Chapter IV. On the Things to Be Observed After the Celebration of Marriage, or on the Registration of a Celebrated Marriage

Registration must be made in both the book of marriages and the book of the baptized.

I. Registration in the book of marriages (canon 1103, § 1). The cited canon indicates who must register, when, and what must be registered.

1. The pastor or the one holding his place must register, and indeed the pastor of the place or parish in which the marriage was contracted. Therefore the obligation does not lie upon the Ordinary who assisted at the marriage, nor upon the proper pastor who took part in the nuptials of his subject in another's parish, nor upon another who was delegated to assist. But from the fact that the words "with his own hand"¹ are no longer found in the law, it seems to have to be deduced that these are to be held as a directive rather than a preceptive rule. Nevertheless, the rule is most strongly commended.²

2. Registration must be made as soon as possible,³ that is, as that expression is usually understood, at least within three days. Yet it is preferable that it be made on the same day, indeed immediately after the celebration of marriage or the Mass which followed.

3. There must be registered the names and surnames of the spouses and witnesses, the place, parish, year, month, and day of the marriage, the name of the pastor or other one who assisted, and other things according to the formula assigned by the Roman Ritual⁴ or by the proper Ordinary. It is also useful afterwards to note the convalidation or dissolution of the marriage, if perhaps they have had place. Finally, it is expedient to write the year and day not by arithmetical signs, but in complete words, as several civil codes establish. The registration must be made in the book of marriages, not on entirely separate sheets.

4. Finally, as regards the gravity of the obligation, the obligation of registering marriages, and indeed in the book, is grave, so that only physical or moral impossibility excuses from it; as if the pastor in a particular case cannot know the true name of the married person.⁵ Hence a pastor also would sin gravely who exposed himself to grave danger of omitting the registration. The obligation of completing it as soon as possible is of itself light, so that, with the danger of omitting it excluded, even a longer delay would not seem to involve grave fault.

¹ Title VII, chapter 2, n. 7 has these words: "When the marriage has been celebrated, the pastor or the one who holds his place should record in the book of marriages the names of the spouses and of the witnesses, and other things according to the prescribed formula; and this even if another priest, delegated either by himself or by the Ordinary, celebrated the Marriage."

² Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, March 12, 1910, ad IX, responded to the Bishop of Mangalore, who was asking the faculty of permitting a marriage to be recorded by the delegate: "For the favor, to the prudence and conscience of the Bishop"; these words certainly signify the importance of the directive rule.

³ This word was substituted for the word statim, which occurred in the decree Ne temere.

⁴ Title XII, chapter 4.

⁵ Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments to the Bishop of Roseau, March 12, 1910, ad 9.

II. Registration in the book of the baptized (canon 1103, § 2). The end of this law is that marriages perhaps previously contracted by those about to marry, and the impediment of bond and affinity following from them, may more easily be detected. For with marriages noted in the books of the baptized, a person formerly married will not be able to bring a testimony of Baptism without at the same time bringing a testimony of his marriage formerly contracted, at least if an extract from the book of the baptized is brought which is of recent date (n. 682). But the registration in the book of the baptized is to be made thus:

1. If each or either spouse was baptized in the same parish in which the nuptials are entered, in the margin of the place where Baptism is noted let it be inserted that he or she contracted marriage in this parish in such year, month, and day, with the names, surnames, and age of the other party with whom he or she entered the nuptials added - as others add - and likewise the names and surnames both of the parents of the other party and of the witnesses of the marriage. It would also suffice to add in the margin of the place where Baptism is noted: "He entered nuptials with N. N. Cf. the book of marriages." Those who judge that all the aforesaid things are to be added rely on the Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments of March 6, 1911,¹ which imposes on the pastor of the marriage the obligation of reporting all these things to the pastor of Baptism, for the purpose indeed that "the marriage be entered in the book of the baptized"; from this they deduce that all the things are to be inserted in the book of the baptized. Others think that all the enumerated things must be reported to the pastor of Baptism for the purpose that the marriage can be duly assigned in the book of the baptized; but that it be duly assigned does not require that all things reported be added.

2. If each or either spouse was baptized elsewhere:²

a) The pastor of the marriage, either personally or through the episcopal curia, his own or that of the pastor who baptized, will report the contracted marriage to the pastor or pastors both of the Baptism of the bridegroom and of the Baptism of the bride. But that report "should bring with it the written names and surnames of the spouses and of their parents, the age of the contracting parties, the place and day of the nuptials, the names and surnames of the witnesses who were present, and should have the subscribed name of the pastor with the parish seal added."³ Besides this, the reporting pastor will laudably ask that he be made certain that the report was received. Finally, the report is to be transmitted through the chancery of the local Ordinary.⁴

b) The pastor of Baptism to whom the report has been transmitted should insert all things accurately in the book of the baptized, or at least duly note the marriage; and "if it should perhaps happen that... the pastor of Baptism, on receiving the report of the marriage, discovers that either contracting party is already bound by other nuptials, he will signify the matter as quickly as possible to the pastor of the attempted marriage."⁵

"Observe, if the marriage was mixed, that care must be taken only concerning the Catholic party that the marriage be registered in the book of the baptized.

"If the place of Baptism is unknown, let at least the diocese in which Baptism was conferred be investigated, whether it is learned or reasonably presumed from the birth or other circumstances. The Ordinary of that diocese, once made certain of the marriage, will then be able to complete the inquiry and to take care that the marriage be entered in the baptismal registers."

Moreover, the registration of marriages in the book of the baptized, likewise the law of taking care that the registration can be made by the pastor of Baptism, is not merely of counsel, but of precept and of grave precept, as is gathered both from the grave end of the law and from the cited Instruction.⁶

¹ March 6, 1911 (A.A.S. 1911, p. 102). That Instruction, which was issued "so that the things prescribed in n. IX, § 2 of the mentioned Decree (Ne temere) may be duly observed," is probably to be held as determinative of an existing law rather than as a new law. Hence we judge that it persists, with canons 6, 4° and 23 considered.

² "Or if the book of the baptized is kept by another pastor, for example by the pastor of the mother church on account of the dismemberment of the parish" (Van de Burct-Schaepmann, 237).

³ Cited Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments.

⁴ Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, July 27, 1921 (A.A.S. 1921, p. 348).

⁵ Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, March 6, 1911.

⁶ Vermeersch, op. cit., n. 8; the Instruction has these words: "Ordinaries should diligently watch that these prescriptions are religiously observed, and if they find any transgressors, they should take care to recall them to duty, canonical penalties also being employed where there is need."

III. Registration of marriage contracted in extraordinary form (canon 1103, § 3). Marriages contracted according to the norm of canon 1098 (n. 738 sq.) must likewise be noted in both the book of marriages and the book of the baptized. Now:

1. The priest, if he assisted at the marriage, is bound in solidum with the contracting parties to take care that the due registrations be made. In the same way the witnesses are bound with the contracting parties, if witnesses alone took part in the marriage.

2. In order that the obligation be satisfied, the marriage must be reported in the manner set forth above: 1° to the pastor of the place in which the marriage was contracted; according to others, to the pastor who regularly ought to have assisted in the ordinary case, that is, to the pastor of the domicile of each spouse or of the domicile of the bride;¹ 2° to the pastor of the Baptism of the spouses.

If the marriage is contracted in a place where there is no parish or quasi-parish, the report is to be made to the local Ordinary.²

Note. If the law of the sacramental seal prohibits the marriage from being noted in the public books of marriages and of the baptized, and the good of the legitimated offspring requires that the marriage be able to be proved in the external forum, with the consent of those whose interest it is, let it be registered as marriages of conscience, about which one must now speak.

¹ Choupin, n. 73, note 2.

² Vermeersch, n. 83.