Catholic Ceremony - Mixed Marriage. Baptismal certificate?

[Deleted User]

I'm slightly confused about the baptismal certificate situation. I'm Baptist and FI is Catholic so we are having the Catholic ceremony outside of Mass. My parents have my original certificate but we are being told that I have to provide one that's dated within 6 months before the wedding so I requested a new one from the church I was baptized in....they sent me the exact same form with the current pastor's signature, original date and all. There's no place on the form for an updated date stamp- the only date is the date of my baptism. Has anyone had to do this before? What did you have to specifically provide? Thanks!

cmb08

TexasBride2014 This is a Catholic thing - I am Catholic and my fiance is not, and they only really require me to have the brand new baptism certificate. (He was never baptised so he doesn't have one at all.)

The reason they require one from the last 6 months is that on a Catholic baptism certificate, they will record any sacraments you receive after baptism, including marriage. If you've ever been married before, you are theoretically not allowed to be married in the Catholic church. So the brand new baptism certificate is supposed to be proof that you are eligible to marry.

However, other denominations obviously don't do things the same way. So as long as your fiance has the new certificate from the diocese where he was baptised, and you can give them the most current one you have, it will be fine. They may ask your parents or someone close to you to sign a release saying that you've never been married (we both had to do that), but it shouldn't be a problem.

[Deleted User]

We do have the affidavits regarding freedom to marry that we have to sign so I was very confused! We have our next meeting next week so I guess we'll see!

[Deleted User]

@cmb08 thank you for your information though- I'm trying to learn but there's a lot to learn! 

cmb08

Haha yeah, it is pretty complicated sometimes! My priest who is doing our ceremony basically said a lot of it is archaic and based on tradition. In the old days, in really Catholic parts of the world (particularly Europe), they used baptism ertificates almost like legal records. Now obviously there are much better ways of finding out if someone has been married, but since every baptized Catholic has a baptism certificate somewhere, the church still wants to see it.

The other part of the equation is that at least one of you has to be a fully initiated Catholic who's been baptized, received communion, and been confirmed. That will also be recorded on the certificate.

[Deleted User]

FI just completed his confirmation- he was baptized and received first communion as a child but never got confirmed. He completed his confirmation through the same parish of the priest who is marrying us so they of course know that he hasn't been married so we're good there I was just surprised that they needed a new one from me because you're right- I'm Baptist and it's very different- my parents still had mine on file so we'll see soon!