Finding an interfaith and bilingual priest

Jaunaj

Hello everyone,

My FI are are in need of a priest that can do an Episcopalian/Catholic interfaith ceremony.  The tricky part is that we also need the ceremony to be in both English and Italian.  Does anyone have any idea where we can find such a person or where to start looking?

GlassButton

I think you should post this in your local thread to get a better response.

If you can't find someone to do everything is there any way you can have an officiant that is bilingual?

HisGirlFriday13

Oh, wow. 

First of all, if you're having a Catholic ceremony, you're going to have to get married in a Catholic church and go through pre-Cana (i.e., agree to raise your kids Catholic). 

THEN you have to find a Catholic priest who's willing to co-officiate with an Episcopal priest. Depending on where you are, this might or might not be difficult. It's a personal decision by the priest whether he's comfortable with it or not.

THEN you'll have to find someone who can do the bi-lingual aspects of the service. That's going to be really hard, unless you live in or near an area with a heavy Italian population. 

Our priest is fluent in Spanish, but that's because we live in an area with a lot of Spanish/Mexican/Latin American immigrants. He's the ONLY bi-lingual priest in the area. 

Are you a practising Catholic now? Can you ask your priest for help with this? @GlassButton is probably right that you'll get better help posting on your local boards. I can't tell where you live or where you're getting married or when, so I can't be much more help.

Try calling the head of the diocese where you live, talk to your priest (or have your FI talk to his priest, if he's the Catholic one), and maybe check Craigslist. 

Also, if you can't find a priest who's bi-lingual, maybe you can find a translator -- check local colleges with language programmes.

Good luck!!

Xstatic3333

I second PP, before you do any other wedding planning talk with a priest.  I do know of one family who was able to have their parish priest co-officiate with a Baptist minister, but they were very involved in the diocese so I'm not sure that is something they would do for just anybody.  (Not saying you're not involved in your church, it just isn't clear from your post).  You may already know this, but if you do have a Catholic wedding you will need to go through some counseling before you choose your wedding date, so hold off on booking other vendors until you get your officiant figured out.  Good luck!

Jaunaj

Thanks everyone.  My FI is the one who is Catholic.  We might just have to abandon having an interfaith ceremony and focus more on the language barrier. I just don't know where to find such a person. I'll repost in the local section and see if anyone has had a similar situation.

artbyallie

It is my understanding that the Episcopal Church is sort of like 'Catholic lite' anyway. (In that it has a very similar structure and is heavy on ritual and ceremony, but is just much more liberal in that it holds same-sex marriages and allows women to be priests.) If you want your marriage recognized by the Catholic Church, I would actually recommend just doing the shorter version (not a full mass) there and leave it at that. If, however, your fiancé does not intend to attend mass and/or raise any children Catholic, I see no reason to have a Catholic wedding and would thus choose an Episcopal ceremony.

Jaunaj

You know you're absolutely right @artbyallie. He isn't a practicing Catholic so why do we need to a Catholic ceremony. I'm much more active in the church and I'm thinking with all the translating that we need it's probably better to skip the full mass.  I'll just abandon the whole interfaith idea and focus on the language barrier issues.

KDM323

Do your Italian guests not speak/understand English? I wouldn't worry about a translator...even if they don't speak English, they're going to understand what is happening during a wedding ceremony.

kipnus

We were fortunate enough to have a pastor who was bilingual in English and Spanish. Most of the ceremony was in English, but some things were repeated in Spanish. We also had readings in four different languages that are significant to our heritages, with English translations up on PowerPoint. For our guests who didn't speak any English, just Spanish, we printed out special programs, with translations from MIL. 

Tami87

Talk to your FI about whether the Catholic ceremony is important to him and what faith he wants to raise any future children in. If he wants his marriage to be recognized by the Catholic church then he must be married in a Catholic church or get a dispensation from canonical form (may be difficult to obtain).

As previous posters mentioned when one member of the couple is not Catholic they are often encouraged to have a ceremony outside of mass. See the link in parenthesis for an outline of what that ceremony would look like (http://www.catholicweddinghelp.com/topics/order-wedding-outside-mass.htm).

As for the bilingual part, I agree with previous posters that having readings done in different languages may be a good solution and then provide the translation in the program. I actually have attended a Catholic church that offers a multicultural mass (there is a big Spanish speaking and French caribbean population near by) where readings are done in English, Spanish or French (with translations in each language provided in writing). Also the music is done in multiple languages which doesn't always have translations but I can still follow along. It is actually a really cool atmosphere and has this great feeling of community despite the language barriers.

Jaunaj

Thanks everyone.  I am sure I can use a combination of the suggestions to create a ceremony that will satisfy all the important parties.

[Deleted User]

Contact your local Italian American Club, they may have know of priests/pastors that speak Italian. We had a dual language ceremony German/English due to relatives that came in that didn't speak english.