Should a Catholic attend an invalid marriage?

DIFFICULT MORAL ISSUES: The moral legitimacy of attending such a ceremony is determined by several factors, including our duty to avoid scandal and the near occasion of sin.

P. Do faithful Catholics commit a sin by attending a marriage of a non-practicing Catholic that is not celebrated in the Catholic Church? Also, if they are practicing Catholics, but not getting married in the Catholic Church, are we allowed to attend? I have received different answers from different priests; It’s very confusing. – Maria.

R. There are two questions here: whether the marriages will be valid (that is, whether they will come into existence); and if, if they are not valid, you will be able to legitimately attend the weddings.

Are marriages valid?

The first question concerns validity. A valid marriage is a real marriage. When celebrated among baptized Christians it is a sacrament.

The opposite, an invalid marriage, is not a real marriage, it is an appearance of marriage.

For a valid marriage to occur, several things are required, related to the ability of the spouses to enter into marriage, with the nature of their consent and with the shape where the marriage is celebrated. His question raises questions specifically about the third.

For a marriage to be valid, a baptized or otherwise confirmed Catholic is required to contract his or her marriage before an authorized minister of the Church, usually a priest or deacon, and before two witnesses.

A dispensation from the first requirement may be received from the local bishop. This could occur, for example, if a Catholic who is marrying a Protestant woman wishes to marry according to the other party’s Protestant form. In such a case, the Catholic may be free to marry before a Protestant minister.

Without this dispensation, a marriage attempted by a Catholic would be invalid.

Regarding the two categories of Catholics you mention—“practicing” and “non-practicing” Catholics who do not marry in the Catholic Church—canon law says the following:

“The form… has to be observed if at least one of the couple has been baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it” (1117, modified in 2009).

This canon makes clear that the conditions of proper form apply not only to practicing Catholics but also to non-practicing Catholics.

Need for proper form

So why is a proper form required for a valid marriage?

In past centuries, the Catholic Church faced the problem of clandestine marriages. These were situations in which a couple celebrated their marriage in secret. Because such marriages needed pastoral care, even in the difficult event that the couple’s communion was broken, the Church needed a way to verify that the marriages had taken place in the first place.

Due to the clandestine nature of marriage, the Church frequently found itself in the intolerable situation of not being able to prove that marriages were real.

To address the problems associated with clandestine marriages, the Council of Trent instituted certain mandatory rules for the celebration of marriages and established them as a condition for their validity, meaning that lack of conformity with the proper form makes the marriage is void from the beginning.

Material or formal cooperation

Which brings us to the key question: Is it legitimate to attend the wedding of a couple who marries invalidly?

The Catholic Church has no specific teaching on the issue of assisting invalid marriages, and Catholic commentators They take different positions on the issue.

In my opinion, attending such a ceremony is morally dangerous and often illicit, but if certain precautions are taken, it can be legitimate. Let me explain it.

To evaluate this question morally, we must consider what is called material cooperation in another person’s wrongdoing. Material cooperation refers to some act by which we unintentionally facilitate another person’s bad action.

It is not difficult to see that by attending the ceremony of a couple who is invalidly married, we facilitate—even if only minimally—their wrongdoing. But we have no intention of facilitating it; We only accept the damage caused by our attendance to avoid other damage that would occur if we did not attend.

To determine whether accepting this type of harm is legitimate, we must answer the question: Do the harms—the negative effects—caused by attending the wedding ceremony constitute stronger reasons for attending than the harms caused by not attending?

Alienation or scandal

The biggest negative effect of not attending the ceremony is that you distance yourself from the couple and, perhaps, other family members and friends. Of course, you want to provide as much support as is compatible with good morals and you don’t want to alienate relationships unnecessarily.

The strongest negative effect (although not the only one) of attending the ceremony is the risk that your presence there will cause scandal, that is, that it will lead another to sin.

If you have good reason to think that attending the ceremony might cause scandal, even inadvertently, you should not attend, unless you think that not attending would have an even worse effect, and that is difficult to imagine.

A possible example of a worse effect of not attending the wedding would be that it would cause another person, someone who would otherwise be open to entering or returning to the Catholic Church, to feel so alienated by your decision that all that openness would disappear.

There are several ways in which a scandal can occur.

The first refers to the couple themselves. They know you are a committed Catholic. If you attend the wedding, your presence may mistakenly reinforce in their minds the conclusion that what they are doing is legitimate and that they are really getting married.

A second possibility concerns other people who know that you are Catholic. They may conclude that you think what the couple is doing is legitimate, which could make it easier for them to mistakenly conclude that getting married under similar circumstances is not morally prohibited.

Finally, if you take your children to the ceremony, you risk setting them a very bad example about the nature of marriage, an example that could have tragically bad effects later in life when they are considering getting married.

Near occasion of sin

Another consideration. If you attend, you may feel pressure to offer praise or flattery that implies you believe the marriage is real (“It was a beautiful ceremony”; “I love your dress”). Or, out of a desire for human respect, you may stay silent when you really should say something.

You know that if you express your beliefs, it can come across as “judgmental” or “mean,” things you rightly want to avoid, because they might be more alienating than not attending in the first place. All of this could tempt you to compromise your values ​​by acting as if you think the partner is doing something good.

If you believe that attending the wedding would place you close to sinning in these ways, you should not attend.

Final considerations

But if you can confidently avoid scandal, and if you are reasonably certain that you would not be exposing yourself to a near occasion of sin, then attending the ceremony may be morally legitimate.

In my opinion, you should consider certain measures to help avoid giving the impression that you support what the couple does.

First, communicate, without any harshness, to the couple that you do not believe that your marriage is valid and explain the reasons for your conclusion.

Second, decline any invitation to participate in the wedding ceremony, whether as maid of honor or best man, reader or musician, candlelighter or guestbook keeper (in fact, these are all examples of cooperation). formal and, as such, would never be legitimate).

Third, avoid attending the reception or giving a gift and sit in an inconspicuous place (for example, the back) in the church or wedding hall.

Taking precautions like these will communicate to your partner, directly or indirectly, your beliefs about the morality of what they are doing. And other people will be less likely to draw morally erroneous conclusions from your presence at the ceremony, conclusions that could negatively affect their own conduct and eternal destiny.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in National Catholic Register.