Can I Celebrate My Parents’ Anniversary if Their Marriage Is Invalid?| National Catholic Register

Q. My Catholic mother married my Buddhist father without a dispensation, so their marriage is invalid under canon law. She has since left the Church. I’m their child and the only practicing Catholic in the family. Though I’ve told my mother her marriage is invalid, she has no intention of returning to the Church.

Each year, my nonreligious sister and I celebrate our parents’ wedding anniversary with gifts and a meal, but I worry that joining in might imply I regard their marriage as valid and cause scandal. Yet refusing to celebrate would almost certainly cause conflict and harm their view of Catholicism.

What should I do? If celebrating is sinful, I’ll abstain, but is there a charitable way to honor my parents without compromising my faith?

A. Thank you for your thoughtful question and for the evident care with which you live your Catholic faith amid a complex family situation. Your circumstances involve both canonical principles and the personal realities of love and loyalty. 

It is often hard to reconcile fidelity to Church teaching with affection for one’s family and the wish for unity. Fidelity to demanding truths can, at times, cause unintended alienation. Before accepting that outcome, one must be sure that truth truly requires it. Your desire to act with both integrity and charity is admirable and deserves a response marked by compassion and prudence.

The Status of Your Parents’ Marriage

You are correct that, because your mother was a baptized Catholic and married without the required dispensations, her marriage to your father is presumed invalid in the eyes of the Church. In this case, the dispensations required are from canonical form (CIC 1108 and 1127) and “disparity of cult” or difference of religion (CIC 1086 and 1125).

Unless the Church later recognizes the marriage through a formal canonical process, it will remain invalid. There are two such processes by which the Church recognizes the marriage as valid: It does so prospectively, through a process called convalidation (which requires the renewal of consent — see CIC 1156-1160); or it does so retroactively, through a process called sanation (which does not require renewal of consent — see CIC 1161-1165).

At the same time, your mother and father’s union, although invalid, has still been the context in which God gave you and your sister life and nurtured your communal bonds, and it may well have been the context for genuine affection and self-sacrificial love. To treat such a relationship as only a matter of sin or deception would fail to account for whatever goodness may be found there. 

It is worth bearing in mind that, unlike adulterous unions, there is no impediment to the Church’s recognizing your parents’ relationship as a valid marriage, other than their own unwillingness at present to seek that recognition.

The Question of Scandal

The moral issue you raise — whether joining in your parents’ anniversary celebrations would cause scandal — is very important. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines scandal as “an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil” (2284). The key question is whether your actions would reasonably lead others to think that you approve of or endorse something objectively wrong, in this case, a canonically invalid marriage.

Scandal depends not only on the act itself but on the likelihood that your behavior would be interpreted as approving sin. If someone knew that you, as a practicing Catholic, were celebrating the anniversary in a way that suggested you think the marriage is valid in the Church’s eyes, there could be some risk of scandal.

But scandal is not caused simply because someone might misunderstand. As St. Thomas Aquinas notes in his Summa Theologiae, we are not bound to avoid all possible misunderstanding; rather, we must avoid actions “having an appearance of evil” that are likely to draw another into sin (II–II, q. 43, a. 1–2). 

You should assess whether anyone, seeing you attend this dinner, is likely to be drawn by your example to serious sin. Such a person would need to know at least three things: your parents’ true marital status, the reason for the dinner (a purported anniversary celebration), and the fact that you are a committed Catholic — and then, knowing these, be drawn by your presence at the dinner to commit a sin. 

Other than your mother, does anyone even know about the invalidity of your parents’ marriage? And in her case, you have already informed her of the Church’s teaching on the matter, and she presumably knows you would like her to take steps to remedy the situation. She is unlikely to be scandalized by your presence.

Other Obligations

There is a distinction between celebrating what is objectively invalid as if it were valid and honoring the love your parents have shown each other over many years. You should avoid words or gestures that would affirm the union as a valid marriage. But you may, in good conscience, express gratitude to God and your parents for whatever goodness and charity have been expressed in your parents’ relationship, including — and even especially — the gifts of the lives of you and your sister that flowed from it.

Your presence at a meal on their anniversary does not automatically constitute approval of the invalid marriage. In fact, filial love might very well make it appropriate for you to participate, especially if abstaining would likely harden hearts and create animosity toward you and the Church’s wider teaching about marriage.

If you do attend, your intention should be clear to yourself and before God: You are not celebrating a valid marriage bond. Rather, you are honoring your parents as your parents (cf. Exodus 20:12) and maintaining the relational bonds that may, in time, open a door for grace.

Do you have an obligation to communicate your intention to your parents and sister? As already noted, you have an obligation to avoid expressing a contrary intention. And if you think you can communicate your intention without causing alienation, you should do so. But it is easy to see how explaining this matter to your family would, in fact, cause alienation. Your obligation is to discern whether the harm that might come from saying something — mainly the risk of alienating your family — would outweigh the harm of remaining silent, namely the risk that your participation might be misunderstood. 

You might consider the following practical suggestions:

• Form your intention clearly before God: “Lord, I am here to love my parents and to be a witness of your truth in charity, not to approve what is invalid.”
• Avoid language that might be taken as affirming the existence of a valid marriage (e.g., “Congratulations on your marriage!”), but instead use words that honor the goodness manifested through their union or that express gratitude for the community your parents have nurtured (“I’m thankful for my life, which you gave to me, and for the community life you’ve nurtured among us”). 
• Avoid giving gifts that might be taken as affirming a valid marriage. Perhaps give them a book, a photo or something that expresses love for them as your parents — rather than a gift that directly commemorates “the wedding.”
• If a question specifically arises — however unlikely — about the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage or the validity of your parents’ marriage, speak confidently about what you know to be true, avoiding both harshness and condemnation on the one hand    and excessive reticence on the other.

Be a Faithful Witness in Love

You should not feel that you are settling for something second best or morally compromising by prudently concluding that the conditions for scandal are absent, or that the harm caused by raising the issue of validity would outweigh the good you hope to achieve. If, after careful discernment, you judge that the reasons for attending are stronger than the reasons for abstaining — and it is not difficult to see how that might be the case — be at peace. By maintaining loving contact, you may preserve a channel through which God’s mercy and light can reach your parents.

Remember also that the grace that led you into the Church may, in time, be the same grace that draws your mother back and draws your father in. Your faithful love, expressed with humility and quiet confidence, may be more powerful than you realize.

You are not responsible for resolving your parents’ situation, but for witnessing to the truth with prudence and charity. Pray for them, offer sacrifices for their conversion, and thank God for the good that he has brought forth from their union despite its invalidity.