Elaine —

By all means attend the wedding.

There is no reason not to attend.

Mary Ann

By choice and conviction, she is not a Catholic.

The Church respects her conscience and would most likely regard her marriage as the valid marriage of two non-Catholics.

Unless her return to the Church in college was something more than curiosity, it appears that she has not considered herself Catholic since the age of 8 or 9, and therefore cannot be considered to be bound to observe a Catholic form in her wedding.

Mary Ann

Hi, Elaine —

The situation is somewhat ambiguous. If she left the Catholic Church by a formal act, then she would be considered non-Catholic and her marriage would be valid.

In general, however, the Church tends to assume people are Catholic even if they drift away, unless they break in a very specific way with the Church.

Recently, in fact, the Church ruled that henceforth to be considered non-Catholic, for purposes of marital law, one had to write one's bishop a letter renouncing the faith, so an argument can be made that this marriage is invalid.

My recommendation, however, if she is attending another church consistently and considers herself a member of that church and has broken all ties with Catholicism, is not to worry about attending the wedding; it's not worth worrying about.

The chances of you committing scandal (the true danger) are minimal compared with the damage you could do by protesting. The situation would be different if she were merely a lapsed Catholic.

Eric

Elaine —

To follow-up on Eric's point, because she was last Catholic when she was 8 years old, there was probably no formal act of leaving the faith that would or could be involved.

Hope this helps,

Mary Ann