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From the book Questions and Answers in Moral Theology
by Rev. T. Slater
Editor’s note: The following extract from Rev. Slater’s book, Points of Church Law, Mysticism, and Morality (P.J. Kenedy, New York, 1924) answers well the question “Is a Catholic ever allowed to attend non-Catholic services?” Written for English Catholics, the same principles apply in other places as well. It is evident that liturgical functions in the post-Conciliar Novus Ordo Church come under the same ban as non-Catholic services.
Case
Catholics in England form a small minority of the population. In civil life they are necessarily brought into touch with non-Catholics. They make friends and acquaintances among them, and frequently they have non-Catholic relatives by blood or by marriage. It is only natural that occasions should arise when they are asked to take part in some non-Catholic religious function. They are invited to a Protestant wedding or funder, a Catholic mayor is asked to go to the Anglican church on Mayor’s Sunday, a Protestant friend asks a Catholic to be his best man at his marriage or a witness at it, or to be sponsor for his child at baptism in the Anglican church. May a Catholic with good conscience do any of these things?
The law of the Catholic Church on such points is stated with great clearness in Canon 1258 of the Code of Canon Law.
Canon 1258
§ I. It is not lawful for the faithful in any way to assist actively or to take part in the religious services of non-Catholics.§ II. Passive or merely material presence by reason of a civil office or for the sake of showing respect can be tolerated for a good reason, to be approved by the bishop in case of doubt, at the funerals, marriages, and similar functions of non-Catholics, provided that there be no danger of perversion or scandal.
This is not merely positive law of the Catholic Church which she has made for reasons of her own. She believes and teaches that she has been appointed by God through Jesus Christ to offer God a worship which is pleasing to Him. Her worship is the only divine worship which has been established directly or indirectly by the authority of God. It is the only worship which is pleasing to Him objectively. If any other worship is offered to Him in good faith and with sincerity, the dispositions of those who offer it will please God, but the worship itself will be displeasing to Him objectively. Catholics know this. They know that non-Catholic religious worship is not of divine institution, that it has no divine approbation, that objectively it is displeasing to God. They do not condemn those who believe in it; they leave them to their own consciences, and trust that God, Who sees the heart, will accept their good dispositions. But they cannot offer God non-Catholic worship themselves. If they did so, they would be guilty of a great sin in offering to God a worship which they knew to be false and unauthorized, a worship which is objectively displeasing to God.
This principle is at the root of the first section of Canon 1258: “It is not lawful for the faithful in any manner to assist actively or to take part in the religious services of non-Catholics.”
This section will enable us at once to decide on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of several of the actions mentioned above. To be sponsor for a child at a non-Catholic baptism, to act as best man at a non-Catholic wedding, to act as bridesmaid at such a wedding or to be a witness at it, would be to assist actively and to take part in a non-Catholic religious service, and thus they would be violations of the divine law and of the law of the Church. [*Some moral theologians would permit, for a grave reason, the witnessing of a non-Catholic wedding, but only if by that is signified one’s friendship.]
The second section tells us that passive and merely material presence at certain non-Catholic religious functions may be tolerated on certain conditions. When a man is passively present at a function, he takes no active part in it; he is there merely as a spectator. When a Catholic looks on at a Protestant baptism or wedding, he does not himself join in a religious act which he recognizes as unauthorized by God and as displeasing to him. Still, his passive presence may be misunderstood. It may be looked upon as giving some sort of approbation or recognition to the claims of a false religion, or it may be a cause of scandal to others, or there may be danger of relaxing one’s own religious fibre and giving in to the spirit of religious indifference. For these reasons it is better, as a general rule, to keep away altogether from non-Catholic religious services as far as is possible. This, however, is scarcely possible at times. A Catholic may be a registrar of marriages, and his office may require him to assist at a Protestant marriage in his official capacity.
Or a Catholic tenant may be expected to be present at the funeral of his Protestant landlord. In these and similar cases, the second section of Canon 1258 says that the passive presence of Catholics at non-Catholic religious services may be tolerated, if there be a good reason, and if there be no danger of perversion or of scandal. The duties of some special office or the need of showing respect will furnish the good reason required, and in such cases there will not be much danger of perversion or of scandal. In case of doubt whether the reason is sufficiently grave, the canon requires that the bishop be consulted.