Is My Marriage Valid, If I Was Baptized Catholic and Never Knew It?

Q:  I grew up in a non-churchgoing home with a Catholic father and Lutheran mother. I always assumed I had been baptized Lutheran as it’s the only denomination that I ever heard discussed in my home. I married my Methodist wife in a civil ceremony, as I had no attachment to any church.

I’ve recently found my faith and while doing research into becoming Catholic, I learned I was actually baptized Catholic in my father’s church. My question is, since I was baptized into the Catholic Church even though I didn’t know it, if my wife and I decide to join the Church officially and are confirmed, will the Church consider our marriage valid?  If not, what will we need to do? –Lee

A:  The situation that Lee describes is far more common than most Catholics probably think!  There are all sorts of reasons why parents might have their infant baptized in a Catholic parish (which under normal circumstances naturally means the child is a Catholic, as discussed in “What Makes a Baptism Catholic?”), yet fail to raise that child in the Catholic faith.  Maybe the parents sincerely intended to raise a Catholic family, but they subsequently stopped practicing their faith altogether.  Perhaps one or both of the parents were non-practicing Catholics when their baby was born, but they went through the motions of having that baby baptized to please the grandparents, and then never entered a Catholic church again.  Or one parent might have been Catholic while the other wasn’t … and after the child’s baptism the Catholic parent died, leaving the non-Catholic to raise the child in a different faith, or in no religion at all.  In these and many other, comparable sorts of cases, the child is in fact a baptized Catholic—but might not know it.  What are the implications of this scenario for the child when he grows up?

If you go flipping through the Code of Canon Law, looking for canons addressing this specific topic, you won’t find any.  Yet that does not mean there is no answer to this question, because there most certainly is, and it’s clear and unambiguous.  As any type of lawyer should be able to tell you, no sound legal code includes laws specifically addressing every conceivable situation.  If it did, that code would undoubtedly run to millions of pages, and no jurist would be able to master it; and those whom the code governed would be constantly wondering/worrying whether they were violating a law or not.

That’s why canon law, like other legal codes around the world, provides the general rules and norms governing those situations which experience has proven to arise on a more or less regular basis … and it ordinarily leaves the hard cases and local situations to interpretation by canonists and theologians.  By applying broader concepts—like the virtue of justice, or the spiritual purpose of the sacraments, e.g.—one finds that more often than not, there is a clear answer to particular legal queries that may arise.  We saw examples of this in “Can Divorced Catholics Date, While Waiting For Their Annulment?” as well as “Can We Be Required to Wear Masks at Mass?” and “Can Church Officials Require Us to Get Vaccinated?”  The Code of Canon Law certainly makes no statements regarding any of these scenarios; but it’s nonetheless fairly easy to apply theology, existing law, historical praxis, etc., and reach a logically solid conclusion.

So here’s the Church’s logic in the case of someone who was baptized Catholic as a child, never knew it and was not raised in the Catholic faith, and subsequently got married in a non-Catholic ceremony:

1.  If you were baptized in a Catholic ceremony, you are a Catholic—see the abovementioned “What Makes a Baptism Catholic?” for more on this.  It is true that historically, there were isolated exceptions to this rule in eastern Europe, during the Soviet persecution of both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, because sometimes members of one Church could only find a priest of the other Church to baptize their child; but these were extraordinary situations which do not concern us here.

2.  If you are a Catholic, you are bound by the Code of Canon Law (see cc. 11-12); and the code explicitly states that marriages involving at least one Catholic spouse are subject not only to divine law, but to canon law regarding marriage (c. 1059).

3.  As per canon 1108.1, Catholics who wish to marry are obliged to observe canonical form, which means they must marry before the bishop, the parish priest, or a priest/deacon delegated by either of them, and in a ceremony in accord with the liturgical books. The only way for Catholics to marry validly without observing canonical form is to obtain a dispensation from canonical form from the local bishop in advance.  This has been discussed repeatedly on this site, in “Why Would a Wedding in Our College Chapel be Invalid?” as well as “When is a ‘Natural Marriage’ a Valid Marriage?” and “Our Priest Cancelled Our Wedding, So Who Else Can Validly Marry Us?” among many others.  If a Catholic marries in a non-Catholic ceremony without a dispensation, the marriage is invalid.  (The lone exception to this rule involves marriage before an Orthodox priest, in accord with canon 1127.1: see “Why is a Catholic Permitted to Marry in an Orthodox Ceremony?” for more on this.)

4.  Until 2009, Catholics who had left the Catholic Church “by a formal act” were no longer bound by the canonical form for marriage, as per the former canon 1117. This confusing loophole was addressed in “Do Lapsed Catholics Marry Validly Outside the Church?” which was written in 2007.  But with his 2009 Apostolic Letter Omnia in mentem, then-Pope Benedict XVI changed the wording of canon 1117 and abolished this exception entirely.  Consequently, as was seen in “Why Can’t an Ex-Catholic Marry Validly Outside the Church?”—written after Omnia in mentem had taken effect—this effectively means that the Church now holds that everyone who was baptized a Catholic, or received into the Catholic Church after having been baptized in another Christian denomination, must marry in accord with canonical form (or be dispensed from this requirement in advance, as discussed above), or else the wedding is invalid. 

If we apply these points to Lee’s situation, the answer to his question should be clear.  Since he was baptized a Catholic, he was technically obliged to observe the canonical form for marriage—whether he knew it or not!  There simply isn’t a “but I didn’t know I was baptized Catholic” legal loophole here.  If he wants to formally (re)join the Catholic Church, that’s great!  But he will have to have a Catholic wedding ceremony, to render his marriage valid in the eyes of the Church.

Canonically, Lee’s situation is identical to that of a Catholic who deliberately chooses to marry outside the Church.  In both cases, the marriage is invalid due to lack of canonical form.  But morally, the two scenarios couldn’t be more different.  The key issue, of course, involves knowledge and consent.  As any Catholic theologian can tell you, you can’t be held morally culpable if, through no fault of your own, you had no idea that you were doing anything wrong.

In the case of Lee and so many others like him, it cannot be overemphasized that the Church completely understands that this mess is not his fault!  Those of us who were baptized as infants obviously had no say in the matter, as the decision to do this was made by our parents or other guardians on our behalf.  If as infants we were baptized as Catholics, and our parents (or at least one of them) was committed long-term to raising us as Catholics, then as adults we are Catholics and we are well aware of that fact.  If our parents for some reason—or no reason at all—failed in their duty to raise their children as Catholics after having us baptized into the Catholic Church, that failure is their moral responsibility, not ours.  This grave responsibility is outlined in canon 1125 n.1, discussed at length in “Do Catholic Parents Have to Raise Their Children as Catholics?”  Consequently, if a child is baptized a Catholic and his parents never bother to mention this to him, much less raise him in the Catholic faith, that child can hardly be faulted for failing to receive the sacraments of Penance, Holy Communion, Confirmation, and even Marriage in the Catholic Church.

If that child lives and dies without ever knowing that he was actually baptized a Catholic, well, that’s the end of it, and we can simply trust that our loving God will sort it all out.  Along similar lines, if that child is raised in another religion (or perhaps is raised in no faith, but joins a non-Catholic religion later in life) and subsequently discovers that he was baptized Catholic as an infant, this might understandably be a matter of great curiosity for him, but he’s under no moral obligation to drop everything and become Catholic—possibly violating his conscience in the process.  That child, who is now an adult, may have already embraced another religion in good faith, and can’t be said to have “left the Catholic Church,” since he wasn’t consciously a member of the Catholic Church to begin with.  Once again, it should be clear that any moral responsibility for this situation rests with his Catholic parent(s), not with him.

Returning to Lee’s question, if he wants to be a Catholic, what will he and his wife need to do?  His parish priest will be able to help him here: when he is received (back) into the Church, the priest can celebrate a Catholic wedding ceremony and Lee and his wife will then be married validly in the Catholic Church.  It will be a very straightforward rectification of a issue for which Lee is absolutely not to blame.

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