Catholic weddings could take place in Church of England buildings
by Harry Farley, Christian Today:
Catholic weddings could take place in Church of England buildings in what would be a radical change to marriage law in the UK.
A bill to be debated in the House of Lords on Friday would allow other denominations to hold their own wedding services in CofE churches, meaning Catholic marriage vows could be heard in parish buildings for the first time since the Reformation.
John Gummer, now Lord Deben, the former Conservative party chairman and environment secretary, converted to Catholicism 1992 after previously being an Anglican and serving on the CofE’s ruling General Synod.
He will introduce his Ecumenical Marriage private members bill after finding his daughter could not marry in his local Anglican church in Suffolk because she wanted the Catholic ceremony.
Although the different wedding liturgies between Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists and Methodists are not drastically different – the main difference being that Catholic weddings include a Eucharist – marriage law in the UK is designed around a buildings-based system meaning ceremonies must take place either in a register office, approved premises or in an officially registered place of religious worship. If in a Church of England building, the wedding must be carried out ‘according to the rites of the Church of England’, according to the 1949 Marriages Act.
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