Catholic Marriage During Coronavirus

Catholic Marriage During the Coronavirus Outbreak

Holy Matrimony is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. It joins a man and a woman in a lifelong conjugal union for the purpose of procreation and the spiritual growth of each other. Marriage is considered a vocation in the Church and is a path to holiness. Many saints speak of the ability of marriage to sanctify people.

Catholics are told to enter marriage with the idea of given fully of themselves to their spouse. This means practicing mortification, patience, and various other physical and spiritual penances for the sake of the other. I feel men are particularly called to sacrifice themselves as Christ sacrificed himself for his body the Church. We cannot enter into marriage with the idea that we will be served by the other person and that all our desires must be fulfilled. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

As mentioned the Church holds up marriage as the highest ideal of intimate relationships between men and women. Jesus Christ changed it from a natural institution to a sacrament, meaning through marriage we receive Grace from God. Therefore, it is easy to see the high importance of marriage to Catholics.

With this in mind, would the Church allow a man and a woman to marry in our current world which is experiencing a massive, global pandemic?

The answer is quite frankly no. Marriage may be a great good, a holy sacrament, and a vocation but it is not essential to the spiritual life. Not marrying will not prevent a person from receiving God's grace or from becoming holy. Therefore, although marriage is a good, it is not a requirement.

Typical marriages go far beyond the bare minimum requirements for legality within the Church, which includes having a priest involved plus 2 witnesses. Indeed, for the most part, the bride and groom have 3-5 people standing for them on each side. The wedding reception involves hundreds of people usually. That's not to mention the dozens of workers.

During the Coronavirus (Covid19), a gathering such as this would probably be illegal at best, and probably quite immoral. Why? Because you are putting MANY people at risk. Many people in fact, far beyond the number of guests attending. If for example, there are 200 guests, and each of those guests interact with an average of 5 people outside the wedding in the following week, and each of THOSE 5 people interact with 5 more the week after, within 2 weeks from the wedding, there would be 5000 connections. If one or more of those people had come into contact with the virus, well you get the picture.

Therefore, in my opinion, it would be very imprudent to have a wedding during the Coronavirus. It is sad that many people have had to cancel their weddings during the early part of this wedding season due to this pandemic. But we must consider other people when making plans.