By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Diocesan judicial vicar Father Mark Gantley gave an example of how things can go wrong if church sacramental records are not recorded in a timely manner.
A mainland couple had made arrangements to be married at a Big Island parish. The wedding was canceled at the last minute, but the required paperwork already sent to the parish was never discarded. A while later, a new parish secretary discovered the documents and, unaware of the cancellation, dutifully recorded the “marriage” and properly informed the “groom’s” mainland parish. Later, when the man found the true love of his life, he was surprised to learn he was already “married.” It took some doing to untangle the mess.
Deacon Keith Cabiles of the Chancellor’s office speaks to workshop attendees. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
Cue “Instruction for Sacramental Registers,” paragraph I.6.a: “Celebrations are to be recorded within a week after the celebration.” And related paragraph I.6.b: “Registers are not to be completed before the celebration has taken place.”
Father Gantley told his story at a workshop for parish office staff, Nov. 5, at St. Stephen Diocesan Center on “Maintaining Sacramental Registers,” one of five instructional sessions presented this past month on four islands.
About 40 people were at the Nov. 5 session, mostly parish lay office staff and a handful of parish priests.
The purpose of the workshops was to explain the newly revised four-page “Instruction for Sacramental Registers” — a list of 30 directives explaining the proper way to keep records of the sacraments administered in a parish, which is one of a parish’s most important duties.
The Instruction was first issued in 2009. Bishop Larry Silva announced the updated version Sept. 29. It reflects new realities such as same-sex couples being listed as parents on birth certificates.
Parishes traditionally have kept registers for Baptism, Confirmation, First Holy Communion, marriage and death. A new register for “reception into full communion of the Catholic Church,” a large, thin, hardcover, ledger-like book, was handed out at the workshops. It is for “those validly baptized in a non-Catholic church” who have been received into the Catholic Church. These records formerly were recorded in the baptismal register.
The other two presenters besides Father Gantley were Deacon Keith Cabiles, administrative assistant in the office of the Chancellor, the diocese’s primary record keeping department, and Mary Duddy, moderator of the Tribunal.
Deacon Cabiles offered a lot of practical advice: Keep registers in a fire-proof safe or file cabinet. Write legibly. Print, do not sign, the name of the celebrant. Use full names. Include maiden names. Index the register.
Pointing to a sample page from an 1843 register, written in a quill script mostly illegible to modern readers, Cabiles said, “in 200 years someone will be reading our handwriting.”
All records at the parish
Baptisms and other sacraments that occur in places besides a church, like hospitals, schools and prisons, are to be recorded at the parish within whose boundaries the sacrament was administered, he said.
Similarly, sacraments given in mission churches or ethnic communities are recorded at the host parish.
“The church of baptism is the master record keeper of a Catholic,” said Cabiles. Therefore, notices of Confirmation, first Eucharist and marriage must be sent to the church of baptism “within a week of celebration.”
In recording the baptism of a child of a single mother, the father’s name is omitted unless he is also listed on the birth certificate or makes a witnessed declaration of paternity.
If two women or two men are listed on the birth certificate of a child seeking baptism, only the “one who gave birth” and the “one who can provide proof of paternity” are to be listed as the mother and father. The others are listed as “partners.”
In the case of baptizing adopted children, the adopting mother and father are considered the parents. A single adopting parent is likewise listed as mother or father. However, a same-sex couple, neither of whom is the biological parent, would be listed as “partners” and the spaces of “mother” and “father” left blank. According to Father Gantley, this last point was a “personal decision of the bishop.”
Duddy, who spoke on marriage documents, said a “marriage record is permanent. It must be kept indefinitely.”
That’s essentially true of all the sacramental records.
Likewise, the Instruction states, “No changes may be made in past records.”
“Basically, you don’t change anything,” said Father Gantley.
Corrections may be made to misspellings and other errors by crossing out the word with a single line and writing the correct word next to it, so that the alteration is obvious. Add notations when necessary, he said.
“But no Wite-Out,” he said. “Keep Wite-Out away from the registers.”
In the Diocese of Honolulu, parishes are required to send copies of their sacramental records to the Chancellor’s office. Registers older than 70 years are to be stored in the Chancellor’s climate-controlled central archives.
Cabiles said parish staff should not “be sentimental” about keeping old antique-looking books at the parish where they may be prone to damage.
Regarding Catholics seeking their own sacramental records, Father Gantley urged parish staffs to be obliging and helpful.
Don’t ask for IDs, he said. “We don’t have to be excessively vigilant. They have a right to their certificates.”
However, those doing personal research or genealogies, follow stricter conditions. In addition, according to a directive from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, “information may not be provided to members of the Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) religion,” which has a practice of posthumous Baptism.
