THE Archbishop of Cashel and Emly has circulated guidelines to his priests which advise them to conduct wedding ceremonies even when they know the marriages are invalid under new legislation.
The pastoral guidelines on the Family Law Act 1995 were written by Father Maurice Dooley, a professor of canon law at St Patrick's College in Thurles, Co Tipperary, and the parish priest of Loughmore. Dr Dermot Clifford circulated them to 120 priests in his archdiocese over a week ago.
The Act took effect on August 1st, and couples marrying from that date must give three months' notice of their intention to marry to the district marriage registrar.
Without this the marriage cannot be registered and is invalid, unless an exemption is granted by the court.
The priests' guidelines advise that the Act's provisions on notification are in conflict with canon law, "but for the good of the parishioners every effort should be made to see that they are fulfilled."
"If it should be impossible to get the necessary court exemption in time," the guidelines state, "priests may conduct the wedding as planned, assuring the couple that this is the real marriage, perfectly valid in the eyes of God and of the church, and see to the remedying of the civil invalidity (civil convalidation) later on."
Father Dooley said that after the church marriage the couple should send notification of their intention to marry to the district marriage registrar. Three months later a civil convalidation of the marriage can take place and they can then be registered, he said.
The civil guidelines advise that the convalidation requires a new solemnisation of the marriage once the three-month period has elapsed.
If the parties are then still within the registrar's district this can be done by any expression of consent given by the parties before any priest anywhere within the registrar's district. The marriage can then be registered. No other formalities are necessary.
Father Dooley claimed no witnesses were needed at this stage. He also claimed there was requirement for the solemnisation to take place in a registry.
He said he was aware that the pastoral guidelines "fly in the face" of the Family Law Act. He said the legal technicalities of the new law made it inflexible and "entirely purposeless and stupid".
Father Dooley said that an American couple who wanted to marry at short notice in Limerick earlier this month had to travel to Dublin to get a court exemption to the three-month notification requirement at short notice.
"This poor innocent pair of Americans came home for their wedding and found these road blocks in their way. Why should decent adult people have to go to court to explain why they didn't know of this stupid law of Mervyn Taylor's which requires them to give three months' notice and go to the expense of hiring solicitors and travelling to Dublin?"
"What a bitter taste they must have in their mouths after seeing this Irish tomfoolery," he said.
A spokesman for Dr Clifford said he asked Father Dooley to draw up pastoral guidelines for "a number of cases from abroad" in which couples intending to marry in his archdiocese had not given the three months' notice required.
A spokesman at the Catholic Press Office said no guidelines on the new law had been issued by the Irish Bishops' Conference. "It's a matter for each diocese and parish to make known what the civil law requires," he said.
He said that as far as he was aware no such guidelines had been issued in other dioceses.