Wedding between a Catholic and an Evangelic - Munich

Hi all,
now do not get worried, its not me getting married

A German colleague at work she is a non-practicing evangelic, he is catholic.
They are planning to get married next year but are having problems with the fact that she is evangelic but they want (well he wants but ok) a proper catholic church ceremony.
He is having to fight to get permission from the church to marry a non catholic, she is being pressured to convert.

Do any of you have any prior experience with this? Does anyone know of any priest in Munich/Bayern who would marry them without any problems?

Any advice/assistance would be greatfully received!

Cheers!

Usually there is no fuss with that from the catholic church. All they have to do is state they will raise the children catholic.

More info in German: http://www.erzbistum-muenchen.de/EMF108/EMF010743.asp

Erm, I'd be surprised if they got a full Catholic ceremony with only one of the parties actually being Catholic - it would not make sense. It's like being a bit pregnant...

What tends to happen is that Communion is omitted and it isn't the full Catholic service. Have been to several such ceremonies in the Bad Reichenhall/Piding/Marzoll area where this happened, but I can't remember the name of the priest. And yes the kids would have to be pledged, so to speak. My sister did this in the UK, she's non-practising CoS, he's a Catholic.

St Kilians English-speaking Mission might be a good contact if one of the couple was an English-speaker? Or consider going to Austria instead as this may also be more accomodating - have also been to a "mixed" marriage there too.

I should possibly add, they dont want the ful blown 2 hr service, just standard service.
They are both German, I know it might seem odd asking here but seeing as we have so many different nationalities and therefore religions on TT, I thought it would be a good place to find some information as there would be more people here having been through this than in their friendship group.

Shop around and you should be able to find a Catholic Priest willing to do the marriage ceremony with no conversion necessary. The Catholic spouse is supposed to only "encourage" the other partner to convert, but there's no obligation to actually do so. There will be the already stated condition that any children should be Baptised, Christened and brought up Catholic. The situation in Germany is exacerbated by the fact that the Catholic Church way back when excommunicated Martin Luther, and the Lutherans in turn condemned the Catholic Church. Made for a bit of bad feeling that continues even today in some more conservative areas.

If the Catholic party pays church tax, there should be no problem.
Katrina's suggestion is a good one.

Not sure what you mean by "evangelic".

To the Catholic priest, it might depend some on whether she is Evangelisch ("Protestant," as in Lutheran or Reformed) or an Evangelikal (in the American sense of "Evangelical" or fundamentalist). If the former, it may be easier, since there are good ecumenical relations between Catholics and Lutherans. If the latter, her affirming that the Pope is not the Antichrist would likely help.

Just lie. Pretend to be a catholic for a while. Not exactly difficult.

"Are you catholic?"

"Yes of course"

Job done.

Next.

For several reasons, I wouldn't recommend that. One is that if the priest asks for a record of baptism or a letter from your home priest, there will be a lot of explaining to do.

I don't see why getting married in a catholic church would be a problem.
My husband is catholic and I'm protestant, we got married in a catholic church, got a nice service without communion, and promised to raise our children catholic (which we do).
There was no pressure on me to convert at all. The topic may have come up, I may have said I could imagine to convert eventually, but I don't even remember it anymore, so I doubt that this was a big issue.

If your friend's priest doesn't want to do it, I'm sure there will be lots of others who are more open-minded.

Yep, my wife is Catholic and I'm Anglican (err...sort of). No pressure to convert, priest asked if we wanted Communion, which we declined. He was also nice enough to marry us in a church other than his own. My wife only had to sign that she would bring up her children Catholic 'where possible within her marriage' ie. if nasty hubby allows it. I did not have to make such a declaration.

As others have said, any claims of baptism and confirmation need backing up with paperwork (which was actually quite difficult for the latter).

what if u said you would raise your children catholic, then didnt, do they send out some sort of ninja task force to keep track?

I'm guessing they mean Anglican? A German term for Anglican is Evangelisch so could be where the confusion comes from.

not quite correct. Evangelisch means Protestant, not Anglican. Anglican is a particular denomination of protestantism which is not the same as German Evangelismus. The Anglican Church is the world-wide grouping of the Church of England. The CoE is not a typical protestant church and shares many similarities with the catholic church.

You didn't answer the question though. What is then meant by the term Evangelic?

In this case the Priest himself would come round and try to rear your children...

did I spell that right?

German priests and pastors can be quite conservative and old fashioned when it comes to marrying non-catholics. Many still make you convert and that involves attending conversion courses. It is difficult to "shop around" for another priest who would be willing to marry you because he would still need permission from your parish priest.

If you happen to have come across one of these small minded people, then the only way you are going to get married in a catholic church is to follow "Ze Rulez" and convert.

I used to have a best friend who was at seminary school and then interned in the parish where I lived. He also said he would not marry me in church since I was not confirmed and hadn't held communion. He would have made me attend classes etc if I'd wanted to marry in church and this was my best friend at the time.

My wife (Catholic) and I (Anglican) got married last October. No great problems, no conversion classes etc. My wife required dispense from the church to marry me - not a great deal either. We also wanted to get married in my wife's church she went to before she moved to a different quarter - so we also needed dispense from the church in our quarter to get married in the church we wanted - the greenish one on Dom Pedro Strasse - St Theressia I think. The meeting with the priest was quick and painless - had to promise to raise the kids catholic. Other than that we just had a straight ceremony (no communion). The wife did have to go to confession though... I just had a beer.

i did say *can*. I know not all priests are as backward thinking but there are more of them here in Germany than in other countries and if you just happen to have one as your parish priest, then you can be stuffed because he has the power to put the spanner in the works if he so desires. I personally know a few people (besides my personal case) where they were prevented from marrying in church.

My Girlfriend has started looking into this for when we get married, she has worked herself up nito a right state.

She is prodestant (lutheren, not sure) and i am CofE.

She is convinced that I not only need to be baptised but also need to be confirmed.

She is also convinced I not only need to bring along proof of this, we also need to have it translated.

I find this funny as, if they need it translating then they can't read it and they have no way of checking.

If they have no way of checking how the heck do they know we didn't just knock up the document..

Its going to get funny if the marrage is at the discretion of the person performing the service. She has her mind set on a churxh where she lives, if they say 'wow there, hes not confirmed and has to be' there is going to be a problem.

I am not and have no real drive to ben especialy as it isn't a requisite to marrage in the CofE (that I know of).

Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland ...

I forgot to mention that I did need a baptism certificate - can't recall if I needed the confirmation info, but that was present on my certificate/booklet thingy anyway. However, we did not have to get it translated... unlike the standesamnt, that was a whole other story!

By the way the priest we had is called Pate Elias, really nice guy.

Shopping around is actually quite easy, since there is no rule saying that you must remain a member in a particular Parish. A friend of mind had a dispute with her local Catholic Priest, so now she goes to services in another town nearby. Just because a Church is closer to you doesn't mean that you have to attend that particular one. So just go find yourself another Priest that you like better, become a member of his congregation, and you have both followed "Ze Rulez" and shopped around for someone who better suits you.

My sister-in-law had some trouble with the local Evangelical Minister. He refused to do the marriage ceremony because her husband-to-be had been divorced. She shopped around and found another Minister nearby who did the Church ceremony for them. They've been happily married now for over 20 years and she even sings in the Church choir. So you can also shop around within the Evangelical Church.