Jean-Marie Le Pen has civil marriage blessed in Tridentine Rite ceremony at home

Jean-Marie Le Pen, considered the father of France’s current far-right political movement, has had his civil marriage of some three decades blessed by a traditionalist priest of the Catholic Church.

The 92-year-old Le Pen and his 88-year-old wife Jany have been married civilly since 1991.

At a brief ceremony that took place on January 16 at the couple’s home in the western Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud, their union was blessed officially by the Church.

Social media lit up with news after a short video of the service, which appeared to take place around a dinner table, was posted on the far-right website “Boulevard Voltaire”.

It shows Father Philippe Laguérie blessing Mr. and Mrs. Le Pen’s wedding bands in Latin.

The priest is one the founders of the Institute of the Good Shepherd (IBP), which was established in 2006 to propagate the Tridentine Rite and “doctrinal treasures” that characterized the Church prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

“I point out that I am here under the jurisdiction of Bishop (Matthieu) Rougé, Bishop of Nanterre,” the priest can be heard saying in the video clip.

In fact, the bishop’s authorization was necessary because the service was held outside the couple’s parish church.

“The normal place of marriage is the parish church, because it is a community liturgy that involves the life of the Church,” said Father Cédric Burgun, vice dean of Canon Law faculty at the Institut Catholique in Paris.

Civilly remarried spouses

But the code does allow for the possibility of a celebration outside the parish walls.

“It can be celebrated in another church or oratory with the permission of the local ordinary or pastor,” according to Canon 1118.

Bishop Rougé gave permission for the celebration based on this canon.

He said he does this “often for cases of this kind when there are no canonical impediments”, especially when elderly people wish to marry.

“It is just one authorization among others,” he insisted.

Last summer, a number of bishops in France allowed open-air wedding celebrations because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the ceremony between Jany and Jean-Marie Le Pen thus raises another canonical question beyond the location. When they married civilly in 1991, both were divorced from previous spouses — an impediment to contracting matrimony in the Catholic Church.

This was resolved quite easily for Jany Le Pen.

Her first husband, a Belgian businessman whom she divorced in 1984, has been dead for several years. In the eyes of the Church, she was a widow not a divorcee.

The precedent of Pope Francis

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s first marriage was in 1960 to Pierrette Lalanne. The two separated in 1987.

But their union had been celebrated civilly. A Catholic marriage was out of the question because Lalanne had already been married.

And since she was not Catholic, the Church did not recognize the binding force of the civil ceremony alone.

“It is highly probable that this marriage never had canonical recognition,” said Father Burgun.

“In the eyes of the Church, Jean-Marie Le Pen was not married and could therefore marry in a religious ceremony,” the canonist explained.

As for the problems concerning the venue for a Catholic wedding, that came to international attention in January 2018 when Pope Francis presided over the abbreviated marriage ceremony between two flight attendants on board his plane, a few thousand meters above Chilean territory.

Since the pope has universal jurisdiction, he was able to bless the union without needing the authorization of the bishop of the territory they were flying over.