Case XIX: A Pastor’s Jurisdiction Regarding Marriage

John and Mary wish to be married. They were both born and brought up in the same parish in Brooklyn, where their parents still reside. For the last two years, John and Mary have been employed in the same hotel in New York and have lived there. They have rented an apartment in New York, close to the hotel where they are employed, and have fitted it up, preparatory to living there after their marriage. Now they both desire very much to be married in their home parish in Brooklyn. Is it necessary for them to get the permission of the pastor of the parish in New York, where the hotel is situated, where they are employed, and where they have lived for two years and expect to live permanently after their marriage? Or, may they be married in their home parish in Brooklyn, without any permission from the New York pastor?

‘Answer. According to the former law John and Mary could be married in their home parish in Brooklyn, without any permission from the pastor in New York, in whose parish they have been working for the last two years, and where they intend to locate permanently, as soon as they are married. That is to say, they may do so, if after coming of age, or being quite independent of their parents, they did not formally give up the home of their parents and acquire a new home, strictly speaking, somewhere else. Children did not lose their right to the home of their parents, unless of their own free will, being sui juris, they either formally or legally renounce it, or acquire a new domicile, within the meaning of the

Canon Law, somewhere else. The parish of the parents of John and Mary, in Brooklyn, is, properly or canonically speaking, the parish of John and Mary, as long as they do not renounce it or abandon it, or acquire a new canonical domicile in another parish.

Once John and Mary are married, they necessarily become sui juris, and when they set up an establishment of their own in New York, they necessarily lose their domicile in Brooklyn. It is a common axiom of the Canon Law, that servants acquire only a quasi-domicile in the parish of their employer, and that they do not forfeit their rights to the domicile of their parents by acquiring a quasi-domicile in the parish of the parties who employ them.

As soon as children are of age, or sui juris, as the Canon Law has it, they may, if they wish, renounce the home of their parents.

They may do this either formally, that is, by an explicit and formal renunciation of their parents' home, or they may do it constructively, by acquiring a home, or legal domicile, somewhere else. But in either case it is necessary:

1. That the children be sui juris, that is, legally competent to care and answer for themselves; if only one be sui juris, the one who is not sui juris retains the home of the parents as a domicile;

2. That the renunciation of the parents' home be formal and explicit, which will be the case, if the children formally give up for good the home of their parents, or if they establish a new home for themselves elsewhere, and thereby forfeit their rights to the home of their parents, as a legal domicile.

It cannot be held in Canon Law that there has been a formal renunciation by children of the domicile of their parents by the mere fact that the children have left the home of their parents to work elsewhere, even though the children have no intention or do not think of returning home in the event that they should give up their work or employment.

Nor can it be maintained that John and Mary, by hiring and furnishing an apartment in New York, to be occupied by them after their marriage, thereby acquired a canonical domicile in New York.

To rent a house, or even to buy a house, with the intention of living in it, is not sufficient to acquire a domicile, as such an act does not, of itself, include an intention of permanently living in the house or acquiring a domicile there. To acquire a legal, canonical residence, it is necessary, not only to hire or buy a house or apartment, but also actually to live in it and to intend to live in it long enough to acquire a legal residence.

That John and Mary lived in the hotel in New York where they were employed, did not give them a true domicile there, but only a quasi-domicile. Now a quasi-domicilium does not destroy a real canonical residence which John and Mary have in the home of their parents in Brooklyn. The only way that John and Mary could have acquired a legal domicile in the New York parish, within whose limits the hotel is situated, where they are employed, would have been to have renounced their claims to their parents' home in Brooklyn and taken up their permanent residence in New York with the intention of settling there for good, they both being of such age and condition as would render them competent, in the eyes of the Canon Law, to do so. That they had such an intention or were so minded is a fact that the law does not presume, but requires to be proved. From the moment that it could be proved, in foro externo, that John and Mary had given explicit expression to their will and purpose to abandon their domicile in their parents’ home in Brooklyn and acquire a true domicile in New York, from that moment, the argument drawn from the fact that service in New York gave them only a quasi-domicile in New York, and left them a real domicile still in their parents’ home in Brooklyn, would fall to the ground. The fact that they are employed in New York, and that their condition is one of servants, conditio famulatus, would not prevent them from acquiring a real domicile in New York.

Therefore, in the case as submitted, it was lawful for John and Mary to get married in their home parish in Brooklyn, and no permission for this is required from the New York pastor in whose parish is located the hotel where John and Mary are employed, if the case is judged according to the former law.

According to the new Code the parties seem to have lost the domicile of their parents for the fact that they work so near to the home of their parents and yet board by themselves in New York seems, under ordinary circumstances, sufficient proof that they have left the domicile of their parents,

The new Code in Canon 93 rules that a person under twenty-one years of age necessarily shares the domicile of the one in whose charge he is, parent or guardian, but he may at the same time also have a quasi-domicile which consists of actual residence in a place with the intention of staying the greater part of the year or having actually stayed over half a year in a place. Canon 92. The domicile of any person of age is lost by leaving said domicile with the intention not to return there any more. Canon 95. If the parties in this case were of age and had left the house of their parents with the intention not to take up their residence any more in their parents’ house, they have lost the domicile and cannot claim the pastor of their parents as their own. This is clear from the Canons quoted which do not demand a formal renunciation of the domicile.