Dedication of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel (d1cl)
19th Sunday After Pentecost
Weekly Mass Schedule For the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church
Please go to "Mass Location" tab on top of the page for details for the Mass Schedule for each Mission, for the current month.
SATURDAY: September 28th - St. Wenceslaus, M (sd)
† Michael Bogner............................................................... 9:00 a.m. Mass
SUNDAY: September 29th - Dedication of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel
Missa Pro Populo........................................................... 7:00 a.m. Mass
† Michael Bogner............................................................ 9:00 a.m. Mass
MONDAY: September 30th - St. Jerome, CD (d)
† Michael Bogner............................................................ No Scheduled Mass
TUESDAY: October 1st - St. Remigius, BpC (sp)
† Michael Bogner............................................................ 8:00 a.m. Mass
WEDNESDAY: October 2nd - Holy Guardian Angels (dm)
† Michael Bogner............................................................ 8:00 a.m. Mass
THURSDAY: October 3rd - St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, V (d)
† Michael Bogner............................................................ 8:00 a.m. Mass
FRIDAY: October 4th - St. Francis of Assisi, C (dm)
† Michael Bogner............................................................ 6:00 p.m. Mass
SATURDAY: October 5th - St. Placid & comp. Mm (sp)
† Michael Bogner............................................................ 9:00 a.m. Mass
SUNDAY: October 6th -20th Sunday after Pentecost (sd)
Missa Pro Populo............................................................ 7:00 a.m. Mass
† Michael Bogner............................................................ 9:00 a.m. Mass
Sanctuary Lamp is burning for the repose of soul of Father Mario Blanco.
~ Confession Schedule ~
Friday — 5:30 p.m. - 5:55p.m.
Saturday — 8:30 a.m. - 8:55 a.m.
Sunday — 6:30 a.m. - 6:55 a.m.
— 8:10 a.m. - 8:55 a.m..
~ Altar Boy Serving Schedule ~
Sept 29 — 1st Mass: Maurice Marshall &Alexander Bogner
2nd Mass: Quentin Skierka & Jacob Lightner
Oct 6 — 1st Mass: Thaddeus Bradshaw & Augustus Bradshaw
2nd Mass: MC - Brennan Skierka Th - Peter Skierka
Ac - Jacob Lightner & Blaise Skierka CB - Anthony Rollins
TB - Theodore Bradshaw, Robert Skierka, Everett Fleshman
TB - Owen Skierka, Seamus Dube, Levi lightner
Oct 13 — 1st Mass: Eliahs Bogner & Zachary Drewes
2nd Mass: Charles Lightner & Martin Skierka
~ Rosary Leader ~
Sept 29 — 1st Mass: Brian Drewes — 2nd Mass: Damian Skierka
Oct 6 — 1st Mass: Tim Riley — 2nd Mass: Cole Lowder
Oct 13 — 1st Mass: Brian Drewes — 2nd Mass: Damian Skierka
~ Church Cleaning Schedule ~
Sept 22 — Maria Fleshman & Angela Skierka
Sept 29 — Jordee Bomgardner, Justina Merja, Jacynta Bomgardner
Oct 6 — Josie Lightner & Rachel Lightner
Oct 13 — Christina Bogner & Michelle Bogner
~ Treat Schedule ~
Sept 29 — Regina Skierka, Rebecca Lightner, Monica Whall
Oct 6 — Bryar Rollins, Hannah Shawhan, Sydney Lapp
Oct 13 — Laura Lightner, Bernadette Dube, Jess Skierka
~ Announcements ~
If you of a loved one is admitted to the hospital, please let your parish priest know.
6 Day Votive Lights: The price per candle is $3.00: $70 per case; the small 8 hour votive lights are 50¢ each.
Reliquaries on the Altar: contain the reliques of St. Stephen King, St. Gregory the Great, St. Maria Goretti and St. John Bosco.
Fr. Jenkins online instructions: wcbohio.blogspot.com.
What They Ask About — MARRIAGE OUTSIDE THE CHURCH
By Monsignor J. D. Conway
Q. Is it true that anyone who is not married by a priest is not married, but is living in adultery?
If a Catholic couple gets married by a justice of the peace how do they stand? What will they have to do to get back into good relations with the Church? Would it be worse if they had been married by a minister?
Suppose this couple should separate and plan to get a divorce, can they receive the sacraments? Do they have to do anything besides just go to confession?
I know a young man — a Catholic, of course — who says he is going to be married by a justice of the peace and then get his marriage blessed. Is there any law against this?
A. Your question has more parts than a guided missile. But they do fit together well. So we will take them apart and try to answer them one by one:
1. Not everyone is required to get married before a priest — only a Catholic. Note this, however: a fallen-away Catholic is still obliged by this law, no matter how completely he may have fallen away — no matter what other church he may have joined. The law applies to everyone baptized in the Catholic Church, and to every convert to the Church. The baptized Catholic is bound by this law no matter whom he marries — Catholic or non-Catholic, pagan or Jew.
Two non-Catholics (neither one ever a Catholic) can be married however they want. They should do it legally, of course, but they can choose whomever they wish to perform the job: justice or minister, rabbi or swami. It is perfectly valid, and if they are both baptized it is a sacrament.
It is not quite accurate to say that a Catholic is living in adultery after he has tried to get married before someone other than a priest. Not unless he or his girl friend has been previously married. Strictly speaking adultery is the sin of a married person who is unfaithful to the spouse, or the sin which a single person commits with a married one. When neither one is married we have some other names for their sin — not pretty names, either — like fornication, or concubinage. But why be technical? Your word expresses the idea.
2. The Catholic couple who have attempted marriage by the justice of the peace are definitely not in good standing. They pretend to be married, but they aren’t, really. Pretense alone might not be bad. But they actually live together as though they were married. That is bad.
While they continue to live together in this manner, of course they cannot receive the sacraments. In order to get back into good standing with the Church they must do one of two things:
a. Separate and repent. They should make plans for a divorce, make good confessions, and obtain God’s forgive-ness for their sins. The divorce is needed to straighten out the contradiction in their position. The state considers them married; actually they are single. After the divorce the state won’t consider them married, and everyone will be agreed. Some of the neighbors may consider them married, too, and the divorce should clear that up. It may be a source of scandal to those who do not understand, but for those in the know it will remove the scandal. And it may also remove an occasion of sin.
b. Get married. They should go to a priest; he can advise them. But they must be sure that they really want to get married, and that it will last for life. Their trial marriage might give them some useful pointers to aid their decision. But he should not marry her just to make an honest woman of her. The process is too long.
It would be worse if they had attempted their marriage before a minister. That sort of thing has a hint of heresy in it, or at least an acknowledging bow to religious indifference. The Church calls that a crime and puts a penalty on it: excommunication.
Sometimes people escape that excommunication because they don’t know about it. The Church is very considerate. She won’t punish you unless you knew before the crime that she had threatened punishment. Not only does ignorance of the law excuse you from sin in breaking the law, but ignorance of the penalty lets you escape the punishment.
Once this excommunication is incurred it is reserved to the bishop. Your case must be referred to him for absolution from the censure — removal of the excommunication — before you can receive the sacraments. And of course he will not give the absolution unless there is repentance and plan of reform. One or the other of the two ways indicated above must be chosen: separate or marry.
3. This question has already been answered. When they separate and plan to stay apart they can receive the sacraments. A real good confession is all they need.
4. Your young Catholic man simply cannot get married by the justice of the peace, as we explained above. His efforts to do so are futile. All the justice of the peace can do is fix it so the young man won’t get arrested for living with this girl. You ask if there is a law against it. I would say that the sixth Commandment of God forbids it. At least it does if the young man plans to live with his beloved before the marriage is “blessed.”
That expression: “to have his marriage blessed” is false and misleading. Since there is no marriage in existence there is nothing to be blessed. What they do, when they go to the priest later on, is get married. And about time!
Q. When I was attending school, some time past, a priest told us that when a Catholic person married before a minister he had to do public penance to be received back into the Church. Has that been changed?
A. You have the advantage over most of us. We are too young to remember public penances. They are very rare in the Church since the Middle Ages. There weren’t any “ministers” then.
Any Catholic attempting marriage before a minister is excommunicated. He can only be absolved from his excommunication when he has repented, is ready to accept his penance, and to undo the scandal he has caused, as far as he can. The bishop is the one who absolves him, and the bishop can make such reasonable requirements as he judges best to repair the scandal.
Sometimes, and more frequently in former years — it is probably this which you have in mind — a public apology, or confession of guilt and repentance, was demanded. Most bishops now feel that sincere conversion and a good life are the best means of undoing the public harm. Public apology or retraction is rare.
Q. When a person is excommunicated because of marriage outside the Church, and dies suddenly without being remarried in the Church, can that person be brought into the Church? If so, why?
A. I presume you mean to ask: “Can that person be brought into the church for burial?” It is only with the aid of six strong men to carry him that he could be brought into the church after death; and we may wonder how much good that may do his soul.
Possibly it may help if we publish again the laws of the Church regarding those entitled to Christian burial. Canon 1239 states that all baptized persons are to be given Christian burial unless expressly denied it by law. Then Canon 1240 enumerates those to whom Christian burial is denied, unless they gave SOME SIGN of repentance before death:
1. Heretics, schismatics, masons, etc.
2. Those who have been officially declared to be excommunicated.
3. Deliberate and voluntary suicides.
4. Those killed in duel.
5. Those who gave orders that their bodies be cremated.
6. Obvious public sinners. (e.g. not practicing Catholics)
The law directs that in case of doubt the bishop should be consulted; and if there is still doubt, Christian burial should be permitted. The Church is lenient and kind in the matter out of sympathy for family and friends in their sorrow. We should imitate the Church and be lenient and kind, too, in our judgments. Maybe there was some sign of repentance about which we know nothing. Maybe we don’t know all the facts. Maybe we should mind our own business.
Q. Is there any way for a Catholic girl, married to a divorced man by a justice of the peace, to have the marriage sanctioned in the Church, or for the girl to still remain in the Church?
A. This girl should go to see her pastor and talk the whole matter over with him. The answer will depend on the circumstances of the man’s previous marriage.
In a very few cases it might be possible for the girl to marry the man (she isn’t married to him now — only pretending to be).
In most cases she will have to leave him if she values her soul and its salvation. She can’t serve God and live with another woman’s husband at the same time. He is another woman’s husband, you know, even if she doesn’t want him — or was mean to him.
This girl is still in the Church. She is a bad Catholic — an adulteress — but still a Catholic. She can’t receive the sacraments because she intends to keep on committing sin. But she can go to Mass, and she is obliged to go, even though her lack of sincerity may prevent her getting much good out of it.
Q. Six years ago I married a non-Catholic. He made life miserable and treated me so terribly that my life was in danger. I received permission from the bishop to obtain a divorce, The alimony which the court awarded me was not sufficient to support me and my child. So a year later, I married a Catholic before a justice of the peace. We think a lot of our religion and are worried about our problem. My family feels bad about our situation. Here are the problems I want answered:
1. Are we allowed to give money to the Church?
2. Are we allowed to belong to card circles and social activities?
3. Can we belong to any parish?
4. Can we send our children to the Catholic school?
A. First let me state some general principles:
The fact that you are regularly committing one type of sin and living without sanctifying grace does not change your obligation to observe the other laws of God and His Church. It is still wrong for you to steal, or lie, or miss Mass on Sunday.
Your status may deprive you of certain rights and privileges in the Church, but it does not take away any of your obligations.
So you are still obliged to Sunday Mass, Friday abstinence, Lenten fast, yearly confession and Easter duty. You are obliged to contribute your just share to the support of the Church, and to educate your children in their religion.
Of course you simply cannot fulfill your obligations of yearly confession and Easter duty while you continue in your present status, any more than you can fulfill your obligation under the sixth Commandment.
Now to answer your particular questions:
1. You are allowed to give money to the Church. You are obliged to do so, like any other Catholic.
2. You cannot expect to be accepted into social groups. Your sinful status is a public fact. You have no right to expect people to overlook it or condone it. You will be much happier if you do not try to get into groups where you are plainly not wanted.
3. Not only can you belong to a parish, you DO belong. The pastor is YOUR pastor. You are the sheep of his flock who cause him most trouble and worry.
4. You can send your children to the parochial school and you are obliged to do so. Your children have done nothing wrong. They have the same right to a Catholic education as any other children.
Q. If one’s sister leaves the Church to marry a divorced man, what stand should the family take? What should they do about writing to her, sending her wedding gifts and inviting her to their home? What should other relatives do? They say that she always sent them such nice wedding gifts that they feel they are obliged to give her a nice gift in return.
She has an aunt who is a nun. This nun sends her gifts at Christmas and sends her prayers to say, telling her to keep praying that things will work out in the end for her. Is this right? It looks to me like this nun is encouraging her to stay with the man and hoping against hope that it will work out for them.
A. The situation you describe presents a most difficult and painful problem for the immediate family. Her parents love their little girl. Her brothers and sisters love their sister. She was once a very good girl. But she began running around with another woman’s husband (divorced, of course, but still a husband). She probably kept it quiet for a while and was furtive and ashamed about it. Then the family got to know. They saw the dangers, warned, pleaded, threatened, quarreled and prayed. But she refused to listen. She was falling in love and the love was hopelessly forbidden. That made it more desperately attractive.
At first she may have prayed hard (not against temptation, but that God’s will somehow be changed). Possibly she talked to a priest or two, giving him part of the facts, letting his warnings go unheeded, and deciding that he probably didn’t know his canon law very well anyway. “Now there was Jane Blow. She married her man in the Church and they say her case was just like this. How can the Church let her get married and not me?”
She became bitter, I warrant, and blamed the Church, and maybe even screamed that if she had enough money she could get permission to marry this man. Tyrone Power got it, didn’t he? And Jane Blow? And that awful girl over in the next block! And they say her husband had been married three times!
So she came to blame the Church, whose laws were unfair, whose priests mercenary and discriminatory. God would understand that she was in love and had to lead her own life.
I sometimes wish that some girl who is preparing to marry a divorced man would omit all the hysterical rationalizing and searching for excuses. It would be refreshingly shocking to hear her declare honestly and humbly: “My passions have subdued my faith. Desire has overridden my morality. I am going to live with a married man who means more to me right now than God. I know it’s just plain adultery, but I’ll take my chances on hell.”
I am not answering your questions. I don’t know the answer to the first question. If it is hard for the family to determine what their stand should be, it is harder for an outsider to indicate that stand for them. I can outline principles, but the application of those principles depends much on personalities, circumstances, and family customs.
Here are the principles: The family must do nothing to encourage, condone, or cooperate with the sinful situation. They must do nothing to add to the scandal of it. But on the other hand they must be just and charitable toward their sinning loved-one. It is sometimes hard to treat a beloved sinner fairly and impartially. There is too much that hurts inside us. We become hard in manner to cover that hurt and fend off further wounds.
At least there must be no “wedding” gifts, neither from the immediate family nor from any of the relatives or friends. None of them should attend the “wedding” or have anything to do with the arrangements for it. The mildest attitude they can take is to turn sadly, look the other way, and ignore the whole thing.
I am afraid that most all of us occasionally share the errors of the good religious aunt. We accept the sinful situation as inescapable, half-condone it by our gestures of kindly tole-rance, and resignedly counsel dalliance in the guise of presumptuous prayer. We shrug off all thoughts of heroism in preference to hell, advise that the will while clinging now to sin be kept malleable to conditional future resolution, and hope sentimentally for the miracle which will permit things to be straightened out.
The trouble is that we are daily surrounded by these adulterous arrangements resulting from divorce. Our society accepts them with a smile or a smirk. We get used to them. They seem hardly wrong when non-Catholics are involved, and for Catholics only mitigated sin deserving of sympathy.
Kindness, tolerance and politeness proceed from the beautiful virtue of charity. Neither is there found amongst us anyone without sin to start flinging stones. But we must not let our sentimentality become so thick that it fouls up our judgment of sin.
Q. My brother, a Catholic, has been married and divorced, and his wife has remarried. I think it was largely his fault. Anyway after the divorce he turned out very bad, became an alcoholic, joined up with gangsters, spent time in jail, married a divorced woman, and divorced her. Since then he has met and married a non-Catholic girl, who is a very good person. She apparently straightened him out for a while; then things went bad and he returned to his old habits and companions. He abused his wife, beat her, took her car and traded it for an expensive one, and then wrecked that, and landed in jail. Then he disappeared, leaving her to have their baby alone. Now she has finally found him and wants to help him rehabilitate himself. We have all tried to help him without success, and fear that he is totally lost if her help fails. He has agreed to drop his friends (the bad ones), quit drinking, and leave this locality to try for a new start.
The wife feels (and rightly so) that without God’s help she can do little. She would like to become a Catholic, which in my humble opinion is impossible at this stage. Could I advise them to see a minister in their new location and seek help that way? She wants the baby and herself baptized. Or is there any way that they could get this help from a priest? She wants to join a church, and the three of them go together. What can she do?
A. She has a great fund of admirable courage and hope. But you cannot counsel her to do wrong in order to accomplish her good purpose. She would not consider it wrong to join a Protestant church; but you know that it is wrong, and you cannot advise her to do it. She does not consider it wrong to live with this divorced man; you know that it is wrong, but you had best keep quiet about that and let her remain in her good faith. You would not accomplish any good for either her or your brother by telling her of the wrong.
What can she do? I would suggest that she go to see the priest in the place where they will establish their new home. She will not be able to become a Catholic, under present circumstances; but she can attend the Catholic church, learn much about the religion, and get much more out of even this partial membership than she would from joining some other church. Their baby can be baptized. And I am sure that your brother, if he remembers anything of his early Catholic education and practice, would get no help or consolation out of a Protestant church. He might get some natural help, and maybe the promptings of Divine Grace from his attendance at Mass, even in his sinful state.
It is not an ideal solution. There are evils to which we must close our eyes. But it is easy to close our eyes when these evils are so much less than the former ones, or the alternative ones. Humanly speaking, there is no hope for the total observance of God’s law in the case; so we must tolerate the lesser evil. Better that part of the law be kept with a measure of good faith and decency, than that all ten Commandments be smashed shamefully. We cannot positively counsel evil, even the lesser evil. But we can blink at it with fairly grateful tolerance.
If this second try at reform meets the fate you fearfully expect of it, then I would certainly advise this good girl, whom you call guileless, to leave this man and let him reform himself. She should not ruin her life for him, especially when her marriage to him is not even valid, and cannot be made so. A wife’s work of reform usually involves heroism, sacrifice, suffering, frequent disgrace, and very often bitter disappointment.
(My answer to this question may stir in some minds memory of recent controversy.) I certainly hope that nothing I have said will be interpreted as advice to people invalidly married that they should continue to live together, as though sin were preferable to heroic sacrifice. My point is that we are not always required to give advice, especially when we know that it will not be heeded. We cannot recommend or encourage evil, even lesser evil. We cannot even rejoice in the lesser evil itself. But we can rejoice that the greater evil is avoided.
I am presuming that this girl’s sin is only material, not formal; and that the man is so oblivious to sin that he is asking no advice from anyone.)
Q. Four years ago, a Catholic boy married a Protestant girl outside the Church. They have lived peacefully, and seemingly very happily together and have two small children. Should an effort be made to break up this union, if the wife refuses to have the children reared as Catholics, thereby making a Catholic marriage impossible?
A. These people are not married. The fact that their sinful life together has been happy and peaceful does not make it sacred. And now the spiritual welfare of two children is involved. Which is more important: To go on lolling pleasurably in sin, or to train these immortal souls for heaven?
But if the marriage is broken up, who will get the children? And what chance will they have to be properly trained, with only one parent? Best thing is to try to convince the woman that the spiritual welfare and happiness of her husband and children is important, and that she is stubbornly making it impossible — probably without sound logical conviction, only prejudice.
Q. I have gone with a Lutheran boy for two years. He goes to church with me, but hasn’t joined. He is willing to be married in the Catholic Church but his mother won’t let him. She is sick and not expected to live long. The shock of his marriage in the Catholic Church would kill her. If we wait he may have to go into the Army. We plan to be married secretly by the priest and then to have a public marriage in the Lutheran church. Is that wrong? My family says they can’t attend this Lutheran marriage. What am I to do?
A. The first thing you should do is obey the law of the Church. Canon 1063 explicitly forbids the thing you are planning to do. Canon 2319 excommunicates you for doing it.
Your family is right. They cannot attend this Lutheran marriage. Do you expect them all to come in full dress to see you excommunicated? Do you want them there to applaud you while you disgrace them publicly and give scandal to all who know you?
If the pastor, who is to marry you secretly, knew of your plans he would not assist at your marriage. That same Canon 1063 forbids him. So you are deceiving him. Is that right?
I don’t know just what you should do. But I do know that the Church forbids you to marry this man anyway. She most severely forbids all mixed marriages (Canon 1060). Sure she grants dispensations, but she would never grant you one if she knew what you are planning to do. So by lying and dishonesty you trick her into exempting you from her law.
If you are determined to marry this man, at least wait until God and His grim reaper prepare the way for you. The Army might not harm your young man, and I suspect that the draft, in this case, would do you a world of good. At least it would be much better for you than excommunication.
If you are both of age, you might, if the Church dispenses you, simply go and get married quietly by the priest. (Period.) That is your right. I doubt very much that you will seriously endanger the waning life of your mother-in-law, unless her blood pressure is unusually high.
Q. A friend of our family — a Catholic — plans to be married soon to a non-Catholic man, by a justice of the peace. Would it be wrong for me to attend a reception for her? She is past 25 years of age and should know better. I would like to go to the reception, but I would not like for her or anyone else to think I approve of such an unthinkable act.
A. A Catholic girl who does a thing of this kind puts all her relatives and friends in a sad and delicate position. They have always loved her and they don’t want to hurt her. They don’t want to stir up family quarrels and bitter resentments. But, in conscience, they cannot give approval to the sinful thing she is doing. They are obliged, where possible, to avoid seeming to give approval.
A Catholic girl who does a thing of this kind knows full well that she is committing sin, violating the law of God and the law of His Church. She has probably done a lot of rationalizing and talking to herself, until she has found many excuses and half convinced herself that God will understand because He knows what true love means, even if cold-hearted clerics never felt it. But she should remember that her family and friends have not followed her in her rationalizations. They still see the sin, stark and shameful.
The Catholic girl should be considerate. She should not try to drag all those she loves into her sin with her. They don’t even share the thrill of it — only the guilt. If she must sin, she should do it honestly and quietly, and not try to disguise it in the gaudy trappings of respectability.
These unfortunate affairs — when they are dressed up with parties and splendor — cause family fights and neighborhood enmities, bitter criticisms, and harsh feelings that rankle long. There is no one easier hurt than the person who knows she is doing wrong, but wants to appear to do right. She is just waiting for you to seem to detect the wrong she knows she can’t hide.
Now for your question: You can hardly attend this party without giving approval — or seeming to give approval — to all it stands for. Stay away. Not disdainfully, nor with arrogant reproach or righteous scorn, but quietly, regretfully, with a bit of sympathy and a fervent prayer. Don’t cast a stone. Admit humbly that it might bounce back. For she is just another sinner. God be merciful to her.
Q. A Catholic friend of mine is giving a prenuptial party for a mutual friend of ours, also a Catholic, who has announced her plans to be married outside the Church. May I attend the party?
A. You may not. And you must tell your friend plainly why you may not. She is giving grave scandal by having this pre-nuptial party; and you as her friend, have an obligation to prevent this scandal, if you can. If she won’t listen to you I suggest that you take the matter to your pastor.
Suppose your mutual friend had publicly announced that she was going to live with a man who is not her husband (but is probably validly married to someone else) would you be attending parties for her?
That is exactly what she has announced. She isn’t going to marry this man. She is merely going to do some play-acting before a Justice of the Peace or a non-Catholic minister, and then live with him publicly and shamelessly, as an adulteress, defying God and scorning His Church.
If you go to a party given for her you publicly approve her adultery, her perversity, and her scandal. You sin by cooperation.
Q. I read in our local paper a big write-up about the marriage of a Catholic girl (divorced) in a Protestant church. Her father (a Catholic) gave her away. Her sister (a Catholic) was her bridesmaid. Various other Catholics participated in the ceremony. How can this be done?
A. How can murder be done? Or theft? Or adultery? It is done by violating the laws of God and His Church. These people did grave wrong — all of them. They gave serious scandal to hundreds of people. God will probably impose serious punishment for what they have done.
The “bride” is excommunicated.
The loving father gave her away, indeed — to the devil. He gave her grandly and elegantly into a life of adultery.
The sister’s beauty attracted the gaze of admiring eyes as she solemnly witnessed her sister’s shame and excom-munication.
We are not unsympathetic. We can imagine the story. The girl’s first husband was a stinker. She couldn’t live with him — and now her life must not be ruined. She has found such a nice man. The Church’s laws are too strict. You can’t expect her to live alone the rest of her life. Let’s make the best of it. Adultery is rather attractive with the right man. Besides he will provide a good home for her. And she will be happy. God will understand.
Such sentimental drivel is widely used to justify eutha-nasia, abortion, birth control, divorce, and various other crimes. A jury of women recently used it, in our own state, to free a handsome young man from punishment for confessed murder. Poor fellow! He should have a chance to be happy. Hang the cost to society, public morality and the law of God. But don’t hang this nice boy by his pretty neck.
Q. A friend of mine who was baptized a Catholic and made his first Communion, but fell away many years ago, is going to be married in the Episcopal church. I have been invited. May I attend the wedding?
A. You may not. He is obliged to marry before a priest. This attempted marriage of his will be invalid. You may not take part in such sin and mockery even by being present at it. Of course, he may think he is doing right, and thus be excused from formal sin. But you know it is wrong, so you cannot be excused. Send him polite regrets. If he is in good faith he will not be offended. If he is in bad faith, he will get the point .
Q. My friend is contemplating marriage to a Protestant who will neither join the Church nor make the promises necessary for a mixed marriage. She is middle aged so I feel that she is old enough to know what she is doing. Will it be wrong for me, a Catholic, to attend her wedding?
A. It most certainly would be wrong. The fact that she is old enough to know better makes it all the more serious. Young fools might rush impetuously into passionate sin. She is being deliberate and calculating about it. Maybe she excuses herself on the plea that it is her last hope this side of hell.
Q. My cousin, a Catholic, is getting married to a non-Catholic in a non-Catholic church. She is giving up her religion. She wants me to be bridesmaid. My pastor has refused me permission to do so. I understand it, but this cousin’s family does not. They are very angry at me. They say this is not freedom of religion.
A. Why do I get so many questions of this kind? The answer should be very clear. Your pastor is entirely right. No Catholic can assist at the marriage of another Catholic in a Protestant church. You can’t do it even if the whole family threatens to disown you. You are right and they are entirely wrong. So let them howl. You are not the first person to be persecuted for your Faith.
I will repeat the answer I have given so often: No Catholic can be validly married except by a priest. If a Catholic tries to get married by a minister or a judge, he is making a mockery of marriage. He is committing sin and publicly proclaiming his intention to live in sin. Can you join with him in that?
This cousin of yours is doing much worse. She is denying her Faith. The martyrs died in torment rather than deny their Faith. Her parents evidently back her up and encourage her in making a mockery of Christ and the Church He founded. She is being excommunicated on at least two counts. Would you accompany her to her excommunication in the splendor of tulle, gardenias, and organ music? Freedom of religion does not mean freedom to commit sin. No one is free to break the first, fifth and sixth Commandments of God, all in one splendid act. That is what your cousin is doing: breaking the first, by denying her Faith; the fifth, by scandal; and the sixth by taking to herself a man who is not her husband. Neither are you free to help her break them — to approve, and applaud, and accompany her in her shameless act. You are entirely right. Be firm.
Q. Can a person who does not attend Mass or receive his Easter Duty, or any person married outside the Church, have a Catholic burial if he has received the Last Sacraments before death?
A. Yes, but he had better not count on that last chance. It is very dangerous to travel daily down the speedway to hell, planning to jump off just before the precipice of death.
Q. If my wife’s sister, a Catholic and single, marries a single non-Catholic man in a non-Catholic church, before a minister, must I accept or recognize him as my brother-in-law? Or what should I do, since they are not married, according to Catholic doctrine?
What if she marries a divorced non-Catholic man before a judge or justice of the peace? Must I accept him or treat him as a brother-in-law, since in fact he is not married to the woman at all?
Would it be well to tell or remind them sometimes that they are living in sin?
A. Situations like these present problems which are not made easier by their frequency. So many personal problems are involved that it is difficult to give any sound general advice, except this: always act like a gentleman, and do not give needless offense. Try to avoid positively condoning or approving the situation; be careful of giving scandal to other people; and then try to figure out which line of procedure is most apt to produce salutary results, i.e., to get them to fix up the marriage, or recede from their sinful arrangement. An annoying clucking of the tongue or wagging of the head will probably not do much good. Neither are you apt to improve their attitude by reminding them directly and regularly of their sin. It is rather childish to refuse to speak to them. On the other hand they can hardly expect you to clasp them joyously to your virtuous chest.
What does your wife wish you to do? She is more deeply hurt by this than you. Consider her feelings carefully. These things can cause great tensions within a family. No one is able to hurt us as deeply as the ones we love most.
Q. A Catholic woman married an unbaptized man before a justice of the peace. She bore him the first child with great difficulty; she bore him the second and he nearly lost her. So he went to a doctor and simply had himself sterilized. Now, with conscience prodding them quite forcibly, they want to have their marriage blessed in the Catholic Church. How does his antecedent sterilization bear on the projected marriage? Isn’t he now impotent?
If they were already validly married and had themselves sterilized to avoid children, and then later repented and returned to the sacraments, would they be allowed to use their marriage rights?
If a second operation might restore fertility, would the sterilized partner be obliged to have this operation upon returning to practice of the Faith?
A. These are questions to be debated in learned manner by theologians and canonists, not easy little problems on which I can give a quick answer. However, if these cases came to me — as some of them have — and I had to make a practical decision this is what I would do:
1 — If your man in case No. 1 were sterilized vasectomy I would not say that he were certainly impotent and thereby excluded from marriage. There are good sound theologians who hold otherwise, and par. 2 of canon 1068 says that in cases of doubt the marriage is not to be prevented. However, as long as this man remained outside the Church I would be very hesitant to recommend to the bishop that a dispensation be granted for a Catholic woman to marry him. He may have a right to marry; but he has no right to a dispensation. However there might be other reasons — like the welfare of children — which would make the dispensation desirable.
2 — If these people had themselves sterilized by some method which did not make them definitely and certainly impotent then I would say, in practical advice, that they might use their marriage rights. But I couldn’t help wondering about their honesty, and the thorough sincerity of their repentance. It is easy to be sorry for murder when your enemy is irreparably dead. But can you help being glad he is dead?
3 — Again, as a practical solution, I think I would urge the operation; otherwise I would be doubly doubtful of the sincerity of these people. They are mightily sorry as long as their sin cannot be undone; but give the corpse a new lease on life and their sorrow falters.
Great Falls: (Black Eagle - Immaculate Heart of Mary)
Mass every Sunday, 7:00 & 9:00 a.m.: Holy Days, 9:00 a.m
Helena: (Holy Cross)
Mass every Sunday and Holy Days: 8:00 a.m. See Church Bulletin
Missoula: (East Missoula - Holy Shroud)
Mass 2nd, 4th & 5th Sundays of the month 12:30 p.m.
Holy Days 6:00 p.m.
Billings: (Pompeys Pillar - St. Martin de Tours)
Mass 1st, 3rd & 5th Sundays of the month 3:00 p.m
Holy Days 6:00 p.m.
Lethbridge: (St. Theresa the Little Flower)
Mass 2:00 p.m. 3rd Sunday of the month
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