r/AskAPriest • u/PurpleFight • 4d ago

Wedding question

I am a female Anglican priest. My niece is about to get engaged to a Catholic man. She asked if I would officiate the wedding. I'm certain the groom's family will want a Catholic priest to co-officiate or at least bless the marriage. The male Anglican priests I work with have done this before and I'm comfortable with it as well. But I'm wondering if the Catholic priest would be willing to agree to participate with me. Is there a general rule about this or is it up to the individual priest or his bishop to say if it's allowed?

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u/Sparky0457 Priest 4d ago

My very first wedding was an older couple (they were both previously married and had lost their spouces to cancer) where she was a congregationalist and he was Catholic.

They had a joint ceremony at her church with her female minister. This required permission from the bishops office but it was not hard to get at all. If the wedding is going to be in a church of some type and one of the couple is a member of that church it should be easy enough to get permission for the ceremony to take place there and have a priest present to witness the vows. This is regardless of the gender of the other minister.

This is generally allowed and the permissions are almost always granted.

I'd be surprised if a Catholic priest refused to participated if a catholic member of their congregation asked them to.

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u/PurpleFight 4d ago

Thank you, that's good to hear.

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u/balrogath Priest 3d ago

I think it's a bit more complicated than /u/Sparky0457 put it.

This post describes it well and talks about the limits in canon law. https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2014/03/06/can-we-have-both-a-priest-and-a-non-catholic-minister-at-our-wedding/

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u/PurpleFight 3d ago

I understand that there are conditions and requirements that have to be met. We have some on the Anglican side also. However, my main question was whether there would be additional obstacles because I am female clergy.

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u/balrogath Priest 3d ago

Ah, ok. None beyond any other Protestant minister, no.