Recognising Customary Marriage in Africa and Civil Marriage Everywhere

Millions of Catholics in Africa are excommunicated because they get married according to their local customs. That is an absurd and scandalous situation, and this book sets out to correct it. The problem is found to rest on three mistakes made down the centuries in the Canon Law. There was the introduction of the Pauline Privilege in the twelfth century. Then the introduction of the canonical form of marriage at the Council of Trent. Then the condemnation of civil marriage in the nineteenth century. When these mistakes are corrected, the solution to the problem is easy. The three mistakes are based on theological errors, and alternative positions are presented here. As well as solving the problem of customary marriages, it also solves the problems around mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants, and the anomalous ‘double marriages,’ civil and religious, in continental Europe