OCR Text |
Show MARRIAGES IN LENT. Priests Can Marry Privately on Any Day of the Year. Western Watchman: The days around Mardi Gras are ever fruitful in runaway matches. And, strange -to say. the principals in those amatory escapades are nearly always Catholics. This year, and every year at this time, the papers are full of stories of disappointed dis-appointed swains scouting the country to find a priest willing to marry lovelorn love-lorn couples stranded on a foreign shore. And those scandalous exhibitions exhibi-tions go on all during Lent, and are renewed in Advent. And the trouble is not that they cannot can-not obtain the consent of their parents. It is not that they are not free to marry mar-ry properly and openly. They simply cannot wait until Lent or Advent la over, and they take Father Time by the forelock. Lent lasts nearly two months and Advent one month. That means three months in the year when Hymen must shut up shop. But why have those impatient couples to wait? They can be married in Lent or Advent Ad-vent just as well as at any other time of the year. But there will be trouble getting a dispensation. There can be no trouble about a dispensation, since no dispensation Is required. The young people do not know this; and they should ba told. The catechisms thev have learned are partly responsible for this error. In them they were taught that it was a sin to contract wedlock "at prohibited times. Now there are no prohibited times:" no times when Catholics, free to marry, cannot get married. The law before the council of Trent was very strict, but it was much mitigated by that body. Since then only the sol- j emnization of marriage: that is. the solpmri niintini mace onH the noisv wedding festivities are prohibited. Priests can marry privately and without with-out nuptial mass on any day of the year. The prohibition against solemnizing solemn-izing marriages in Lent and Advent applies to the priests, and not to the people, and should not be found in the catechism. The people have a right to the sacrament; it is for the priest to say how solemnly it shall be administered. admin-istered. But is there not a dispensation required? re-quired? A very respectable publication, publica-tion, much read by priests and intended intend-ed almost exclusively for them. said, in a recent number, that a dispensation was required to get married in Lent or Advent. It is true the pope may prohibit pro-hibit marriages for other reasons than those contained in the impediments. Bishops can do the same. Parish priests, when investigation is necessary, neces-sary, may force the postponement of a wedding. In some countries, notably in Belgium, marriages are prohibited by the bishops in Lent and Advent, and therefore a dispensation is required to get married in those times. There is no -law in this diocese, and, as far as we are aware, in any diocese of the United States forbidding marriages In Lent or Advent: therefore; here and throughout the country no dispensation is required to get. married during those "closed seasons." The, children should be instructed during their preparation for first communion com-munion that that question about "prohibited "pro-hibited times" has strayed into their catechism without meaning for them or anybody else, except the priests. The DeoDle should be told from the pul pit that marriages and baptisms are sacraments to be administered on any of the 365 days of the year. The young people contemplating matrimony should be told that there is no fast from wedlock and no holiday for Cupid. It is a pity that a monstrous misconception miscon-ception of the church's laws should be allowed to wreck so rriany young lives and strew- with thorns ' and overhang with remorse and shame the entrance of so many good young people into the marriage state. The clergy should see to it that their people are disabused, and the sooner the better. Another matter which it might be well to animadvert upon here is as to the duty of priests towards runaway couples. People who have left their homes with the intention of not returning return-ing are transients in: the eyes of the law vagi vel peregrini. When they lose their domicile in their parish they lose their domicile in'' the diocese. They can be married by any priest in whose jurisdiction they may happen to be. This applies to runaways still in the diocese of their former residence as well as to those who are away from both parish and diocese. This is true where -the decree "Tamatsi" prevails as well as elsewhere. We do not see how any priest can refuse to marry two 'Catholics who are without domicile domi-cile and to whose union there is no canonical impediment. But what is to be "done in oases where a dispensation is necessary? Can the bishop In whose'-diocese they for the time being are dispense them from impediments diriment and others? If 1 the priest can marry 'them the bishop can dispense them. The last proposition proposi-tion Is not maintained by all theologians, theo-logians, but we think' it too self-evident to be disputed. j |