Nun Performs Wedding Ceremony With Anchorage Prelate’s Blessing

Roman Catholic Archbishop Francis T. Hurley of Anchorage authorized a nun to perform a wedding recently in what was believed to be the first such ceremony performed by a Catholic sister in the United States.

Representatives of the U.S. Catholic Conference said they are not aware of any other time that a valid Catholic wedding has been performed by a nun.

Hurley said in a telephone interview that he was to have performed the wedding of Stacey Smith Mitchell and Rodney Mitchell in Valdez, Alaska, on May 6. But when bad weather made it impossible for him to fly to Valdez, he called Sister Carol Ann Aldrich, a Sister of Mercy nun who serves as administrator of the Valdez church, and asked her to perform the ceremony.

The archbishop said he gave the couple dispensation from the church requirement that they be married by a priest. Although the prelate said the wedding could have been performed by a non-Catholic minister because the groom has no religious affiliation, he felt “it made perfect sense to have the sister who had provided them with marriage preparation to do it.”

Hurley said five remote parishes in his archdiocese are served by nuns.