Adsum

September 2003

The Mixed Marriage Guarantees

From the book, Father Connell Answers Moral Questions
by Very Rev. Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R., S.T.D., L.L.D., L.H.D.

Question: A non-Catholic who married a Catholic girl in my parish after giving the required proimises to obtain the dispensation, now asserts that he is not bound to abide by these promises because he was forced to make them. What answer should be given to this claim?

Answer: This is an example of the deplorable dishonesty to which people sometimes have recourse in order to be free from an obligation that displeases them. The individual in question should be told that he was not forced to make the promises because he was not forced to marry the Catholic girl. The Church granted the favor of a dispensation on condition that the two parties gave the guarantee stipulated in Canon 1061. No pressure was exerted on them to enter the marriage; on the contrary, the Church would have preferred that it did not take place. The non-Catholic who pleads that he was forced to sign the promises is as unreasonable as a man who contracts with a tailor for a suit of clothes, and after receiving the garments complains that he is being forced by the tailor to pay him a sum of money.

Since the attitude in question seems to be growing among non-Catholics who have married Catholics, it might be advisable for a priest who receives the mixed marriage promises to ask the non-Catholic explicitly if he feels he is being forced to give the guarantees. If he admits that this is his attitude, there can hardly be present the moral certainty of the fulfillment of the guarantees which the Code demands as a condition for the granting of a dispensation (Can. 1061, § 1,3).

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