mikepatrick:
I have a friend who was married a few years ago but the marriage only lasted a few months. She(a catholic) went and remarried a protestant who had also been divorced. Neither of them had children from their previous marriages. Both have since had a conversion and he is doing RCIA to become Catholic and they are about to begin the annulment process. They have three children together at this point. My main question is, do they have to live as brother and sister until the annulment process is complete? And if they are supposed to but don’t, can one in good conscience still be his sponsor for RCIA?
Thank you.
You may find some assistance in John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio. The entire section on divorced persons who have remarried should be read, but this is most salient. Do read the entire section though, and then I recommend you speak with your parish priest as below to discuss your first question.
It really pertains to the couple to have that discussion though. They are most directly involved here.
At any rate, I think a personal discussion with one is preferable to addressing the moral question on the internet either directly or indirectly. Thus I do not intend my post to be a direct response to your question and apologize if it is not satisfactory for your immediate purpose.
e) Divorced Persons Who Have Remarried
- Daily experience unfortunately shows that people who have obtained a divorce usually intend to enter into a new union, obviously not with a Catholic religious ceremony. Since this is an evil that, like the others, is affecting more and more Catholics as well, the problem must be faced with resolution and without delay. The Synod Fathers studied it expressly. The Church, which was set up to lead to salvation all people and especially the baptized, cannot abandon to their own devices those who have been previously bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted a second marriage. The Church will therefore make untiring efforts to put at their disposal her means of salvation.
Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.
Together with the Synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church, for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life. They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts in favor of justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God’s grace. Let the Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain them in faith and hope.
However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.
(available at
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio_en.html )
The final question begs a point that the conjugal familiarity or abstinence would be known to the sponsor, and raises questions best discussed with a qualified moral consultor in person, such as the parish priest. The couple have no obligation to reveal such a situation to the would be sponsor, nor on the basis of a right to privacy recognized in the Church, would there be a right to know it.
