Coming Soon
A Marriage Tribunal Judge's Essential Catholic Marriage Preparation Manual for Engaged Couples.
After twenty years of judicial work on the marriage tribunal, and thousands of marriage cases read, I have come to one conviction. Nearly every Catholic marriage that fails carried, in its earliest days, warning signs that the couple themselves did not recognize before the wedding day.
This book is the help I wish every engaged Catholic couple had before their wedding day. It is built on what I call the Five Pillars of Valid Consent, drawn directly from canon law and from twenty years of pastoral and judicial experience.
What the Church requires you to know, and what most engaged couples have never been told about what they are actually consenting to at the altar.
How to recognize the pressures, fears, and obligations that quietly compromise consent, and what canon law says about marriages contracted under their weight.
The human and psychological readiness marriage requires, drawn from the canonical concept of due discretion of judgment, the most common ground on which marriages are later declared null.
What you must intend, and what you must not silently exclude, when you say "I do." This pillar examines simulation, conditions, and the secret reservations that void consent.
The shared vision, communication, and practical alignment that turn two lives into the consortium totius vitae the Church describes. Without this, the other pillars cannot bear weight.
What you will not find here. No advice on choosing a venue, planning a reception, or surviving the year of engagement. You will find, instead, the conversations that must happen between two people before they stand at the altar, and the patterns that, recognized in time, can be answered with grace and corrected with prayer.
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