can an athiest marry in catholic church?

[sara-jayne]

my fiancee is catholic and i am not the slightest bit religious (although i am christened as a luthren)

i know my fiancee wants a church wedding and i would like one too i was wondering if anyone knew where the church stood on marrying people who wernt religious? am i gonna have to pretend i want to be catholic if i want to marry him in a catholic church?

i only ask cause i remember when my god son was christened they (the church) didnt want me to be god mother because i wasnt catholic (mind you this was in a very small town where everyone knew everyones business)

thanks

[aardvark]

If you have been christened, the priest will ask for a copy of the certificate, and there should be no problem - assuming you are happy with that.

DH is Uniting Church, I am Catholic, we just had to produce his christening certificate.

To marry in a catholic church, they will expect you to attend some pre-marriage sessions usually, and during the ceremony you have to promise to accept children as gifts from God, and that you will bring them up Catholic.

[Frazzled]

If you get married in the Catholic church then you must take catholic vows. Wouldn't you be contradicting yourself if you did this? I wouldn't see the point if you feel that strongly about it. A priest will have reservations and may decide not to marry you at all if you declare yourself as being atheist...

[Jinglebells]

i'm catholic and my DH is a athiest

we got married in a church, was a all denomination church but the preist we had was catholic, I can' t remember having to do anything special apart from both agreeing that out children will be brought up as catholics

[SilverStarfish]

Neither DH nor I are active members of the churches that we "officially" belong to so it wasn't an issue for us. We chose a civil ceremony. Hypothetically though, if he were catholic and me an atheist, then we still would not have been married in a church.

It's just my opinion and the way I feel, but I think it would have been completely hypocritical of me to be married in a faith that I did not share or believe in. Ditto for having our children christened (or agreeing to raise them in a particular faith) or my being a godparent to someone else's child.

I'll be a guardian, but not a godparent. I can't promise to help raise the child and live my life as an example to a faith I don't share.

[elissas]

Yes you can. There is also a ruling (been around for about 8 years or so now), that if one partner is non-Catholic and the other is Catholic, then you can get permission to have a Catholic ceremony somewhere other than a church.

I was brought up Catholic and my Uncle used to be a Priest (was a Priest at the time DH and I were married). I had always wanted to have him conduct the ceremony, even though DH (non-Catholic) and I would have preferred a civil service. But we were able to have him perform the ceremony in a public garden due to this rule. We cut down the ceremony to the minimum religious stuff necessary, and chose readings from wherever we wanted (wherever we could).