I was baptised Catholic, but my parents stopped attending before I would have received my first communion. My husband is Catholic, but has not attended Mass since his childhood. We were not married in the church because we were not practicing Catholics. I have been attending RCIA classes since September so that I can get confirmed and recieve my first communion, and I now want to have our marriage convalidated. I asked the RCIA director what is involved in this process, and he was fairly vague, stating that we needed to meet with the parish priest to fill out some sort of questionaire, and then have a formal meeting with him about the results of this questionaire. Then all we needed to do was have the ceremony with the priest and two witnesses. However, I had heard from a friend that there was a mandatory period of abstinence and a great deal of counseling involved, but none of this was mentioned. Was my friend wrong? Can this process vary from parish to parish? Does it matter if my husband is only willing to go along with this because he sees how important it is to me? It doesn't matter to him if our marriage is blessed by the Church, but he will do it if I ask him to.

-- Amy (amy20013@hotmail.com), December 13, 2002

Answers

Jmj

Hello, Amy.

Within certain limits, the bishop of each diocese can set down rules to be followed by couples preparing to be married or to have their marriages convalidated by the Church. It is therefore difficult for any of us to tell you who was right and wrong in your situation.

I recommend that you follow the RCIA leader's advice and speak to the parish priest as soon as you can. The bishop's rule may be that, although your marriage may be presumed to be valid already, you would need to join with engaged couples to attend some Catholic pre-marriage instruction (sometimes called "Pre-Cana" classes). On the other hand, the diocesan rule may be that you can receive private instructions in a rectory from a priest.

On the subject of a period of abstinence ...
If both of you spouses, on your wedding day, considered yourself not to be Catholics, and if (for each of you) this is your only marriage, then the Church presumes the marriage already to be valid. This would mean that you have not been living in a state of adultery or fornication, and there would be no reason for you to confess such sins nor to endure a period of abstinence.

But, if either (or both) of you considered yourself Catholic on the day of your wedding, then you did not follow the required "canonical form" of marriage (marrying in a Catholic church, etc.). If this was true, then your "union" would not yet be considered valid, you would have to confess your period of cohabitation, and (in order to receive the graces of the sacrament of Marriage) you would have to abstain from the time of the confession to the time of your taking of vows. Technically, the period of abstinence could be less than a day [e.g., confession in morning, vows in afternoon], but I think that a serious Catholic would want to make it somewhat longer, as a sort of penitential act. I couldn't know if your bishop has imposed a specific period of abstinence, but your parish priest would know.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 13, 2002.