What Are You Looking For? Part 2: The Liturgy and the Sacraments

The Sacrament of Matrimony: Marriage between a Catholic and a Non-Catholic

The Sacrament of Matrimony:  Marriage between a Catholic and a Non-Catholic

                In looking at the Sacrament of Matrimony, you may be wondering what happens if a Catholic falls in love with a non-Catholic Christian, or even with someone who doesn’t practice any faith at all.  Can they still be sacramentally married? 

The Catechism refers to these two types of potential marriages as a mixed marriage, which would be the marriage of a Catholic Christian and someone from another Christian tradition, and a marriage of disparity of cult, which is a marriage between a Catholic Christian and a non-Christian.  “According to the law in force in the Latin Church, a mixed marriage needs for liceity the express permission of ecclesiastical authority.  In the case of disparity of cult an express dispensation from this impediment is required for the validity of the marriage.”  (CCC 1635)

So the couple can still be validly married within the Catholic Church, but it takes some doing.  The reason for this is that the Catholic Church views marriage as a sacrament, and as such She asks certain things of the couple.  By the Church granting its permission or dispensation, She is making sure the couple understands the obligations that go with being a sacramentally married Catholic – even if only one of the couple is Catholic.

What are these duties?  The Church asks that the Catholic bride (or groom) continue to be a practicing Catholic and that they not leave the Catholic Church to attend the church of their spouse.  The Church also obligates the Catholic groom (or bride) to make sure that any children are baptized and raised as Catholics.  Not as whatever the Christian tradition of the spouse is, if the spouse is anything.

A mixed marriage or a marriage of disparity of cult can be a very difficult situation to live in every day.  While promising to baptize and raise the children as Catholics might be easy sitting in a priest’s office before the marriage, it becomes quite another matter when it comes time to baptize them.  And Mom wants them dedicated to the Lord at her church.  And to go to Sunday School and Church with her.  And Dad wants them baptized and at Mass with him. 

Or when it comes time to go to school and Mom wants the kids in Catholic schools, but Dad wants them in some other school.  Or when Dad has to drive the kids to the Catechism classes Mom signed the kids up for because she had to work.  And Dad’s not even a Christian.

Or when it’s the first Sunday of their married life and the groom is up and getting ready for Mass, while bride wants to stay home because they’ve only been married a day and no one at her church expects to see her for a couple of weeks.

If you aren’t married, it’s so important to make sure the person you marry is on the same religious page as you.  If you are a Catholic, marry a Catholic.  Yes, there are ways around it, but you avoid a lot of future potential conflicts if you are both Catholic to begin with.  If you are both practicing Catholics, meeting your Sunday obligation of attendance at Mass, and committed to helping each other grow in your faith, you will avoid many potential problems in the future.  If your future bride (or groom) is willing to become Catholic, that’s okay.  But if the only reason your future groom (or bride) is becoming Catholic is so that you will marry them, you are setting yourself up for potential problems down the road. 

But what if you are a Catholic who is already married to a non-Catholic Christian or a non-Christian?  “In marriages with disparity of cult the Catholic spouse has a particular task: ‘For the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband.’ (1 Corinthians 7:14) It is a great joy for the Christian spouse and for the Church if this ‘consecration’ should lead to the free conversion of the other spouse to the Christian faith.”  (CCC 1637)

In mixed marriages, the same is true.  If you can faithfully, joyfully and with great love live your Catholic faith and all that entails, perhaps someday your spouse will come to see the beauty of the Church and decide to go through the RCIA process and convert.  Perhaps.  Whether your spouse is Christian, but not Catholic, or not a Christian at all, it is only through prayer, love and the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives that they will ever decide to become a Catholic.