Actually not. One can’t marry when there’s an unresolved previous marriage and when one is not married, sexual intercourse is fornication.
As for “immaturity has no bearing”, the judge likely made a gross simplification, see cannon 1095:
Literally, being immature is not a problem per se, but when it’s as serious as paras. 1-3 of cannon 1095, then it’s a problem. Judges aren’t bound by a party’s refusal to cooperate. They can order psychiatric evaluation. They can also make findings despite a party’s refusal to cooperate.
You will need to find a canon lawyer to get it right. And as for that, I’m surprised the diocese did not offer any assistance apart from paperwork. The assistance should be there and dioceses provide it even when they don’t have advocates. Sometimes it’s provided by judges or notaries. And if they only have three judges (what you need for a panel), then the judges during the trial can and should take proper account of the parties’ lack of knowledge of canon law and consequent lack of ability to discern material facts from immaterial ones. They can ask questions and get to the bottom of it. In fact, they need to get to the bottom of it before they can pass a verdict, because they need “moral certainty”. This is not to say that they didn’t, but basing solely on the facts you give, I’m rather surprised.
The Tribunal has a duty to enable a party to defend his rights. I can imagine it not being necessary in cases judged entirely from written documents where things are completely obvious, but even in that case, there should be service of process. Preventing a party from being able to defend his rights may lead to nullity of the nullity ruling.
Exercising your conscience is indeed part of the Catholic faith:
Every marriage is different, so it is impossible to judge the state of a person’s soul based on the external facts of a case as they appear on the books. There are cases where a person is justified in acting contrary to the law.
If someone wakes up from the nightmare of a disastrous marriage in a state of disorientation, the victim of abuse and hatred, it might take a long time to recover.
As the person begins to heal, he or she may for the first time find a new love. The couple may come to see this new relationship as a gift from God. At the same time they are in conflict because they hear the Church saying that they are living in sin. They try for an annulment but are told they have no case.
Once they work through the conscience issue, they may decide to use the internal forum solution. They may consult with a priest-confessor or counselor for advice. A priest cannot marry them because this would be simulating the sacrament, but he may encourage them to follow their conscience if the facts seem to support them.
Pope John Paul II in his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio has forbidden them to receive the Eucharist if they marry invalidly. Many of them receive anyway, believing that their second marriage is not a sin but a blessing.
This civil marriage violates the strict letter of the law, but** freedom of conscience comes into play here. **The right to marry is a natural-law right, and this right must be weighed against the doubt about the validity of the first marriage. A hateful, abusive husband is probably a psychologically damaged human being, whether we can prove his personality disorder or not.
It is a delicate issue, but very few priests would turn anyone away from receiving the Eucharist. The burden is on the person to do what he or she thinks is right.
A Catholic is bound to form his or her conscience according to the teaching of the magisterium, which is the Church’s highest teaching authority. What does this mean exactly?
Theologian and scholar Father Avery Dulles, S.J., in a talk given at a 1991 workshop for members of the hierarchy from all over North America—an assembly which included cardinals, archbishops and bishops—explained the relationship between conscience and the magisterium in this way:
“There is no perfect identity between conscience and the magisterium of the Church. Conscience is an interior, not an outer, voice…The magisterium fulfills the aspirations of conscience by enabling it to find the moral good at which it aims…For members of the Church, the magisterium is one, but only one, informant of conscience” (Proceedings of the Tenth Bishops’ Workshop, Dallas, Texas).
I was on the same program and I observed that there was no objection to this statement. This means that an informed conscience is not always a conformed conscience. The Church urges us to strive for conformity, but this is not always possible.
There is a great mystery here, but the Church upholds freedom of conscience to the extent that, even if a person is in error, he or she must obey an informed conscience. When it is informed, outsiders should respect the person’s conscience even if they disagree with it.
In my book Where Do You Stand With the Church?: The Dilemma of Divorced Catholics (Alba House, New York, 1996), I go into all these questions in greater detail.
These questions and answers may help you understand the Church’s discipline on marriage. One day we will all be judged on the way we have loved one another. This is the essential truth of the gospel.
Father John Catoir is executive director of Eva’s Village, New Jersey’s largest comprehensive poverty program and one of our nation’s largest emergency shelters. He headed the diocesan marriage tribunal in Paterson, New Jersey, for 10 years. From 1978 to 1995, he led The Christophers, hosting the weekly television series Christopher Closeup. In 1995, he founded St. Jude Media Ministry, a national radio and TV apostolate aimed at the unchurched.
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