The Marriage of Baptized Nonbelievers: Faith, Contract, and Sacrament

Abstract

OUR SECULAR age is witness to relatively new phenomenon within the sacramental life of the Church. With most of the Western world Christian by baptism, many of these baptized are now approaching the Church to witness their marriages at the same time that they profess no faith in Jesus Christ, the Church, or the sacramental nature of marriage. This phenomenon prompts theological questions regarding the requirement of faith for the valid reception of the sacrament of marriage, as well as the relationship between the contract and the The questions are not merely theoretical, since they are prompted by pressing pastoral problems. When pastor is approached by baptized couple asking for religious marriage at the same time that each party is without faith, the first question is whether these nonbelieving Christians are capable of receiving If they are not, there is the further problem of whether they can marry at all. Canon 1055, par. 2, states that a valid marriage contract cannot exist between baptized persons without its being by the very fact sacrament. Thus, by definition, if this same couple were to attempt to contract civil marriage, their relationship would not be marriage because it would not be sacramental. Yet it is then asked whether this would constitute the denial of basic human right, the right to marry. If this is granted, and marriage other than sacramental marriage is permitted and recognized as marriage, the principle of the inseparability of sacrament and contract is compromised. Since the question of the interrelation of faith, contract, and sacrament