Marriage and convalidation¶

Can. 1108 §1 requires that marriages be contracted before the local ordinary or the pastor, or before a priest or deacon delegated by one of them, together with two witnesses. Can. 1108 §2 explains what "before" means: the assisting minister must ask for and receive the parties' manifestation of consent in the name of the Church. Can. 1117 binds every marriage in which at least one party was baptised Catholic and has not left the Church by a formal act.

This looks like paperwork and is not. Marriage is the one sacrament the spouses confer on each other, which means the Church has no other moment at which to verify that this marriage is free, informed, unimpeded, and public. Form is how a private exchange of consent becomes an act of the Church with public effects — effects that later bear on legitimacy, on annulment proceedings, on a future spouse's freedom to marry, and on a child's admission to seminary. Where form is absent the marriage is null, however sincere the consent; where form is present the marriage stands, however modest the ceremony.

Code of Canon Law, Can. 998–1165

The letter of April 4, 2017 from the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei asked local ordinaries to arrange that marriages of faithful attached to the Society be celebrated with canonical form secured. The preferred arrangement was that a diocesan priest receive the consent, after which the SSPX priest could celebrate the nuptial Mass. Where that was impossible or would cause hardship, the ordinary could delegate the SSPX priest to assist at the marriage.

Two features of that arrangement matter now. First, it was a grant from the diocese in each case: it never gave the Society priests a standing faculty, so a chapel wedding in 2019 is valid if and only if the local bishop actually delegated — which the chancery can confirm from its own records. Second, the letter was explicitly framed as a pastoral provision "for the good of the faithful" within an irregular situation, pending reconciliation. The July 2026 Note ends the framework it belonged to and states plainly that matrimony assisted by the Society's ministers is invalid.

Couples married under the provision between 2017 and July 1, 2026 have nothing to fear from the change: a marriage validly contracted does not become invalid because the law later changes. Validity is judged by the law in force at the moment consent was exchanged.

Are our children illegitimate? No. Can. 1137 gives legitimacy to the children of a putative marriage — one entered in good faith by at least one party, even if it turns out to be null. Beyond that, canonical legitimacy has almost no practical effect in the Church's current law, and none at all in civil law, where a valid civil marriage is a separate matter entirely.

Have we been living in sin? The Church distinguishes between the objective state of a marriage in law and the subjective responsibility of the parties. A couple who married before a priest they believed could assist, and who lived as faithful spouses since, are not in the moral position of a couple who knowingly avoided the Church. A confessor will say this in plainer words than a website can.

Do we have to tell people? No. A sanatio requires no announcement, and a simple convalidation can be done privately with two witnesses. Nobody is entitled to your file.

Was our marriage civilly valid? In most jurisdictions the civil validity of a wedding turns on the officiant's civil registration and the licence, not on canon law. That is a separate question with a separate answer, and worth confirming — particularly for weddings celebrated abroad.

What if one of us is not Catholic? Then a dispensation from canonical form may have been granted, in which case the marriage is valid. Check the file before assuming a defect.