Catholics Dating Non-Catholics

Michie · Dec 14, 2023

Yea or nay? The Church has some advice, but you have to work backwards to find it.

So you’re a single Catholic who hopes to get married. You meet someone kind, smart, and attractive . . . but not Catholic. Should you date him anyway? What does the Church say?

The Church says little about dating, but a lot about marriage. So what does the Church say about marriage, and marrying non-Catholics? After answering that, we can work backward to dating and decide whether it’s a good idea to date someone who doesn’t share your Catholic faith.

The Catechism (CCC) says marriage is a “covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life . . . ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring . . . raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament” (1601).

This means, firstly, that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Same-sex unions and polygamous relationships don’t count! (See Gen. 2:21-24, Deut. 17:17, 1 Kings 11:3, and CCC1605.) Second, all marriages, and all sex within marriage, must be open to children. Any form of artificial contraception is gravely evil—including barrier methods, hormonal methods, sterilization, and “pulling out” (Gen. 38:8-10, CCC 2370). Thirdly, marriage is lifelong; divorce doesn’t exist in the Catholic understanding, because God never intended it (Matt. 19:6-9). Separation is possible in grave circumstances like abuse, and a marriage can be declared null (or “annulled”) if it was invalid from the beginning, but a valid marriage never ends except by death. Lastly, marriage between two baptized persons is a sacrament that provides the grace to carry out the lifelong vow and makes the couple an image of Christ and his Church (Eph. 5).

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