[Question:]{.underline} I have been told that I have to accept my daughter’s marriage, although she left the Catholic Church in which she was baptized, and was married in a protestant church, since the post-Vatican II church says it is valid. Can you comment?
[Answer:]{.underline} The following principles will allow you to see how to act, despite the confusion of the liberal changes brought about in the Church’s law since Vatican II.
Principles:
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The revolutionary new canon of the 1983 Code of Canon Law that you
refer to is Canon 1117, which states that those baptized Catholics who have abandoned the Catholic Church by a formal act (i.e. formal apostates) are no longer bound to the canonical form of marriage, as they were previously. To the contrary, canon 1099 of the 1917 code states that all those who were once Catholics are bound to observe the canonical form of marriage, even if afterwards they abandon the Catholic Church.
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There can be no doubt that this Canon is dangerous for the Faith,
for it gives people to understand that a person, once a Catholic, can stop being a Catholic in the eyes of the Church. This is manifestly false, for those who are baptized in the Catholic Church are bound by their baptismal vows for the rest of their life to live as Catholics.
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However, it is nowhere said, either in the new or in the old code,
that a baptized Catholic can actually cease to be a Catholic before God.
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The 1983 code does not indicate what a formal act of apostasy really
is. Consequently, it must be interpreted in a strict sense. Examples of this would include a written statement, saying explicitly that a person abandons all belief in the Catholic Church and its teachings. The difficulty of interpreting a ceremony of initiation into a protestant church is that these ceremonies (such as altar calls) are very frequent, and do not necessarily mean officially belonging to any particular church or denomination or holding to any particular set of beliefs. Consequently, they cannot be necessarily understood as a formal act of apostasy. Likewise, regular attendance at a protestant church does not necessarily mean formally abandoning the Catholic Church.
Application:
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We are now in a position to answer your question. Your daughter, who
has abandoned the practice of the Catholic religion, must always be considered, before God and the Church, as a Catholic, even though for the time being she is unfaithful to her religion and to her baptismal vows.
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Her marriage outside the Church, without dispensation from canonical
form, 18 months ago, must be considered invalid, until proven otherwise, that is until such time as the fact of a formal act of apostasy from the Catholic religion is established.
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Your daughter is consequently to be regarded as a fallen away
Catholic living in mortal sin. You cannot support or encourage her in this in any way, and in particular you cannot treat her as a married person, but as one living in concubinage.
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If your daughter now commits an act of formal apostasy, her marriage
does not for that reason become valid. The validity or not depends upon her state at the time of marriage. The difficulty of determining this illustrates once more the imprudence of this law, in addition to its undermining of the oneness of the Catholic Church.
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Needless to say, it is by your prayers and your charity that you will convince her of the error of her ways, and bring her back to Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Consequently, provided that there is no danger of scandal, and that she and her concubine do not spend the night together under your roof, you can maintain contact with her.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.