Bump on the road
I hit my first (and hopefully my last) bump on the road with the church yesterday. It's a long story but here it is in a nutshell...
When I first got married in LA, we were married by a Catholic priest in a studio where my husband worked. We did that to be able to webcast our wedding to the Philippines as well. We were reassured by the priest that he had done several Filipino weddings and was very familiar with our customs and traditions. He also said there was no problem if we weren't getting married in a church, he can still officiate. And so we took his services and we married in March 18, 2000.
Fast forward to June 2004 and I contacted our parish here in San Diego to confirm our wedding's validity. The archdiocese in Quezon City was asking whether or not our wedding was a sacramental marriage. I faxed our marriage contract and marriage certificate to the parish and the Archdiocese of San Diego came back with: Our marriage was not validly recognized by the Roman Catholic Church because we were married by an Orthodox Catholic priest whose church was not recognized by the Roman Catholic church. (What?!?!) As such, we are only civilly married.
We now have to go through all the paperwork and requirements sent by the parish in Manila (affidavits of non impediment to marry signed by our parents, friends and ourselves witnessed by our parish priests, application for mixed marriage (foreigner and Filipino), application for catholic and non-catholic marriage, permission to marry in church, etc. plus seminars). We approached Monsignor Duncanson from our parish for help and he offered to conduct all the preparations in the parish and he would send all the paperwork, certificates and interviews to Manila.
The next road block was the fact that we could not work on it until 6 months before the wedding, so from June I had to wait until September before I could work on anything for the church. When September came, I scheduled a time to meet Father Duncanson and we arranged for an interview.
During the interview, it came out that we had intended from the very start to be married in church, that our understanding was our marriage was recognized by the Roman Catholic church and that we had no impediments to getting married and married on our own free will. He said, we didn't need to do a convalidation (civilly married requesting to marry in church to have our marriage blessed), what we needed to do was to petition for a decree of radical sanation (healing of the root - to validate our marriage from the date of our wedding).
He consulted with a priest well versed in canon law, and proceeded to submit a petition to the Archdiocese of San Diego's Marriage Tribunal. In December, I submitted the certificate of marriage, our marriage license and my baptismal certificate and on the first week of January, he called me to say that he received a copy of our decree and we have been granted our petition!!! I was so happy.
I faxed the certificate, the letter from our parish explaining the decree and a copy of our marriage certificate as well as a copy of our marriage license/contract to the Archdiocese in Quezon City. When I got a call from my mom telling me I needed to call them back, I got worried. They had a lot of questions about the paperwork I submitted and after I explained everything, they said - I couldn't get married again because I was married already AND I can't renew my vows because I've only been married for 5 years. (What?!?!)
She said she would have to show the paperwork to a priest, but there wasn't one available that day, she will get back to me today. She asked me to email her a letter requesting for permission to have a renewal of vows. I did and then sulked all night.
Today, I got a call from my mom saying it has been approved and I should wait for an email. I got it and it said, good news, the priest has approved the renewal of vows. Now, all I need to do is submit all the certified copies of all the papers I sent them and it will be done.
Now, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this is all the hassles I will be getting about the ceremony during the wedding.
P.S. Throughout all this, my sisters in w@wie group has just been so great with their support and encouragement. They are so great!
When I first got married in LA, we were married by a Catholic priest in a studio where my husband worked. We did that to be able to webcast our wedding to the Philippines as well. We were reassured by the priest that he had done several Filipino weddings and was very familiar with our customs and traditions. He also said there was no problem if we weren't getting married in a church, he can still officiate. And so we took his services and we married in March 18, 2000.
Fast forward to June 2004 and I contacted our parish here in San Diego to confirm our wedding's validity. The archdiocese in Quezon City was asking whether or not our wedding was a sacramental marriage. I faxed our marriage contract and marriage certificate to the parish and the Archdiocese of San Diego came back with: Our marriage was not validly recognized by the Roman Catholic Church because we were married by an Orthodox Catholic priest whose church was not recognized by the Roman Catholic church. (What?!?!) As such, we are only civilly married.
We now have to go through all the paperwork and requirements sent by the parish in Manila (affidavits of non impediment to marry signed by our parents, friends and ourselves witnessed by our parish priests, application for mixed marriage (foreigner and Filipino), application for catholic and non-catholic marriage, permission to marry in church, etc. plus seminars). We approached Monsignor Duncanson from our parish for help and he offered to conduct all the preparations in the parish and he would send all the paperwork, certificates and interviews to Manila.
The next road block was the fact that we could not work on it until 6 months before the wedding, so from June I had to wait until September before I could work on anything for the church. When September came, I scheduled a time to meet Father Duncanson and we arranged for an interview.
During the interview, it came out that we had intended from the very start to be married in church, that our understanding was our marriage was recognized by the Roman Catholic church and that we had no impediments to getting married and married on our own free will. He said, we didn't need to do a convalidation (civilly married requesting to marry in church to have our marriage blessed), what we needed to do was to petition for a decree of radical sanation (healing of the root - to validate our marriage from the date of our wedding).
He consulted with a priest well versed in canon law, and proceeded to submit a petition to the Archdiocese of San Diego's Marriage Tribunal. In December, I submitted the certificate of marriage, our marriage license and my baptismal certificate and on the first week of January, he called me to say that he received a copy of our decree and we have been granted our petition!!! I was so happy.
I faxed the certificate, the letter from our parish explaining the decree and a copy of our marriage certificate as well as a copy of our marriage license/contract to the Archdiocese in Quezon City. When I got a call from my mom telling me I needed to call them back, I got worried. They had a lot of questions about the paperwork I submitted and after I explained everything, they said - I couldn't get married again because I was married already AND I can't renew my vows because I've only been married for 5 years. (What?!?!)
She said she would have to show the paperwork to a priest, but there wasn't one available that day, she will get back to me today. She asked me to email her a letter requesting for permission to have a renewal of vows. I did and then sulked all night.
Today, I got a call from my mom saying it has been approved and I should wait for an email. I got it and it said, good news, the priest has approved the renewal of vows. Now, all I need to do is submit all the certified copies of all the papers I sent them and it will be done.
Now, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this is all the hassles I will be getting about the ceremony during the wedding.
P.S. Throughout all this, my sisters in w@wie group has just been so great with their support and encouragement. They are so great!
posted by Marla | 11:53 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Marla! Fellow w@wie (n@wie) Lyra here. I hope everything goes smoothly from here on your wedding preps! Your gown is gorgeous! God bless sis!
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