(The Nationalist, 21 November 2003)
Registry office or church? Where to marry? Time was when a registry office marriage was almost unknown in Ireland. And if people did marry there, they kept quiet about it. It wasn’t acceptable. Now it is more common and little notice is taken of it. You “do your own thing”.
I believe it is good that people have a choice one way or the other. I would like to see the status of a civil marriage upgraded to give it more dignity. And they should abolish silly rules such as those that allow songs, but not hymns, to be sung. (Isn’t our Irish brand of liberalism intolerant, our inclusiveness exclusive, our secularism hungry for establishment?) One thing I find about quasi-religious secular ceremonies is that they are so serious and po-faced, as if their solemnity might be threatened by humour, and the “orthodoxy” of secularism undermined by reference to anything transcendent. But that’s “my thing”.
I would welcome an upgrading of the civil ceremony because it would take pressure off people to marry in a church simply because churches are usually beautiful buildings, sometimes have family associations, and, in addition, a church ceremony has dignity and status. I don’t think it’s good if a church wedding is chosen simply for the sake of status. I would not like to think that a couple, in order to have a dignified ceremony, would stand up in public and profess to believe in things they do not in fact believe in. It is not right to have a Mass and receive Communion simply because they add colour, style and character to a ceremony which might otherwise be short and spare. I would say to a young couple, ‘If you don’t believe in Christian marriage, don’t ask for a Christian wedding ceremony. If you don’t believe in the Mass, then have your wedding without one. If there is family pressure on you to do so, stand up to it. If a civil ceremony represents the truth of your commitment here and now, then go for it.’
In recent years we have seen a change in attitudes towards some of the sacraments, especially baptisms (christenings), first Communion, confirmation and marriage. They are in danger of being reduced to rites of passage or the occasion for a family get-together. They are both of those things, and that’s all to the good, but it’s when they are little else that a sacrament becomes voided of meaning and reduced to a matter of convenience. And it is not right to do that.