Expert: Fr. Timothy Johnson - 10/15/2008

Question
Fr. Tim,

I am a Catholic and I am marrying a Presbyterian girl next year.  We are both practicing individuals who attend Church on a semi-regular basis and both have strong feelings for our faiths.  We are getting married in her Church and we have looked into having the marriage blessed by the Catholic Church.  The problem we see is that in doing so, we would be making a promise to raise our family in the Catholic Church.  Neither one of us wants to deny the other person's faith and I do not want to put her beliefs and her upbringing out of our lives when we get married.  But that is what we will be doing if we have the marriage blessed by the Catholic Church (unless we cross our fingers and don't intend to keep our promise, which we don't want to do).  How can I keep my faith while not denying my fiance her's when we get married?

Also, I have a high school friend who is now a Catholic priest.  He has stated that he cannot even attend the ceremony if it is not blessed by the Catholic Church.  Will the Catholic Church really not allow him to attend his friend's wedding?

Thanks for your time and help.

Joe

Answer
Hi, Joe:
Thanks for the question.
If you pursued getting the necessary permission for a mixed religion marriage, the only promise exacted of the Catholic is that he/she will do the best that he/she can do to raise the children Catholic.  I would encourage you both to go beyond "feelings" and stage of emotional attachment to your religious beliefs as if they were mere individual opinions or sentiments.  You could gain a lot by studying your respective religions with a view to learning more about objective truth.  People need to come to their individual religious expression based upon an actual investigation into the claims of respective religions.  For example, in my own Faith journey, I came to believe the historical claims of the Catholic Church as being the very Church that Jesus Christ founded.
You are already seeing the potential challenges of a mixed-religion marriage.
You as a Catholic need to get more serious about your duties and obligations as a Catholic, in order that this situation does not become for you a "de-facto" denying of your own religion.  Your fiance will need to have understanding, toleration and respect for your religious beliefs and practices as a Catholic.  As a Catholic, you need to look at two things:
1. Moving from the "semi-regular" attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to the REGULAR attendance at Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation.
2. Observe Canonical Form which the Church holds you to by her power of loosing and binding that Jesus Christ gave to St. Peter and all the other Apostles and their successors (the Catholic Bishops): to have a lawful an sacramental marriage, you need to be married by a Catholic Priest or Deacon in a Catholic liturgical rite; in a Catholic Church building; in the presence of two witnesses.  This includes, of course, going through the "marriage prep" course at your parish with your fiancee.  If within that preparation you need to get any other special permissions or dispensations, then you can apply for them.
As for your high school friend who is now a Catholic Priest, I can pretty confidently say that he "cannot" attend a wedding ceremony outside of Canonical Form as if he is physically coerced and prevented by some external force; he "cannot" in good conscience be a part of something where a friend of his is betraying his duties and obligations as a Catholic.  God bless him!
I would encourage you at the practical level to:
1. Seek out a Priest and start you marriage prep.
2. Make a really, really good Confession and get absolution, and start really practicing your Catholic Faith on a regular basis instead of a semi-regular basis.
3. Ask God to strengthen you to be a good and faithful Catholic, and guide and help you to enter into a lawful, valid and sacramental marriage under the authority of the Catholic Church, in order to be of mutual support to one another in a new and permanent family life together, realizing that there are objective realities in the world that transcend your mere feelings and opinions about things.

Fr. Timothy Johnson