A WICKLOW Catholic priest has warned that the automatic practice of priests registering Catholic church marriages as civil marriages might have to be changed following the introduction of divorce.
Father Arthur O'Neill, a curate in Rathnew, wrote in his parish newsletter earlier this month that until now the general and accepted practice for the registration of all Catholic marriages (although technically in law always the responsibility of the groom) was facilitated by the officiating priest signing and sending the State form to the local registrar."
However, with the Constitution and the law on marriage about to be changed "to embrace the possibility of dissolution by divorce", Father O'Neill warned that "the integrity of priests effectively acting as State registrars will most likely be raised once again".
For a priest to sign an official form that a marriage was validly solemnised "according to the rites of the Catholic Church" could "seem to presume that church and State share exactly the same understanding of the term `marriage'", Father O'Neill said yesterday.
He said he would hate his intervention "to be presented as the clergy being bad losers after the divorce referendum".
He stressed that the issue had been brought to his attention by a letter he had received from the Registrar General recently asking him not to sign the civil register after a wedding he is due to conduct next month "because the civil requirements have not been met".
Cases like this one, involving complications arising from a foreign divorce, made him think "that church and State are going to have to look again together at why the church registers weddings for the State in Ireland".
He said he would be happy with the situation in France and other continental countries where "no priest can celebrate a wedding unless that marriage has been previously recorded in the local town hall".
Neither would he have any problem with the British situation, where the civil registrar comes to the church after the wedding so that the couple can sign the civil registry.
However, this would mean a significant increase in the number of civil registrars employed by the State.
Father O'Neill quoted a radio answer by the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, in which he had said that in the event of divorce being introduced only a few additional registrars would be needed.
A spokesman for the Department of Equality and Law Reform said yesterday a review was under way into the whole system of registering births, deaths and marriages but its results would not be ready for at least another year.