Remarried in the Catholic church?

Question

This is a confusing situation. My mom was raised Methodist, and my dad Catholic. They were married in the methodist church and that was what my family practiced. My parents divorced years ago and my dad was remarried by a justice of the peace. He is now practicing catholicism again and he and his wife are getting "married" in the Catholic church this year. In order for him to marry in the Catholic church, would he have had to get an annulment of his marriage to my mom since it was a methodist wedding? Does the Catholic church even recognize my parents' marriage? If the Catholic church does not recognize my parents' marriage, do they view any children my parents had as being born out of wedlock?

Answer 1

Hi -- yes this is a confusing thing, isn't it! Let's try to clear it up.

First, even if your parents' marriage is annulled, that does NOT mean you or any of your siblings were born out of wedlock. Your parents were LEGALLY married, no matter what, and because of that, you are all "legitimate" kids.

The annulment does NOT mean that your parents were never legally married. The Church has no jurisdiction over civil law.

Second, yes, your dad will have to have his first marriage declared null (get the annulment) before he could have his current marriage convalidated (blessed, accepted, recognized) by the Church.

What this means is that the Church will have to determine whether or not your parents were SACRAMENTALLY married.

You see, in the Catholic Church, marriage is a sacrament, an unbreakable union between man, woman and God. In the Methodist Church, marriage is NOT a sacrament. People get married in Methodists services by Methodist ministers, but they are just getting legally married. They are not trying to get a sacramental union on top of the legal union.

Catholics are not supposed to just have legal marriages. They are supposed to have marriages that are both legally and sacramentally valid.

Now, it is possible for a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic in a non-Catholic ceremony and still be sacramentally united. So the Church will have to investigate your parents' marriage to find out whether or not there was a sacramental union on top of the legal union.

If there WAS a sacramental union, then there is absolutely no way for that union to be declared null. That would mean you dad couldn't possibly get an annulment for the marriage he has with your mom and he couldn't get remarried in the Catholic Church, and he would have to end his relationship with his current wife if he wanted to continue to practice Catholicism. He would be forever united with your mom in a spiritual way and her spirituality and eternal destination would remain his responsibility, even though they are legally divorced.

If there was NO sacramental union between your mom and dad, then your dad will receive a decree of nullity for that first marriage that states that there is no spiritual obligation between your parents. Then he would be free to have his current marriage convalidated.

This whole situation might feel very hurtful to you, your siblings and your mother. If you asked your mother if she felt that she was still spiritually responsible for your dad, what would she say? Would she say no? Well, that's all the annulment says, too -- whether or not they are spiritually responsible for each other.  

Again, the LEGAL marriage still existed until the divorce, and the Church is NOT saying that they were never married at all. The annulment only means that despite the legal marriage, there is no eternal spiritual obligation between your parents.

HTH!

Answer 2

Maybe he already has received an annulment. Or maybe he lied about it and never told about the first marriage.  Maybe he just said all the kids were born out of wedlock.  That IS why they ask that question, "Does anyone present know any reason why this man and this woman should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony ?"   You have the grit to phone the priest at the Church where they're supposed to get married at ?

Answer 3

Hi Confused,

I have been through this myself as well as one of my sisters. Here is how it works.

1) The Catholic church recognizes all other Christian marriages as valid so if I wanted to marry a divorced protestant I would have to have her go through the annulment proceedings as I would with another divorced Catholic.

2) Now here is the funny part. If I am Catholic and married in another Christian church, they consider my part of the marriage null and void with respect to the Catholic church itself so I go to confession, say I technically sinned and lived common law in the eyes of the Catholic church and no annulment is necessary. This was the case for my Catholic brother-in-law who married a Protestant lady in the Lutheran church in his first marriage. My sister who was married in the Catholic church indeed had to go through the annulment proceedings. Similarily my ex- girlfriend married a Catholic man who was divorced but had been married in the Lutheran church. They were married in the Catholic church and no annulment was required.

I know this all seems alike a double standard but c'est la vie! Your Dad may go ahead and marry without the annulment.

3) On last thing. There are two parts to the marrige - the spiritual in Church and the civil lisence. You must also have your civil divorce papers in order for the Catholic church to marry you or annul your marriage as they are subject to the civil law as well.

Cheers,

Michael Kelly

Answer 4

In order for him to marry in the Catholic church, would he have had to get an annulment of his marriage to my mom since it was a methodist wedding?

Yes

If the Catholic church does not recognize my parents' marriage, do they view any children my parents had as being born out of wedlock?

The Church recognizes your parents' civil marriage and since it was annulled they do not recognize it as a spiritual marriage.

And NO you are not viewed by anyone in the church as a b*****d child.

Kayla:

As far as your daughter's annulment goes, I can see why it would go through. If he was mentally ill, which he apparently still is, he cannot make a valid commitment. It's not that the church is after money, the church is understanding of the reality of life. I'm sorry that you carry so much hatred for the Catholic faith. I hope you find love in your life to fill that hole.

Answer 5

I was going to give you an answer, but I want to be sure I am correct, so I am going to suggest you ask here:

www.Catholic.com

There is a discussion board there, that is where I would ask.

Or, you can go to:

www.masstimes.org and find a Parish near you and just ask a Priest or Deacon.

Peace and God Bless!

Answer 6

yes he would have to get an annulment, my parents are both catholic but are not married in the catholic church because my dad was divorced but it would have taken 3 years to get his marriage annulled and it would have cost a lot of money, which is stupid. and my parents wanted to get married soon so they got married in another denomination, and never got it recognized by the catholic church.

Answer 7

No, the Catholic church does not view any marriage outside of their church as a Sacramental marriage, so there is no need for an annulment. No, the Church does recognize the children born in marriages that are not Sacramental.  So don't worry about the ceremony that your dad and step mom are going to go through.

Answer 8

I guess I did not understand whether your dad is remarrying your mom again or another woman. If it is another woman, it would appear he does need an annulment from the 1st marriage since it was recognized as valid. Hopefully, he mentioned his 1st marriage to the priest since the civil marriage is not recognized by the Church anyway. A divorce would not void the first marriage in the eyes of the Church. In any event, even if children were born under a civil marriage contract, the Church still recognizes all those children as legitimate since the State also recognizes them as legitimate.  

Answer 9

Speaking as an ex-catholic, when I met my husband, he was protestant, and had been married to a protestant women, but divorced. But, still, the catholic church considered those 2 married so they wouldn't marry me and him, that was my lucky day! Then, my daughter married a catholic man in the catholic church, she did whatever it took for her to become 'catholic." They had a baby, and after about 8 months, (the hubby had been abusing her all along) trying to smother her, holding her head under water in the bathtub, just to name a couple things, this coming from an UPRIGHT, RIGHTEOUS catholic family..which I call B/S. Then, my daughter left him, and he went on and found another woman to abuse, wanted to marry her in catholic church because his parents were catholic hypocrites who thought they were better than everyone else. So, a nun called me to talk to me about the marriage of my daughter and this man, I told her of all the abuse and such..and guess what???? they ANNULLED the marriage!! Now if that aint hypocritical I don't know what is !! All they wanted was to keep their members and have that money coming in as far as I am concerned. That's just one bit of c**p I could tell you about that church. Hypocritical at best.,,I don't know if they would recognize that marriage or not but my bets would be that they would NOT recognize it then your dad can go back to the catholic church, remarry and be a contributing member again, they want the money, sorry, that's what it boils down to.I can't answer your last question about wedlock, but what difference would it really make anyway? the catholic church is wrong in a lot of the things that they do.