Personal vows not part of wedding liturgy – church official

The common request or query of couples who are preparing for a church wedding is whether or not they can recite personal wedding vows during the ceremony.

However, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop and Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Socrates Villegas clarified in a Facebook post that the Catholic Church did not allow couples to recite their personal vows during weddings.

"Let us be reminded about some basic principles in liturgy," he said, adding that "the liturgies of the Church, being public prayer, belong to the Church."

"Every liturgical action is an action of Christ the Priest with His Body which is the Church," the prelate said.

The recitation of private devotion or personal spiritual expressions of the couple should not be allowed because this will only confuse, remove or diminish the focus on the sacred liturgy.

"The liturgy is not ours to change at whim," Villegas underscored.

"The regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the Holy See and in limited cases, to bishops’ conferences. Hence, no other person, not even a priest may add, remove or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority."

Villegas advised officiating priests to advise couples to recite their vows instead during the wedding reception.

He said the wedding liturgy is rich and meaningful if this was "understood in full depth."

"Let us not compromise the sacred character of the wedding rites on the altar of romanticism," he concluded. — Bernadette Parco/DVM, GMA News