Marrying in a Catholic Church as an atheist?!

[kirkland1]

Partner is Catholic and would like to have a church wedding. I am totally atheist, but happy for a church wedding (as long as it’s a pretty church.. I enjoy the architecture!). We’ve had a look and the local says it’s fine if one partner isn’t religious…

However it still talks about marriage preparation meetings. I thought this was largely about sex etc? Has anyone non-Catholic experiences this, what did it involve?

Also - is it acceptable to be married whilst already pregnant, or is that a big no go? I know that there’s a 6 month “lead time” and I don’t want to put off TTC. I’m sure I read somewhere it was fine, but then I thought sex before marriage technically wasn’t fine?!

I know the answer is to get on with it and find out directly but just trying to gauge what others experience is/has been ☺️

Ask the priest what he thinks as its God's opinion via him that counts

You have to have classes in the Catholic Faith and show that you are a true believer. I don't think it would work well for you, but it depends a bit on the Priest.

But honestly, why would you want to do this? If your partner is a true and faithful Catholic, he wouldn't be marrying an atheist, if it is so important to him. And not a pregnant one.

Or is it just to please his parents? Personally, I would not agree to base such a special day on deception.

So I’m catholic and my now husband isn’t and we got married in the Catholic Church. The non catholic still needed to be baptised e.g. Church of Scotland/england.

The preparation classes really depend on the priest you get. Ours was really chill and my husband and the priest ended up talking a lot about Star Wars and the priest’s home sound system. However he’s quite a young priest. Ours did expect us to come to mass.

The main bit of the sessions were about bringing up any children in the catholic faith and basically being in it together. We got a booklet we had to work through together.

my pals in an other dioceses did a few weekend with groups of couples I think maybe 3/4 couples and they chatted together. So yes, it depends!

Are you an atheist or just agnostic?

I’d say those things you ask about don’t matter if you are either but I certainly wouldn’t marry in a church of any sort as an atheist.

I think it is a bit heavy on believers who are not Catholic, so in your case it could be really taxing.
As PP say, it will all depend on how lucky you are with your priest.
You may quite tip it over the edge if you do mention the TTC, again, depending on the priest.....

My friend did a catholic marriage prep course and said it was excellent- helped them have lots of important conversations eg about how they'd manage their finances and family etc

I remember taking my atheist husband to his first Catholic wedding. I am also an atheist but I grew up in a Catholic family so I know how it works. He was shocked by how heavy-handed the ceremony was with regards to religion. The priest talked for at least 20 minutes about the couples responsibilities to god and their need to procreate and raise good Catholics. The bride then went and prayed to Mary. Everyone took communion, but a few of us heathens (my mother absolutely mortified that I wouldn’t just go along and do it for show)

It’s not just having a wedding in a pretty building and saying a few words.

Yes there's a lot of good stuff in these courses about your relationship generally, not about God. OP you won't have to get baptised. There's a policy called disparity of cults or something. You'll just have to agree that any children would be raised Catholic

Whether you can get married when pregnant is, as far as I understand, down to the preference of the priest. Some are seriously nasty pieces of work (the one who did most of the "Catholic marriage course" was one of those), and some are absolutely lovely people (like the one who did the wedding itself). Whether they will marry you if you haven't been baptised is something I'm not sure about. We had to go and dig up a copy of my baptism certificate in my case.

The marriage course is obviously trying very hard to be all about their faith, but just don't take it too seriously. You won't be the only atheist there, and there were also a few of other faiths in our group. Just smile and nod while they witter on about the god-bothery stuff, and chat about other things that are pretty universal.

I got lucky as they did the marriage course on a single day (I persuaded most of the other dads to come to the pub for lunch!). I wouldn't particularly fancy doing several evenings spread out.

Ok, really mixed opinions and experiences!! It’s difficult because I think it’s really important my partner. Perhaps he needs to go and get more info from our local church and go from there

My parents had a similar dilemma back in the 70s when they got married.
My dad is Catholic and my mam is agnostic. They ended up getting married in a CoE church with a catholic blessing

Is it an option to have a separate Catholic blessing, after a civil service? Or somehow to do something Catholic for my partner?

i got married in a catholic church having already had two children with my partner, there were no issues at all. i call myself agnostic.
dh said he was lapsed.@kirkland1 it was important to him to get married in a catholic church.
the priest was lovely.