"Can I Go to the Wedding?" Answered
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Ascension
4.9 • 7.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2025
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you're Catholic, you're probably aware that not every wedding is the same in the eyes of the Church. You may have heard of situations—or been in ones yourself—where you're not sure if it's okay for you, as a practicing Catholic, to attend such a wedding. How do you know when it's okay and when it's not okay?
Fr. Mike not only gives us a couple of guiding principles but also breaks down most of the situations you might find yourself in and tells us what Jesus and his Church asks of us.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Because I'm practicing Catholic, can I go? |
| 0:01.5 | This person is getting married to this person. |
| 0:02.9 | I was invited. |
| 0:03.9 | May I attend the wedding? |
| 0:05.1 | I'm my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Essential Presents. |
| 0:07.3 | The best answer I've ever read is from a priest named Father Francis Hoffman or Father |
| 0:11.5 | Rocky Hoffman. |
| 0:12.5 | I think it's on a website called Simply Catholic. |
| 0:14.0 | When people write to me, this is the answer I send them. |
| 0:16.1 | I just copy and paste. And actually, it's kind of funny because his first two points is, one, you never |
| 0:21.6 | have to attend a wedding. Number two is, can I attend the wedding? Yeah, if it's a real marriage, |
| 0:26.4 | then you may go. I recognize that the cry of the heart is, oh my gosh, I'm so sad. Either I've done |
| 0:31.7 | this in the past or I'm hoping to do this in the future to attend a wedding where it's like, actually you can't go to the one of these. I understand that that could be an incredible, incredible burden on one's heart, especially when it comes to, |
| 0:43.3 | oh, these relationships could be destroyed. If I don't go to this wedding, I will no longer have a relationship with this person. |
| 0:49.3 | If I don't go to my sister's wedding, I will no longer have a relationship with her. I don't go to whoever the person is, my child's wedding, I will no longer have a relationship with that |
| 0:57.7 | person. Now, keep these two or three things in mind. Number one, I really strongly believe that |
| 1:04.9 | if someone wants to have a relationship with you, that relationship is bigger than one day. |
| 1:08.8 | If someone wants to have a relationship with you, that they're asking you to respect their decisions, they're asking you to respect |
| 1:14.1 | their choices. And you get to ask, in a real relationship, you get to ask, okay, I do |
| 1:19.0 | respect your choices, I respect your decisions, I'm also asking you to respect my |
| 1:22.8 | choices and my decisions. If I can respect the fact that you don't believe the same |
| 1:26.3 | thing as me, I hope that you could respect the fact that I don't believe the same thing as you. Relationship is |
... |
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