Twenty-two years ago, Swa-pan Das fell in love with Sabina Das but their Catholic parish in Bangladesh refused to solemnize their marriage.
That was because the bride was only 14, and solemnizing her marriage would have been a vio-lation of Church laws and a cri-minal offense under national law. Both laws allow only women of 18 years and above to marry.
Das, then 23, managed to get a fake birth certificate for her and they married in a civil court in the Panchagarh district in northern Bangladesh. That meant the couple being barred from the Sacraments and Catholics in their Sarker Para village excluding them from social programs.
The life of Das and his wife changed for the better on Nov 7, when their marriage was rectified at the Queen of Fatima Church in Thakurgaon district along with their three children.
“Many still prefer marriage in their own traditional way rather than following a Church-mandated marriage process”
Each year their Dinajpur diocese rectifies dozens of illicit marriages, following the process of a Church law, to bring Catho-lics back to sacramental life and build up Catholic communities, officials said.
The Das couple were among ten others who had their marriage rectified by the Church. All of them are Catholics whose ance-stors converted to Catholicism from lower-caste Hindu groups.