To think Boris should not have been married in Westmister Cathedral?

[buggerbuggery]

Divorced people are not allowed to be married in a Catholic church. Boris Johnson has been married twice before. His first marriage was annulled, so the church does not count. But his second marriage does count. So he should never have been allowed to marry in a Catholic Cathedral.

[quote buggerbuggery]@Aquamarine1029 because some of us are Catholics? This is not a private matter. It is about church rules.[/quote]
If you are a Catholic, esp if you practise, you will already have been aware of church rules and how unreasonable they can be. And how, on occasion, they are conveniently bent or ignored.

[quote mathanxiety]@NinaMimi

Given the history of the Catholic Church with things like indulgences there’s usually a way around the rules with technicalities. Money and power also don’t hurt.

For a board full of people who I assume spent many years toiling away at RE classes in school, there seem to be many, many misconceptions about the RC church floating around.[/quote]
"Misconceptions"?! You have got to be joking. The entire history of the Church is peppered with this kind of thing. If you are an active member of the Church and aren't aware of this, I suggest you look a bit closer to home before snidely suggesting that other people are ignorant.

‘Thank you both for sharing your knowledge on this intriguing technical aspect of (Canon) law and faith generally. This has been an intriguing learning curve.’

I only know because I plan to go through the process. I have the whole thread very intriguing in terms of so many people who don’t believe marriage is a sacrament caring about who receives the sacrament of marriage.

It is a really interesting insight into what people think the church is there for, and clashing moral systems. I’ve not really got my head around it.

Aren't we supposed to take the plank out of our own eye before telling someone else they should take the speck out of theirs? It isn't up to us to judge others as we all fall short of perfection, don't we?

It depends what the purpose of the judgement is.

I certainly think if you are getting married to someone you should consider their character, and if you are voting for someone you should do the same.

@buggerbuggery whether you agree with it or not if previous marriages were annulled or civil ceremonies then marriage within the Catholic Church is allowed. I thought every Catholic knew that basic fact. Civil ceremonies aren’t recognised gnoses by the church... never have been!

YANBU. Any other divorcee wouldn’t have been allowed. An exception shouldn’t be made just because he’s PM. Especially when it’s well known that he’s a philanderer to whom marriage vows mean nothing.

@VestaTilley

YANBU. Any other divorcee wouldn’t have been allowed. An exception shouldn’t be made just because he’s PM. Especially when it’s well known that he’s a philanderer to whom marriage vows mean nothing.

Any other divorcee baptised in the Catholic church whose previous marriages weren't in that church would have been allowed to do this.

His new wife should not be prevented from marrying him because he has a reputation as a philanderer.

If you want the church to treat him the way they treat anyone else - that's exactly what they have done.

If not, who else should be on their exclusion list, and why?

There's been no exception here.

It says it all about the organisation really whenever it has a crap rule that you can’t marry after a divorce but then in a second breath begins to proclaim certain other marriages invalid so that an exception can be made.

Do they really think that their all powerful god cannot see clearly into a registry office?
And if the marriage wasn’t valid then surely the person was committing the heinous crime of sex “outside” marriage? Turn a blind eye to that then shall we.
And they call the rest of us hypocrites

Really good luck to him if he gets away with it.

I’m more worried about the damage these religious organisations do to our society , human rights, child protection and education system.

What are you talking about Blubbery?

It is a very standard case. The Catholic Church has no authority over how many times you can get married in a registry office, nor does it say people who have had premarital sex can’t get married.

@Moules

My mum has a masters in Catholic theology and confirmed that if the first marriage(s) weren’t performed in the Catholic Church, you can remarry in the church. That was also always my understanding.

I have to say though, as a practicing Catholic I couldn’t care less

My Dad married my Mum in a Catholic Church. She died after 34 years. He met a woman who had married in a registry office but then divorced. They were not allowed to marry in the Catholic Church because of her previous marriage.

It’s 2021 move with the times

@blubberyboo

It says it all about the organisation really whenever it has a crap rule that you can’t marry after a divorce but then in a second breath begins to proclaim certain other marriages invalid so that an exception can be made.

Do they really think that their all powerful god cannot see clearly into a registry office?
And if the marriage wasn’t valid then surely the person was committing the heinous crime of sex “outside” marriage? Turn a blind eye to that then shall we.
And they call the rest of us hypocrites

Really good luck to him if he gets away with it.

I’m more worried about the damage these religious organisations do to our society , human rights, child protection and education system.

It's not an exception. It's a rule.

You've people on this thread telling you the rule applies in their cases. They're not terribly rare cases.

Many if not most Catholics have sex outside marriage before marrying, and I don't think the church pretends otherwise. Why would it?

Having sinned isn't a bar to marriage. Murderers marry in Catholic churches. Self-professed atheists marry in Catholic churches. No-one pretends they don't. Marriage is not a seal of approval.

Any other divorcee wouldn’t have been allowed. An exception shouldn’t be made just because he’s PM. Especially when it’s well known that he’s a philanderer to whom marriage vows mean nothing.

This is utter nonsense.

Divorce is a civil law matter.
..........
It says it all about the organisation really whenever it has a crap rule that you can’t marry after a divorce but then in a second breath begins to proclaim certain other marriages invalid so that an exception can be made.
That's not the rule. Ignorant postings of this kind say a lot more about the posters themselves than the institution they are making stuff up about.

A Catholic can marry again after divorce. They can't receive communion if they do.

A Catholic can marry again after divorce and annulment. In that case they can receive communion.

A marriage between a RC and a non-RC has to be given the ok by the RC church. Dems the rules for Catholics.

The RC church recognises those marriages as valid.
But it doesn't regard them as sacramental marriages, and that is what so many here seem not to be able to wrap their heads around.

@blubberyboo
It is strange the way people approach an all knowing powerful god by trying to find loopholes like a lawyer.

If I really believed in such a being I wouldn’t be trying to look for ways around it which is what some people do. It’s like people who want to save themselves for their marriage so they do every other sexual act. I’m not sure how you’re keeping yourself “pure” then 😂

My mum has a masters in Catholic theology and confirmed that if the first marriage(s) weren’t performed in the Catholic Church, you can remarry in the church.

So why did the Catholic Church require that my family member's ex-wife petition to annul her marriage to him in the Episcopal Church before she could be married in the Catholic Church? I assume that someone in the RC hierarchy considered the Episcopal marriage between two then Episcopalians to be sacramental.

"Misconceptions"?! You have got to be joking. The entire history of the Church is peppered with this kind of thing. If you are an active member of the Church and aren't aware of this, I suggest you look a bit closer to home before snidely suggesting that other people are ignorant.

This thread isn't exactly doing a good job of advertising the UK's RE or history curricula.

There is so much unabashed ignorance washing around, and frankly bigotry too, that the thread should come with an asterisk and a warning. I'm not being one bit snide about that.

@blubberyboo

It says it all about the organisation really whenever it has a crap rule that you can’t marry after a divorce but then in a second breath begins to proclaim certain other marriages invalid so that an exception can be made.

Do they really think that their all powerful god cannot see clearly into a registry office?
And if the marriage wasn’t valid then surely the person was committing the heinous crime of sex “outside” marriage? Turn a blind eye to that then shall we.
And they call the rest of us hypocrites

Really good luck to him if he gets away with it.

I’m more worried about the damage these religious organisations do to our society , human rights, child protection and education system.

This is just silly.

Of course an omnipotent God can see into a registry office - although not sure it quite works like that. The point is the couple choosing a registry office wedding were choosing to exclude God from their wedding vows. They were making a civil commitment, not a sacramental commitment. Given marriage is a sacrament, a registry office doesn’t make the grade for a Catholic marriage.

Most Catholics have a Catholic wedding and so receive the sacrament. You cannot ‘undo’ a sacrament. Divorce is a civil state, but is not recognised in relation to the Catholic wedding vows. Wedding vows made as a sacramental commitment are lifelong.

It isn’t just PMs it applies to. My sister in law had a Cathedral wedding for her second marriage, as her first marriage was a quick registry office ceremony.

Yes, the Church teachings would indeed see sex within a civil wedding as sex outside of marriage. It would not be promoted as a good thing. The Church, like all major Christian faiths promotes marriage as the lifelong, faithful union of one man and one woman. That marriage is a commitment before God.

Now that won’t work for everyone, but then not everyone would be seeking a Catholic marriage.

[quote NinaMimi]@blubberyboo
It is strange the way people approach an all knowing powerful god by trying to find loopholes like a lawyer.

If I really believed in such a being I wouldn’t be trying to look for ways around it which is what some people do. It’s like people who want to save themselves for their marriage so they do every other sexual act. I’m not sure how you’re keeping yourself “pure” then 😂[/quote]
At a deeper level you're exactly in agreement with the Catholic Church - it recognises the primacy of the individual conscience.

Anyone who condemns sex outside marriage tends not to approve the rest either - every other sexual act is surely just about avoiding pregnancy where that's a cultural norm ...

Re Boris's marriage - is a rule just what the British public approves of, in Catholic doctrine, and a loophole anything it doesn't?

My mum has a masters in Catholic theology and confirmed that if the first marriage(s) weren’t performed in the Catholic Church, you can remarry in the church.
The RC church examines the circumstances of previous marriages if a previously married party wishes to marry in the RC church. There are many details and wrinkles to each situation. Marriage rules are strictly speaking a matter of canon law, not theology.

So why did the Catholic Church require that my family member's ex-wife petition to annul her marriage to him in the Episcopal Church before she could be married in the Catholic Church? I assume that someone in the RC hierarchy considered the Episcopal marriage between two then Episcopalians to be sacramental.
@SenecaFallsRedux
It would not be assumed to be sacramental, because the Episcopal Church does not hold matrimony is a sacrament, and Episcopalians are not taught that matrimony is a sacrament so would not have this understanding of it themselves, but the RC church would assume the marriage was valid as opposed to putative. Hence the inquiry before granting permission to marry in the RC church.

@mathanxiety

"Misconceptions"?! You have got to be joking. The entire history of the Church is peppered with this kind of thing. If you are an active member of the Church and aren't aware of this, I suggest you look a bit closer to home before snidely suggesting that other people are ignorant.

This thread isn't exactly doing a good job of advertising the UK's RE or history curricula.

There is so much unabashed ignorance washing around, and frankly bigotry too, that the thread should come with an asterisk and a warning. I'm not being one bit snide about that.

It’s easy to just call people ignorant without actually pointing out why. The only thing I really mentioned was indulgences - which I’m sure I didn’t learn about in RE at school. They’re not going to teach you anything controversial in RE (or at least not when I was at school).

Yes, the Church teachings would indeed see sex within a civil wedding as sex outside of marriage. It would not be promoted as a good thing. The Church, like all major Christian faiths promotes marriage as the lifelong, faithful union of one man and one woman. That marriage is a commitment before God.

Not quite. The RC church supports the institutions of state because an orderly and just society operating under the rule of law is in everybody's best interests. It supports the state's interest in regulating marriage because it holds that marriage strengthens society and provides the best environment in which to bring up children. The RC church provides civil registry books in its churches for couples to register their unions just as many other organised religions do. In other parts of the world, civil registry and RC church ceremonies are completely separate. You can see the separate registry and church weddings of many European royal family members and aristocrats in the pages of magazines.

Registry office marriage is not 'promoted' by the RC church - it teaches that marriage is sacramental, and marriage in a registry office is not sacramental. It 'promotes' marriage within the church. But civil marriage is not something the RC church frowns upon except if one or both of the participants is a Catholic.

Proceeding without marrying at all is what the RC church opposes. It also opposes gay civil marriage.

@mathanxiety

"Misconceptions"?! You have got to be joking. The entire history of the Church is peppered with this kind of thing. If you are an active member of the Church and aren't aware of this, I suggest you look a bit closer to home before snidely suggesting that other people are ignorant.

This thread isn't exactly doing a good job of advertising the UK's RE or history curricula.

There is so much unabashed ignorance washing around, and frankly bigotry too, that the thread should come with an asterisk and a warning. I'm not being one bit snide about that.

You are accusing someone who grew up in the Catholic Church (we attended every Sunday) of bigotry. It's the easy-to-reach-for explanation for anyone challenging you: "If someone challenges me, or critiques my religion, they must be a bigot or have been inadequately educated in RE." Not necessarily. Maybe you'd do well to listen to what is being said instead of batting it away because you are too fragile to hear something challenging. Be an adult about it rather than an aggrieved child.

On that note, there's a lot of childishness on this thread. "The Catholic Church isn't FAIR!!!I myself wasn't allowed to marry a divorced person in a church" etc. In MANY ways, the CC does not treat people fairly, never has done. Divorcees, many women, gay people, people who've been abused by priests, priests who want to leave the priesthood, etc. That quite a lot of you seem actually surprised by the unfairness and the hypocrisy is striking in itself.

Some of the comments here are ill-informed, I agree. Then there are people not surprisingly getting Westminster Cathedral mixed up with Westminster Abbey, I can see why they might, if they haven't been to either.

I don't really think RE school curriculums are the place for the study of Canon Law with all its intricacies. Many self-avowed Catholics on this thread aren't clear about it themselves! And why would they be, given that they have probably been told one thing officially and several other things today in the media (by priests and theologians among others.)? And when the official position can, when it suits, be ignored or creatively re-interpreted.

I left the Church exactly because I do know what it is like. You don't have to agree with my conclusion but, believe it or not (no pun intended), not everyone who criticises the Catholic Church does so from ignorance or bigotry.

It’s easy to just call people ignorant without actually pointing out why.

But people really have been pointing out why, again and again.

The thread claims that the Catholic church broke its own rules by marrying Johnson, and posters have followed up by saying it's all because he has power / money / connections.

People have posted to say actually, this is within the rules. There's been no special treatment. So it's not because of his power / money / connections.

And the general response is no, no, that can't be right, no we have no evidence you're wrong but we all know the Catholic church is eeeevil. Well maybe it is and maybe it isn't. But it has acted within its own, openly stated, rule in this case.

I would really like to know what people expected. The church shouldn't have obeyed its own rule, in this case, because Johnson is Johnson and people don't think much of him?

It is completely understand that people have no understanding of canon law.

It is however pretty obvious on this this thread that people in general don’t even understand what a sacrament is.

I would consider that to represent a very low level of understanding of Christianity.