, or a priest delegated by either, and two witnesses, according to the rules expressed in the canons that follow, with due regard for the exceptions mentioned in Canons 1098 and 1099.

    Canon 1099

    § 1. [The following] are bound to observe the above-stated form:

    1. ° All those baptized into the Catholic Church or converted to her from heresy or schism, even if these or the others have left her later, as long as they enter marriage among themselves;

    2. With due regard for the prescription of § 1, n. 1, non-Catholics, whether baptized or non-baptized, if they contract among themselves, are not in any way bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage; likewise, those born of non-Catholics, even if they are baptized in the Church, [but] who from infancy grow up in heresy or schism or infidelity or without any religion, as often as they contract marriage with a non-Catholic.

    So that last part refers to those who, somehow (how, I don't know) were baptized in the Catholic Church but whose parents were non-Catholics and then raised them from infancy as non-Catholics.

    Actually, now that I think of it, I recall the case of that Jєωιѕн boy raised by Pope Pius IX.  So, a Catholic nurse saw an infant with Jєωιѕн parents who was thought to be dying.  So she baptized the boy.  Yet the boy lived.  Well, the boy was baptized by a Catholic (as a Catholic) but was the child of non-Catholics and raised as a non-Catholic (i.e. as a Jєω).  Had he grown up and married a Jєωess, his marriage would not have been invalid, since, although he was baptized Catholic, his parents were non-Catholics and he would have been raised as a non-Catholic.  As it was, however, Pope Pius IX had other plans.

    This is actually a very interesting story (even if a slight tangent) --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortara_case

    For a while, the NO made an exception for those who formally renounced the faith, but Ratzinger actually rolled that back in 2009 because it was causing massive confusion.

    So this is a NO Canon Law commentary --
    https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2019/09/26/why-cant-an-ex-catholic-marry-validly-outside-the-church/
    Quote
    Effectively this means that the Church now holds everyone who was baptized a Catholic, or received into the Catholic Church after baptism in another Christian denomination, must marry in accord with canonical form (or be dispensed from this requirement in advance ...), or else the wedding is invalid.


    Offline BernardoGui

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #12 on: December 03, 2022, 10:29:03 PM »
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  • Again, the ministers of marriage are the couple themselves, however to be legal the contract must be have witnesses.

    A mormon marriage would be valid, as long as the spouses were not committed to a previous marriage and they intended to stay married to each other till one spouse dies.

    I haven’t followed Taylor’s saga, but I would assume that only her first marriage would be valid, as long as her first spouse was free to marry her. There are no special laws for actors.

    The witch doctor and the Elvis impersonator would not make any difference to the validity of a natural marriage provided the conditions were right as far as the intentions of the prospective spouses were concerned. After all, the ministers of marriage are the couple themselves.
    I'm not disputing what you said if this is indeed the Church's teaching, it nevertheless doesn't make sense to me since the prospective spouses could make vows to each other allowing for a pluralistic or polyamorous arrangement, which we are seeing more and more of these days. This has always been widespread in pagan cultures. Up until the last century or so arranged marriages were pretty much the norm, even in Christendom. In these cases it doesn't even seem like the consent of each spouse was a consideration. 

    Online Ladislaus

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #13 on: December 03, 2022, 10:37:17 PM »
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  • So the only conditions under which someone who was baptized in the Catholic Church could validly contract marriage without the prescribed form (priest officiating, two witnesses, etc. etc.) --

    Both of the child's parents were non-Catholics and the child was raised a non-Catholic from infancy (such as in Mortara case).

    Cases where this would not apply --

    1) Child is baptized Catholic to one or more Catholic parents, but the parents decide to raise him as a pagan (let him decide what he wants to believe later, for example).
    2) Child is baptized Catholc to one or more Catholic parents who apostasize after the child hits the age of reason and then continue raising him non-Catholic.
    3) Child is baptized Catholic to two non-Catholic parents, but they decide to raise him as a Catholic.


    Online Ladislaus

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    Re: Are People Married In Non Catholic Ceremonies Really Married?
    « Reply #14 on: December 03, 2022, 10:44:07 PM »
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  • I'm not disputing what you said if this is indeed the Church's teaching, it nevertheless doesn't make sense to me since the prospective spouses could make vows to each other allowing for a pluralistic or polyamorous arrangement, which we are seeing more and more of these days. This has always been widespread in pagan cultures. Up until the last century or so arranged marriages were pretty much the norm, even in Christendom. In these cases it doesn't even seem like the consent of each spouse was a consideration.

    That's an entirely separate question.  Basically the couple have to at least know that marriage consists of a permanent relationship for the procreation of children, and freely intend to enter it anyway.  This is presumed unless prove otherwise, and the standard of proof for this is extremely high.  Notice, they have to know that marriage is intended to be permanent and for the procreation of children.  It doesn't matter that they might not INTEND to have it be permanent.  If they have this idea of marriage that it's just a romantic ceremony and a temporary arrangement just for legal/tax purposes or to have a ceremony that merely symbolizes their fornication, that would render it invalid ... though again it would have to be proven without a shadow of a doubt.