I’m going by memory here, and I could be wrong, but I think the only sacrament you’re not supposed to participate in if you have unforgiven mortal sins is Communion. Remember that Confession is a sacrament, and you certainly wouldn’t say that you can’t participate in that sacrament if you are in a state of sin.
A day later and nothing, so I’m guessing…no?
If you notice, I specifically mentioned Confession as the one sacrament you could partake of while in a state of mortal sin.
That’s probably not right either. Going through them:
Baptism - required before confession anyway, so probably OK if in a state of mortal sin
Confession - duh.
Eucharist - Nope, cannot.
Confirmation - I’d assume no. I recall being required to go confession the day before Confirmation.
Marriage - ?
Holy Orders - got to be a no.
Anointing of the Sick - IIRC, if the person is conscious, they’re usually asked to make a confession first anyway. If they’re not conscious or otherwise able to confess, then they can hardly be at fault for receiving the sacrament while in a state of mortal sin.
In fact, the teaching is that baptism washes away all sin that a person might have. But it’s not a general substitute for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, because you can only receive baptism once.
You seem to have missed two key points of the current, post-16th century rule:
getting the marriage recorded by two witnesses, one of them a priest, is a recommendation, not a requirement
requirements such as “the paperwork and any accompanying ceremony must take place in a consecrated building” or “in a parish” are local; they change from location to location and time to time; whether they can be waived and the paperwork to do so are also defined locally.
There is no need to change the rule, what there is is a lot of people who, like your teachers, think the rule is more rigid than it actually is.
This location-bound requirements apply to other sacraments as well: my brother and his wife got married last year, the ceremony took place in a hermitage but the paperwork is recorded in a parish and they needed to be able to indicate what parish it would be recorded in before being allowed to use the hermitage; their child could not be baptised in the same ceremony because that has to be in a parish except in case of emergency (hospital chaplains can baptize there). Those specific rules apply to our specific archdiocese but not necessarily to any other diocese in the world.
Latin America, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens to many other locations, has a very big social problem with rules being misapplied due to misunderstood literalism. My cousin spent 11 years as a secular missionary in Venezuela: during that time, she recorded, both with the Church and with the Venezuelan Government, thousands of people who were not recorded because the government form to register the birth of a baby asked “name of the husband” and “name of the wife”. The parents hadn’t been married, so they hadn’t recorded the children. But alas, very often one or another of the parents were also not recorded. Why? Because their own parents weren’t married. Why? Because at some point someone had been born on the wrong side of the blankets. That someone had not been recorded, their children, grandchildren, great-granchildren… had not either.
It is perfectly possible that the two stewards had been told they could have the second wedding at the church so long as it was within a certain time of the civil ceremony (Chile does not recognize religious ceremonies as being civilly valid); because of the quake they went beyond that time. The story doesn’t say, but it’s possible that they understood the rule they had been given as being more rigid than it actually is and didn’t ask again. It is also possible that they did ask and ran into someone who thought the rule more important than the sacrament. Of imbeciles is the world full.
Since the flight was in Chilean air space, the marriage is not legal unless there was full conformity with Chilean law. Was there a Chilean marriage license? The civil registry needs to be informed in advance, and then be properly filed within eight days after the marriage.
They’ve been legally married since 2010. The ceremony on the plane had a religious effect only - which is a fact that I think people are missing. When I was in Catholic school in the US ( over 40 years ago) there was indeed a whole lot of “it’s a sin to get married outside the Church and you’ll be fornicating” etc - but that was to discourage people from getting married civilly. Once a couple had already married civilly, even forty years ago the focus was on regularizing the marriage rather than barring them and their children from the Church.
Catholic marriage is really strange, the couple never really knows if their marriage is valid or not, A marriage tribunal would have to investigate and decide. It’s funny a couple could live an entire married lifetime with out realizing they were never really married.
(My boldings above)
Going off at a tangent from the in-the-air happening which prompted the thread; but, a (trivia-type) light of understanding has just gone on for me. I’m not Catholic, and have not had a lot to do with Catholics: but have for decades known – context “history” – about the Council of Trent; and been aware of the word “Tridentine” – largely, coupled with “Mass”: dim awareness of its significance “old-fashioned as opposed to late-20th-century radical”. Always before, the actual word had suggested to me, just three-pronged forks; and I’d simply thought, “Catholics have a lot of weird names for things – so what?”
I now realise for the first time – confirmed by Googling – the meaning of “Tridentine”, as “of or pertaining to the city of Trento or Trent, in Italy”. Thank you, Nava, for tipping me off re this fact – which I feel foolish for not having realised long before.
If one or both members of a marriage are Catholic, and were married in a (canonically) non-valid marriage ceremony, they can (and in the eyes of the Church, as supposed to) have the marriage legally recognized by the Church through repeating their vows, a process known as convalidation before a priest (in this case, perhaps the Pope).
If both partners are Christians but are not Catholics and is married by a Christian minister, or if one is married in a non-Christian faith, the marriage is considered valid by the Church.