The Church And Civil Marriage

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' post='1632979' date='Aug 21 2008, 12:40 AM']I've thought about that a lot before the problem became moot for me... and I think I prefer a combined ceremony. I've attended several civil and church marriages, and the civil marriages were always very awkward - the civil servant always held a speech, which was like a very, very week version of the homily... it was almost like the speech was there to make the civil servant happy. (S)he'd only had two conversations with the couple, too... not a year of marriage preparation.

All in all, awkward. But maybe I lack the imagination to think of a better ceremony.

How do you imagine the perfect set of separated ceremonies?[/quote]

This is because the stupid Dutch system wants its legal blatherings to be "special", and because stupid Dutch people think it will make it "special".

[havok579257]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1633048' date='Aug 20 2008, 06:46 PM']This is because the stupid Dutch system wants its legal blatherings to be "special", and because stupid Dutch people think it will make it "special".[/quote]


Well, great job being tolerate of other people's culture's.

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='havok579257' post='1633056' date='Aug 21 2008, 01:54 AM']Well, great job being tolerate of other people's culture's. [/quote]

I live here and have to deal with it on a daily basis. When you've done the same, including grappling with the language, the secularist attitude, the astronomical cost of living, the fact that no-one's willing to help you out, the endless beaurocracy, a church which believes salvation can be found in Shine Jesus Shine, clergymen who think Latin is just much too much like hard work, fellow Catholics who believe it's ok to kill off unborn kiddo and dribbly old Granny and diocesan structures which are so nepotistic that they'd put Oxford and Cambridge to shame, then you can talk to me about not being tolerant of Dutch culture, all right?

[prose]

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' post='1632979' date='Aug 20 2008, 04:40 PM']How do you imagine the perfect set of separated ceremonies?[/quote]

Couple goes to a courthouse, signs some papers, orally states their intentions (in a legal way) with witnesses, signs the papers and is done.

Then they go a day/month whatever later and have a full ceremony with vows and dresses and flowers.

If a couple wants the schebang at the civil ceremony and no church ceremony, they can go ahead, but with the Church ceremony, there is no hoopla over the signing of papers.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1633061' date='Aug 20 2008, 06:00 PM']I live here and have to deal with it on a daily basis. When you've done the same, including grappling with the language, the secularist attitude, the astronomical cost of living, the fact that no-one's willing to help you out, the endless beaurocracy, a church which believes salvation can be found in Shine Jesus Shine, clergymen who think Latin is just much too much like hard work, fellow Catholics who believe it's ok to kill off unborn kiddo and dribbly old Granny and diocesan structures which are so nepotistic that they'd put Oxford and Cambridge to shame, then you can talk to me about not being tolerant of Dutch culture, all right?[/quote]
Remind me not to make you angry!



[quote name='prose' post='1633080' date='Aug 20 2008, 06:27 PM']Couple goes to a courthouse, signs some papers, orally states their intentions (in a legal way) with witnesses, signs the papers and is done.

Then they go a day/month whatever later and have a full ceremony with vows and dresses and flowers.

If a couple wants the schebang at the civil ceremony and no church ceremony, they can go ahead, but with the Church ceremony, there is no hoopla over the signing of papers.[/quote]
I think I'd be cool with that, but if they insisted on making the civil part ceremonial, then I think it's taking it too far.

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='MissScripture' post='1633092' date='Aug 21 2008, 02:37 AM'] Remind me not to make you angry!

[/quote]

Hehehe. I spend so much time on non-Dutch websites defending this country but sometimes the cr*p has to come out someplace.

[quote name='MissScripture' post='1633092' date='Aug 21 2008, 02:37 AM']I think I'd be cool with that, but if they insisted on making the civil part ceremonial, then I think it's taking it too far.[/quote]

It is a ceremony here, with dresses and exchanging of rings and (more importantly) consent and everything - even when a religious ceremony follows (the couple takes the rings off and does it all over again in church). The giving of consent is that what bothers me the most and what seriously puts me off marrying in the Netherlands.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1633102' date='Aug 20 2008, 07:45 PM']Hehehe. I spend so much time on non-Dutch websites defending this country but sometimes the cr*p has to come out someplace.



It is a ceremony here, with dresses and exchanging of rings and (more importantly) consent and everything - even when a religious ceremony follows (the couple takes the rings off and does it all over again in church). The giving of consent is that what bothers me the most and what seriously puts me off marrying in the Netherlands.[/quote]
What do you mean by giving of consent?

[puellapaschalis]

The each is asked whether he or she consents to be considered the other's spouse. There's also a vow formula somewhere...which I might try and look up when it's not a quarter past two in the morning.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1633128' date='Aug 20 2008, 07:15 PM']The each is asked whether he or she consents to be considered the other's spouse. There's also a vow formula somewhere...which I might try and look up when it's not a quarter past two in the morning.[/quote]
I think I may be misunderstanding something, because I don't get why this is a problem...?

[puellapaschalis]

Because if my marriage is centred upon my freely giving of myself to my husband and his of himself to me, this is something that should only happen once. I'm not about to duplicate something like that to keep the state's moronic notion of religious freedom happy.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1633161' date='Aug 20 2008, 07:35 PM']Because if my marriage is centred upon my freely giving of myself to my husband and his of himself to me, this is something that should only happen once. I'm not about to duplicate something like that to keep the state's moronic notion of religious freedom happy.[/quote]
Okay, gotcha.
But for legal reasons, doesn't the gov't need to know that people aren't being forced into the marriage? Or is that covered somewhere else?

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='MissScripture' post='1633166' date='Aug 21 2008, 03:38 AM']Okay, gotcha.
But for legal reasons, doesn't the gov't need to know that people aren't being forced into the marriage? Or is that covered somewhere else?[/quote]

Sure, but when that's covered in the religious ceremony the duplication is superfluous. It's worked fine in the UK with the CofE and with other Christian denominations and I don't see why that couldn't be extended to other faith situations where the religious ceremony involves an explicit statement of consent.

[VeniteAdoremus]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1633161' date='Aug 21 2008, 03:35 AM']Because if my marriage is centred upon my freely giving of myself to my husband and his of himself to me, this is something that should only happen once. I'm not about to duplicate something like that to keep the state's moronic notion of religious freedom happy.[/quote]

That's why I would almost prefer the "contract" system, where you just go to the barrister and file a joint contract. That's what civil marriage [i]is[/i], after all. Only you wouldn't be allowed to take your husband's name.

Idiots

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' post='1632979' date='Aug 20 2008, 04:40 PM']How do you imagine the perfect set of separated ceremonies?[/quote]
The civil ceremony is simply the execution of a contract, similar to buying a car or signing a mortgage. I hate to put it in those crude terms but that's really the bottom line. What the civil contract gives a couple is legal standing in issues such as property ownership, inheritance rights, medical decisions, insurance coverage, etc. It's really a "sign here, here and here" type situation. How they choose to celebrate that afterwards is really a matter of preference.

From the Catholic perspective, of course, we recognize marriage as a mystery and sacrament reflecting the union between Christ and His Church. For Catholics, therefore, a couple wouldn't *really* be married until the "church wedding."

[Barbarus]

I used to think that the church should separate itself from the public/civil idea of marriage, but then I realized that by doing that marriage becomes a "Christian" thing, only applicable to people who are Christians. I think it's important for the Church to continue fighting to preserve the definition of marriage in the public square, but it should not be the watered down version so prevalent these days-- it should be the real deal.