Witnesses to Catholic marriages

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I understand that a Cathoic marriage is not valid without two witnesses. Is it necessary that each of the two witnesses signs a document which indicates that he or she is one of the two official witnesses? In other words, if these documents did not exist, would the marriage be considered valid by the Catholic Church?

Thank you.

-- Arnold K. Johnson (arnoldkjohnson@myexcel.com), November 28, 2002

Answers

Hello, Arnold.

Here is the text of the two applicable regulations from Canon Law (for the Western/Latin) Church:

"Canon 1108 -- §1 Only those marriages are valid which are contracted in the presence of the local Ordinary or parish priest or of the priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who, in the presence of two witnesses, assists, in accordance however with the rules set out in the following canons ..."

"Canon 1121 -- §1 As soon as possible after the celebration of a marriage, the parish priest of the place of celebration or whoever takes his place, even if neither has assisted at the marriage, is to record in the marriage register the names of the spouses, of the person who assisted and of the witnesses, and the place and date of the celebration of the marriage; this is to be done in the manner prescribed by the Episcopal Conference or by the diocesan Bishop."

I don't know if your bishops' conference or diocesan bishop has required that witnesses sign a document in addition to the priest recording the sacrament in a register. You would have to call the chancery for clarification.

In making that call, you could also ask about your other concern. Although efforts are surely made to safeguard registers of baptisms, confirmations, and marriages at parishes, I'm sure that there have been cases of destruction of such records by fire, bombing, etc.. I do not know if duplicate records are kept at a second site (e.g., the chancery).

The disappearance of a document could not, in and of itself, cause a marriage to be null. I imagine, though, that if one person claimed to have been married to another (while the other denied it), and the first person could not produce a living witness nor the marriage register, then a marriage tribunal may declare that there is no evidence that a valid marriage occurred.

God bless you.
john

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 02, 2002.


Can the witnesses be the same sex?

-- Alex (existential_karma@yahoo.ca), February 13, 2005.

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