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Priest issues - some ideas?

hoffsehoffse member
First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Answer Name Dropper
in Catholic Weddings
Hi ladies,

So my FI and I have a complicated deal going on with my church.  Here's the scenario.  We are getting married in my home parish.  A priest who is in the city of FI and my's law school is doing the precana stuff for us.  One of FI's old high school teachers is officiating.  So there are three priests involved.  The issue is that the priest who is officiating is part of the Marist order, and apparently we need special permission from the priest at my home parish to have him officiate, or else the archdiocese won't recognize it.  I'm not sure if that's true, but that's what I've been told.

So we've gotten everybody to orally agree and we've been progressing, but the priest at my home church is basically not following through with the one thing he needs to do - which is fax this permission sheet to the archdiocese.  I have tried calling and emailing him about other things (he asked us to meet with him through my parents and then we never heard another word when we tried to set up a meeting) and he hasn't responded to a single thing.  We've got about 10 months, but I don't know this rule, and I have no idea if this paper has to be sent in by a certain time.  

The other deal is that he booked a wedding when we were supposed to have the church for our rehearsal, and we've been trying to reschedule.  But then he told us we couldn't schedule until late October (through his secretary - he has never told us a single thing himself). He hasn't said as much, but I'm getting the impression that he wants to hold this form over mine and my fiance's heads because he and my parents aren't BFFs.  I'm getting frustrated, and I'm just not sure how to approach this.

Does anybody have any suggestions?
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Re: Priest issues - some ideas?

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    Riss91Riss91 member
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    Hello and welcome! Seems like you do have a complicatied scenario going on there! I think part of the reason the home church priest/office aren't responding so rapidly is that you are pretty far out from your date, so you aren't a priority yet. Parish offices are usually short-staffed and super busy, so don't take it personally. I completely understand wanting to have these details sorted out. I'm a planner, too!

    Have you and your FI met with the priest at the home parish yet? I would try to schedule something with him as he is the one that needs to approve and coordinate everything. It is much easier to get things done in-person than through emails and phone calls. They can't ignore you in-person :-)

    I honestly wouldn't worry too much about the rehearsal - you could practice in someone's house if you need to.

    Please stick around and let us know how things progress!!

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    lalaith50lalaith50 member
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    Like Riss said, don't take it personally. :-)
    I'll add, in the one church I'm familiar with, Friday weddings simply take priority over Friday wedding rehearsals- in that case, the Saturday wedding either needs to have a rehearsal Thursday eve, or very early on Friday (like if the weddign is at 6, then the rehearsal will have to be at like 4.)
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    egm900egm900 member
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    edited June 2012
    We have 5 priests involved (FI and I belong to separate churches, we chose another priest that isn't affiliated with either to do the preparation, yet another is marrying us, and then the wedding is at a different church) and as PP said, they don't get very excited until right before the wedding.  We are the only "outside" couple getting married in this church, yet every time I call, I give my wedding date and say I'm the New Orleans bride and they have no clue who I am, and I've been in to meet with them face to face.  

    Anytime you're doing things outside of your normal church with different priests, you have to get special permission, I don't think the fact he's Marist has anything to do with it (Edit: I'm basing this on the fact we're getting married by a Jesuit and we only needed the regular permission form).  FI had to get permission from his parish priest to get married in a different parish, I had to get permission from my parish priest to get married in a different parish, the priest preparing us had to get a certificate showing he was in good standing with the Church, the priest actually marrying us had to get a certificate that he was in good standing with the Church, and the parish priest at the Church we're getting married in had to give permission for us to get married there.  All these permission forms go into your file, which also contains your baptismal record, any certificates for completing required pre-marriage preparations, etc.  From what I understand, this file is then recorded with the Archdiocese.  Our file is being forwarded to the parish 2 months before the wedding, which is highly unusual for them, usually they make sure it's complete 2 weeks before, but since we have so many priests involved, they wanted to make sure everything is in order and allow time in case something is missing.

    Typically this file isn't compiled until you start preparations with the priest, certain items can only be added within a certain time period of the wedding, like baptismal records. The Church we're getting married in first wanted all the permissions before they would ink us in, but then they realized the file would be located in two different parishes and were concerned something would get lost, so they tentatively said okay after talking to the priest preparing us.

    I hope this helps, I was freaking out about everything 10 months before too.  I also did the law school thing, although we were both out by the time we started this process. Since we have ridiculous schedules, our priest started our marriage prep a full year before, and we will be finishing 3 weeks before the wedding.  

    The main thing is that you're on the calendar at the church, and you are in touch with the priest preparing you 3-6 months prior to the wedding, depending on his preferred time table for marriage prep, although with your school schedule you might want to see about extending your prep over a longer period of time.  We also had to check with all three Archdioceses the priests involved are under to determine our pre-marriage counseling requirements, and had to follow the most strict rule.
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    bibliophile2010bibliophile2010 member
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    To follow up with what the others have said, yes, there are steps that need to be taken to ensure that the priest who is coming in is in good standing to celebrate the mass and that the priest who is pastor at the parish gives permission to have someone else witness your marriage. This is basically just to ensure that everything is on the up-and-up (the visiting priest is in good standing and you're not trying to go around any rules or anything).

    The priest who celebrated our mass was also from a religious order, and was not the pastor at our parish, but a friend. He already had full faculties in the diocese, so he didn't need to go through that hoop, but we did need "permission" from the pastor to have someone else come in and marry us. We never saw any of that paperwork.

    Is there a church secretary, marriage prep/sacrament coordinator, or wedding coordinator that you can talk to? Often these people have more time for dealing with issues that are 10 months out than priests. It's not that they don't care, but that Mrs. Jones in the hospital, the funeral and wedding on Saturday, Sunday masses, and oh yeah, I have to run and do daily mass!, and all those things that are happening NOW end up on the front burner.
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    hoffsehoffse member
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    Thanks ladies, this makes me feel better.  FI and I did catch him to have an impromptu meeting after mass one day, and we asked him all these questions and he nicely avoided answering them.  It was kind of uncomfortable because he basically ignored me and just talked to FI because they went to the same high school.  FI kept trying to include me, and the whole thing just sort of fell flat.  Anyway, I had a whole list and told me to give them to his secretary.  His secratary later told me she had never scheduled a wedding before, and my church doesn't have a coordinator.  I'll hold off and make sure things are squared away closer to the time - this same priest scheduled a baptism in the middle of the christmas pageant dress rehearsal which had been on the books for months, so I don't really trust things to not be double booked.

    I knew that friday weddings surely take priority over the rehearsal - we're ok with it (we were hoping not to get bumped though we knew it was a risk- I was just sort of peeved because nobody contacted us to to tell us - we checked and found out).  Thanks for explaining how the forms worked - I haven't been able to find anything about it, and it's really been worrying me!
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    futuremrsbrunofuturemrsbruno member
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    I think you have time to get this sorted. I noticed that our church didn't really start doing anything with us for the wedding until we hit 6 months. The only thing they did was book our date because we already paid the reception hall. It seems that at 6 months they feel like it's time to get things going with wedding stuff. I wouldn't worry just yet.
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