So What Is This Thing Called Convalidation

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Summary

Is your marriage a valid one? Or did some bit of paperwork forget to get done ...

I mentioned in some of the posts that I´ve heard of cases where people are married in the Church and think there marriage is valid, only to discover different.

Here is a case story of what I meant, and from what I understand, happens in Spain sometimes when somebody from another country wants to get married here. Maybe there are similar cases elsewhere?

Oh, and take the cynical journalist´s anti-Catholic approach with a grain of salt...(I can´t get the link to work so I´ve put the whole story here).

Not to give away the story, but the last line is the kicker...

YEARS LATER, CHURCH LAW WIPES OUT A MARRIAGE

Emily J. Minor

8 March 2003

The Palm Beach Post

The letter came a few days before Christmas. Return address? The Diocese of Palm Beach.

Heidi Spirazza, 36, opened it, thinking it was probably something to do with her annulment, which her ex-husband needed from the church so he could remarry this summer.

But she was wrong.

The letter was signed by the Rev. Glen J. Pothier, one of two Catholic priests on the marriage tribunal for the Palm Beach Diocese, and it delivered some rather unsettling news.

Spirazza's $25,000 wedding over on Palm Beach. The one at St. Edward's Catholic Church, where the Kennedy family used to attend. The one with the big reception.

The one in front of their parish priest.

In the eyes of the Catholic Church, it never really happened.

The Law of the Catholic Church states that "a Catholic must be married before an authorized priest or deacon and two witnesses." In this particular case, the records indicate that Father Michael Woodcock was not authorized to perform the ceremony. Therefore, his action has no effect in Church Law, even though it had effect in the reality.

Divorce binds, if not marriage

The reality being three children, ages 3, 8 and 10.

"There was no regret in this letter. There was nothing about, 'We're sorry we made a mistake,' " Spirazza said. "I couldn't believe it."

To add insult to injury, the letter was sent to Heidi Hutter, Spirazza's name when she was single and a name she hasn't used in 12 years.

And now, Spirazza has an ongoing commitment with the church. A former Lutheran who converted to Catholicism before she married Carl Spirazza - a local family doctor - in 1991, she's bound by the terms of her divorce to keep their kids in Catholic schools until they graduate from high school.

"I don't want to pay to send my kids to an institution I don't have any faith in anymore," she said.

What happened, says Pothier, is this:

The couple wanted to be married on Palm Beach by the priest from their home parish in Boynton Beach.

"People want to get married in Florida, and sometimes they even bring down their parish priest from up north," Pothier said.

Failure to sign one document

But for that to work, the priest from the church where the couple wants to be married has to give formal permission for another priest to come in and do wedding vows at his church. It's called a letter of delegation. Pothier says it's signed and delivered "99 percent of the time."

In the case of Heidi and Carl Spirazza, that didn't happen. Heidi Spirazza said it comes down to a single piece of paper that wasn't signed. She said she tried to discuss this with the priest who married them, the Rev. Michael Woodcock, but Spirazza said she fell from Woodcock's graces after the divorce. Woodcock is no longer at the Boynton Beach parish he was at 12 years ago.

"Even though it looked like everything was done correctly, the priest wasn't delegated," said Pothier. "Therefore, the covenant didn't actually establish in the eyes of the church."

Spirazza said she's disgusted, not to mention suspicious about her children's baptisms.

"Our priest baptized my children outside of our church," said Spirazza, of Lake Worth. "So, I don't know. Are they truly baptized?

"And how many other people aren't married in the eyes of the Catholic Church?"