Not long ago, I received a wedding invitation from a relative. As with many of today’s “baptized pagans”—people who were initiated into the Church but never lived intentionally as an adult Catholic—he’s planning a secular ceremony. Because he was baptized a Catholic, though, he is still subject to Church law regarding “canonical form” for marriage.
The requirement of canonical form means that, when a baptized Catholic says “I do” in a rite that falls outside of what the Church prescribes (and without getting a dispensation), in fact he does not. The marriage doesn’t take. Two lifelong Protestants can get married in a Protestant ceremony and have a sacramental union, but a baptized Catholic who later became a Protestant cannot. And non-Catholics can contract a valid natural marriage (when one or both parties is unbaptized) by making vows in any number of settings. A baptized Catholic marrying an unbaptized person can’t (see canons 1117, 1086, etc.).
This can be tough to take, even for someone (like me) who would be considered a hard-liner on Catholic teaching about marriage. Many believing Catholics and regular Mass-goers don’t know about the requirement of canonical form. How much less would someone who hasn’t been inside a church since infancy? And why should someone who doesn’t even believe that Catholicism is true even care? And yet the Church exercises its power to deprive such persons of a valid marriage.
It’s a purely juridical power. There is no necessary reason why such a person couldn’t marry outside canonical form. There is no concession to reality (like a previously contracted valid marriage) that the Church is forced to make. It’s just a matter of law; a law that could be different.
In fact, not very long ago, the law was different. Canon 1117 used to allow for “a formal act of defection” from the Church that would dispense a person from canonical form. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI did away with that provision and changed the text of several relevant canons. I can see the practical arguments for that change. You never want to encourage formal apostasy, of course. Requiring canonical form also discourages secret marriages that can become practical headaches. And, as Benedict himself pointed out, invalidity due to defect of form makes it easier for tribunals to annul marriages of people who later wish to return to the Church and remarry “following the failure of a preceding marriage.”
On the other hand, though, keeping material apostates on the books doesn’t seem to be of much benefit for them, or the Church, if they’re just technical Catholics who don’t actually believe or practice the Faith. Furthermore, denying such people the sacramental graces of marriage (if they’re both baptized) or the bond of a natural marriage (if the other person isn’t) seems contrary to concern for their souls and their families. And the ease with which such unions can later be annulled, pace B16, could be considered a bug, not a feature!
But my biggest problem is pastoral. Do we think that such people will be more likely to return to the Church upon learning that Rome has stretched out its arm to deny them marriage, or less? What would you think of a religion—with which you don’t identify in any way—that claims to be able to neutralize your marriage on a legal pretext? Would you be attracted or repulsed?
In my relative’s case, I suspect that it would be an obstacle, not an aid, to re-evangelization. It wouldn’t come across as one of those hard truths that nonetheless compel by their power. It would just seem mean.
Catholicism isn’t a club that you join and un-join. I get it. Baptism is an indelible mark on the soul, not a mailing list you unsubscribe from by checking a box on a screen. At the same time, I think we have to recognize that many people have been initiated into the Faith but never assented to it by an adult act of the will. Their souls are Catholic forever, but their hearts and minds are something else. We have to reckon with that, too.
At a time when Catholic leaders are talking about all kinds of ways to accompany and extend mercy to those on the “peripheries,” some of these ways quite dubious, it seems fitting to consider easing the legal requirements of canonical form so as not to deny valid marriage to those who are capable of it. That would be an act of mercy wholly within the Church’s power that legitimately accompanies people where they are—and does not strain doctrine or morals to do so. And from there, we may hope that the graces and goods of marriage will make them more responsive to our prayers and pleas for their return to the Faith.