Do I need a new civil marriage license for my convalidation ceremony?

Q: I’m returning to the Church after many years away, and I’m talking to my priest about having a convalidation ceremony. From what I understand, I need to do this because my first marriage was invalid in God’s eyes. Does this mean I need a new civil marriage license? How does this work if the Church considers Catholic weddings to be valid even without a civil marriage ceremony? (Ohio)

A: The short answer is no, if you are already married civilly from the point of view of the local secular government, then you do not need to get a new civil marriage license in order to have your marriage regularized in the Catholic Church. But it’s understandable why this might have seemed confusing, since marriage is one area where the Church and state tend to overlap.

Of course, there are some aspects in which the concept of marriage for Catholics diverges from the state’s concept of marriage.

For instance, unlike the secular government, Catholics do not see divorce as something truly possible on an ultimate spiritual level, which is why a Catholic with a prior marriage bond cannot be remarried in the Church, even if the state would permit this in a civil wedding.

Yet overall, both the Church and the secular state have their own legitimate interest in promoting and regulating marriage. That is, the Church has an interest in governing marriage since, for Christians, marriage is a sacrament with profound spiritual effects.

On the other hand, the state also has an interest in overseeing marriage, as on a natural level marriage is the most stable foundation for family life and the raising of children and as such is the fundamental building block of human society in general.

In many countries like the United States where, despite our constitutional separation of Church and state, the secular government broadly supports the positive role religion in general can have in the lives of its citizens, the secular government will routinely acknowledge religious leaders as valid officiants in civilly binding wedding ceremonies.

Using Catholics as an example, when a couple marries “according to canonical form” in the Catholic ceremony the Church requires for a valid Catholic marriage, the state will automatically recognize the Catholic wedding as civilly binding. So, a Catholic who marries in the Church has no need for an additional civil wedding (although this might not be the case in countries that have a more radical emphasis on secularity).

The Church is also aware of and comfortable with the fact that we “share” concern for marriage with secular governments. In light of this, canon law broadly envisions Catholic weddings taking place in harmony with the requirements of civil governments whenever possible.

For example, as Canon 1071 of the Code of Canon Law tells us: “Except in a case of necessity, no one is to assist without the permission of the local Ordinary (i.e., the diocesan bishop or his vicar general) at … a marriage which cannot be recognized by the civil law or celebrated in accordance with it.”

In plain language this means that, apart from some sort of extreme emergency, Catholic clergy are not permitted to celebrate a Catholic marriage ceremony where the couple will remain civilly unmarried, unless the local bishop grants special permission for this.

While there can be good reasons for what is technically called a “clandestine marriage,” for the most part the Church would hold that a person who wants to be married must be publicly considered to be married in every relevant context.

In your particular situation, it sounds like you as a baptized Catholic contracted a merely civil wedding which the state constitutes to recognize; your issue is that in your current situation your marriage is not considered valid by the Church. But because your “convalidation” is addressing a spiritual and religious problem that the state has no interest in, no further secular action is required.

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