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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13164 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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Rome recognizes the marriage of two baptized Protestants as sacramental, right?

Oookay. We're getting into the weeds here, but let's take a shot at it (to mix all the metaphors). Basically, it divides into two questions:

(1) Are Protestant marriages valid? Yes

(2) Are Protestant marriages sacramental? Well, does the denomination in question consider marriage to be a sacrament? Luther, for one, did not (the Reformation in general reduced down the seven sacraments to two or three).

The Church may indeed consider that marriage sacramental under certain conditions:

Question:
How are Catholics to view Protestant marriages?
Answer:
Generally speaking, Protestants have two valid sacraments, baptism and marriage, although they usually do not consider marriage to be a sacrament. Assuming the husband and wife are both validly baptized and that there are no impediments to the marriage, the Church presumes Protestant marriages to be both valid and sacramental.

I don't know enough about the different views in different Protestant denominations to say "marriages in denomination X are sacramental in their view and marriages in denomination Y are not".

The thorny question of "is this marriage between two Catholics licit, valid, both, neither, one or the other?" depends in part on the status of the minister. Marriage is the sacrament that spouses administer but if the priest assisting at the ceremony is not properly ordained, or if the couple are doing what they know is forbidden (as would be the case in defying the Pope and getting SSPX married) then they are breaking the rules (and rules came in due to a lot of confusion during the mediaeval period over "is this person/this couple truly married or not?" If you look at cases during the Tudor period, and not just in England but on the Continent, nobility and royalty were making and breaking marriage alliances based on 'were X and Y pre-contracted or not?').

Break the rules = break the law = illicit.

Can. 1108 §1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. 144, 1112, §1, 1116, and 1127, §§1-2.

§2. The person who assists at a marriage is understood to be only that person who is present, asks for the manifestation of the consent of the contracting parties, and receives it in the name of the Church.

Can. 1109 Unless the local ordinary and pastor have been excommunicated, interdicted, or suspended from office or declared such through a sentence or decree, by virtue of their office and within the confines of their territory they assist validly at the marriages not only of their subjects but also of those who are not their subjects provided that one of them is of the Latin rite.

Can. 1110 By virtue of office, a personal ordinary and a personal pastor assist validly only at marriages where at least one of the parties is a subject within the confines of their jurisdiction.

The "local ordinary" is the bishop of the diocese where the parish in which the marriage is taking place is located. Clearly, if it is being performed by an SSPX priest (who are now excommunicated) then it's not happening with the permission of the bishop and the priest has not been delegated by him.

Assuming the husband and wife are both validly baptized and that there are no impediments to the marriage, the Church presumes Protestant marriages to be both valid and sacramental.

Would I be correct in assuming that a prior divorce would count as an impediment to the marriage in this case?

From a Catholic viewpoint, yes; if the prior marriage was valid and sacramental and did not have grounds for annulment, then a civil divorce just dissolves the secular legal union but not the church marriage.

We're getting into the weeds here, but let's take a shot at it (to mix all the metaphors)

You can totally do this. You're golfing: you've got the ball in the weeds, now you're standing over it to make your shot :)

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