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Show CATHOLICS OFFICIATING AT PROTESTANT MARRIAGES. As to the question whether or not Catholics may lawfully act as bridesmaids brides-maids or grooms at Protestant or civil marriages, we should answer: 1. A Catholic is at liberty to act as official v.itness to a lawful marriage contract, if the assistance does not imply assent to conditions otherwise forbidden in conscience. Hence, if two persons, who are not baptized, choose to marry before be-fore a magistrate, exercising their natural nat-ural right, which a Catholic reasonably respects, he is at liberty to attest such a marriage uy ii pi cstrnic ds an witness, Just as he might attest any other lawful and solemn contract. Here there is no denial of faith. 2. No Catholic is, however, at liberty to act as official witness to a marriage unlawful before God, such as the marriage mar-riage ceremony of (a) a divorced party already rightly married according to Christian or the natural law; or (b) a party that is Catholic and publicly denies de-nies his or her faith by neglecting the sacramental rite in favor of a purely civil ceremony before the magistrate, unless there be no priest to perform the rites of the church; or (c) a party that is leading a scandalous life which would justify the prospect of shame, divorce, or neglect; for, though such persons may not pretend to any religious re-ligious convictions, and protest their mere intention to make a natural mutual mu-tual contract, yet prudence and respect for the moral order should forbid a Catholic to assist at such marriage contracts. con-tracts. 3. A third principle, already explained in the answer to a question whether a doilhlp relifHmia ceremonial i rierrrti- sible. forbids Catholics to take part in any marriage ceremony which bears the character of religious worship other than that of the Catholic church. Hem e a Catholic may not lawfully assist at a marriage in a Protestant church which is intended to have a religious aspect. I say, if such marriage is intended to have a religious aspect; for there are some cases when a marriage performed in a Protestant church or by a Protestant Protest-ant minister may be regarded as a purely social or civil function intended to ratify the marriage, which, outside the church, is a purely natural contract. con-tract. Thus in a town where there is a public hall, used on Sundays for Protestant worship, but also for other meetings; or where the Protestant minister min-ister (holding Sunday service) is at the? same time the legal justice of the peace: or where the assistance of a Catholic is plainly intended as a mark of respect for lawful authority, due to an intimate connection with the party to be married, without any evidence of active participation in or approval of religious worship contrary to the doctrine doc-trine of the Catholic church, there the principle of an explicit denial of one's faith is not justly applicable. Of the varying causes which render such assistance, as-sistance, especially at public marriages, j lawful, a judgment can be passed only by competent authority with knowledge of the facts in individual cases. It is manifestly unjust, therefore, to pass criticism on any Instances which may be reported in the newspapers and which rarely permit us to weigh the attendant circumstances prompting the presence of a Catholic groom or bridesmaid brides-maid at a non-Catholic marriage or funeral, in which not the worship, but the relationship is the determining factor, fac-tor, and where ceremonial is of a social, rather than religious import in .the minds of all the attendant parties. The Dolphin. |
