Marriage (Or Not) Is Everybody's Business

Canonist Edward Peters has an article at Ignatius Insight, Jan. 2005, which originally appeared in Catholic World Report, Dec. 2004:

.... Marriage is a classic example of a public institution. Both Church and state acknowledge this fact, and both require external, verifiable events to occur before granting any marriage legal recognition. The state, for example, requires licensing and the accurate recording of weddings in publicly accessible files. The Church, as part of the "canonical form for marriage," generally requires her members to marry before her own ministers, accompanied by at least two independent witnesses, with records to be preserved in various sacramental registers (see canons 1117, 1121).

These measures assuring the public verification of legal marriage (though perhaps these are redundant in the case of Catholics who have also complied with the requirements of canonical form) make great sense; civil and religious societies need to know who is married to whom — or to put it another way, which "significant relationships" deserve the special respect that is accorded marriage, and which ones do not. Under normal circumstances, the canonical and civil rules promoting marriage-awareness work; we pretty much know (or can easily find out) who is married.

A similar system for public verification of divorce is in place. The state, which recognizes divorce, requires public filing of divorce actions for them to be effective. Thus the basic fact of a divorce is not hard for third parties to establish. Even the Church, which does not accept civil divorce (at least not in so far as it purports to clear the path to subsequent marriage) respects certain civil consequences of divorce and acknowledges it in various contexts. Again, all of this is consistent with the needs for both civil and religious societies to know their members’ marital status.

But because a prior divorce is sufficient to make possible a second marriage, as far as the state is concerned, the state’s system of recording marriages and divorces is sufficient to serve its needs. The same cannot be said for the Church’s system of matrimonial record-keeping.

For the Church (prescinding from a few privileged cases and, obviously, the death of one’s prior spouse) only a declaration of nullity can make possible one’s "second" wedding in the Church. And precisely here is the problem: We know (or can easily and unobtrusively find out) who is married, and we know (or can easily and unobtrusively find out) who is divorced. But we cannot tell with any objective certainty which divorced Catholics have obtained annulments, and which are still considered bound by their earlier attempt at marriage. In other words, in regard to a fundamental fact about two people — their marital status in the eyes of the Church — the faithful have no means of knowing with certainty what that status is, and consequently, how they should relate to the persons in question....

I blogged about this, last year:

.... As to an annulment being a confidential matter — well, I think that's just plain silly. (The grounds for petitioning for a declaration of nullity, and the determination of their veracity, is another question.) Getting married is a public act, with public consequences, and the validity of a marriage is not a matter for the internal forum. Whether a couple that publicly claims to be married is actually married is everybody's business. That's why we issue marriage licenses, and announce banns, and publish notice of civil divorce decrees.

(Thanks, Carl.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/31/05 05:39:26 PM
Categorized as Religious.