Accidently married to two people

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Chicago_Bears

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Let’s say a man and woman are married. They have three children. She is lost at sea and presumed dead. Eight years later, the man re-marries and has an addition two children with another woman. The first wife is rescued. She spend her eight years dreaming of reuniting with her husband. The husband still loves his first wife. He also loves his second wife. The children from the first marriage are now 13, 12, and 10. The children from the second marriage are 1 and newborn.

Who would the Catholic Church say he is married to?
 
Chicago_Bears said:
Let’s say a man and woman are married. They have three children. She is lost at sea and presumed dead. Eight years later, the man re-marries and has an addition two children with another woman. The first wife is rescued. She spend her eight years dreaming of reuniting with her husband. The husband still loves his first wife. He also loves his second wife. The children from the first marriage are now 13, 12, and 10. The children from the second marriage are 1 and newborn.

Who would the Catholic Church say he is married to?
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Once married, only the real death of his wife would allow the man to remarry. The first couple are therefore still married in the eyes of the Church.
 
I was watching a movie where something similar happened.
 
thistle said:
Once married, only the real death of his wife would allow the man to remarry. The first couple are therefore still married in the eyes of the Church.
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So the second woman could re-marry (a different man) in a Catholic Church? Does the man have any obligation to the second woman? Is the sex he had with her considered adultery?
 
thistle said:
Once married, only the real death of his wife would allow the man to remarry. The first couple are therefore still married in the eyes of the Church.
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What if it was presumed that the wife was dead? Eight years is a long time.

This sounds partially like the plot to Castaway.
 
thistle said:
Once married, only the real death of his wife would allow the man to remarry.
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That is not strictly correct. But the man would have to have sought a ruling from his ordinary in order to be considered free to marry (and it sounds like such a ruling should be in the negative in the proposed hypothetical).
PROCESS IN THE PRESUMED DEATH OF A SPOUSE
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Can. 1707 §1. Whenever the death of a spouse cannot be proven by an authentic ecclesiastical or civil document, the other spouse is not considered free from the bond of marriage until after the diocesan bishop has issued a declaration of presumed death.
§2. The diocesan bishop is able to issue the declaration mentioned in §1 only if, after having carried out appropriate investigations, he attains moral certitude of the death of the spouse from the depositions of witnesses, from rumor, or from evidence. The absence of a spouse alone, even for a long time, is not sufficient.
§3. The bishop is to consult the Apostolic See in uncertain and complicated cases.
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(I suspect that if the ordinary should rule in error, the man would still be considered married to his original wife, but I Am Not A Canon Lawyer)

tee
 
tee_eff_em said:
That is not strictly correct. But the man would have to have sought a ruling from his ordinary in order to be considered free to marry (and it sounds like such a ruling should be in the negative in the proposed hypothetical).
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Why should it be in the negative? He would almost certainly have the legal death certificate after seven years.
 
Chicago_Bears said:
Let’s say a man and woman are married. They have three children. She is lost at sea and presumed dead. Eight years later, the man re-marries and has an addition two children with another woman. The first wife is rescued. She spend her eight years dreaming of reuniting with her husband. The husband still loves his first wife. He also loves his second wife. The children from the first marriage are now 13, 12, and 10. The children from the second marriage are 1 and newborn.

Who would the Catholic Church say he is married to?
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His first wife.
 
Chicago_Bears said:
So the second woman could re-marry (a different man) in a Catholic Church? Does the man have any obligation to the second woman? Is the sex he had with her considered adultery?
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Most likely after seeking an annullment.
No, since he was presumed to be Married to her.
 
Chicago_Bears said:
Why should it be in the negative? He would almost certainly have the legal death certificate after seven years.
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I Am Not A Canon Lawyer, but did you read the last sentence of Can 1707§2? “The absence of a spouse alone, even for a long time, is not sufficient.” [for the diocesan bishop’s moral certainty]

tee
 
tee_eff_em said:
I Am Not A Canon Lawyer, but did you read the last sentence of Can 1707§2? “The absence of a spouse alone, even for a long time, is not sufficient.” [for the diocesan bishop’s moral certainty]

tee
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It should be assumed, reasonably, that if the wife went missing at sea (boat or plane crash) that she drowned or died in some other manner. Especially after so many years.

This topic is kind of grim… eek!
 
thistle said:
It is not civil authorities which determine if a marriage exists or not.
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The quote rule above says:

“Can. 1707 §1. Whenever the death of a spouse cannot be proven by an authentic ecclesiastical or civil document, the other spouse is not considered free from the bond of marriage until after the diocesan bishop has issued a declaration of presumed death.”

In the case I laid out, the death could be proven by an authentic civil document.
 
Chicago_Bears said:
Who would the Catholic Church say he is married to?
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Wrong question. The correct question is, “Who does **God **say he is married to?”

Jesus makes this quite clear. He is married to his “first” wife, until she dies. It does not make a fig’s difference what the State or even the Bishop says. “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” Officials of both the State and the Church may be misled in this manner, but God is not misled.

The man is not guilty of sin if he has no knowledge of the situation, and he acts with due diligence. But the minute he realizes that his wife is actually still alive, he must *never *lie with this “second woman” again.
 
Chicago_Bears said:
The quote rule above says:

“Can. 1707 §1. Whenever the death of a spouse cannot be proven by an authentic ecclesiastical or civil document, the other spouse is not considered free from the bond of marriage until after the diocesan bishop has issued a declaration of presumed death.”

In the case I laid out, the death could be proven by an authentic civil document.
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What does that have to do with the diocesan bishop issuing a declaration of presumed death? It does not necessarily follow that because the civil authorities have issued a death certificate that the Church will.
 
Movie or not, it has been known to happen that the spouse of a person presumed dead by a Church process subsequently married and the putatively demised returns breathing.

Canon 1707 §3 will apply. The bishop would consult the Apostolic See and receive a private response. Only the bishop and the parties will know how it is resolved.

We would not have access to the response, its reasoning (if included in the response) and could only speculate or write an imaginative screen play.
 
I’m not a canon lawyer; however, as a run-of-the-mill attorney, I can tell you how I would probably proceed in civil court.

To take care of my client and out of an abundance of caution (because the guy wants to remarry), I would file both a proceeding asking a court to declare the wife dead and, alternatively, to grant a divorce based on abandonment.

Since canon lawyers are lawyers afterall and probably think in “belt and suspenders” mode, they would probably do something similar. For example, the attorney would file a Can. 1701 proceeding (for lack of a better term) with the bishop seeking a declaration of presumed death, and, alternatively, a petition seeking dispensation from the bonds of matrimony (something the Holy See has the authority to do under the power of the keys).

By the way, in real life (as opposed to movieland), a missing person does not become automatically dead by operation of law (or at least that is my understanding in Texas). The husband in the hypothetical would have to file suit to have his wife declared death. That would require the issuance and service of citation (most likely by publication since she is missing). The court proceedings to declare someone dead would require more proof than just that the person was absent for several years. The movant would probably have to provide evidence of where the plane went down. Investigators from the FAA would probably testify that there were no survivors, that the plane went down in shark infested waters (meaning that the wife may have been eaten), that anyone surviving the impact would have carried out by the current and not survived in open waters; they would testify about the search that followed the crash, etc. The court would probably feel inclined to appoint an attorney ad litem to represent the interests of the missing person. These are not easy five minute proceedings.

Probably the people to check on this would be the folks at the Archdiocese of New York. They probably have or will face a periodic Can. 1701 proceeding because of all the people whose bodies were incinerated and never found in the 9-11 World Trade Center attacks. Another source would probably be the Archdiocese for the U.S. Military Services.
 
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