Blessing a marriage but no annulment?

[Autumn]

Can someone explain how a marriage between two people (one a widow / one divorced) can be blessed by the church without an annulment? There is a couple in a local parish that have done this. The divorced spouse claimed that contacting the ex spouse would endanger her and therefore could not seek an annulment. They met and married within six months. Although they were married by a judge, a priest blessed the union immediately following the service and now both are receiving the full sacraments and are even Eucharistic Ministers.

How can this be?

 

[chimakuni]

This cannot be unless they are living together as brother and sister. OR, if the person who is divorced received a special annulment, and the name escapes me at the time, that does not have to have the other marriage partner contacted. If you are upset by this, I suggest a couple of things. One, ask the Holy Spirit to assist you in not being speculative or go to the couple and ask them. It is difficult for us to be good Christians and not to be the source of scandal and perhaps this couple were able to avail themselves to the sacrament quite ‘legally’. God Bless

 

[otm]

I don’t know of any tribunal which would purposely endanger an individual by inquiring of the spouse when it was adequately shown there was reasonable cause to believe that the spouse would harm the one applying.

I guess there are several questions:
a) how open are they being about this? Is the information coming directly from them, or from so and so, who heard it from you know who, who is always reliable?

b) have you spoken directly with them about this matter? Or have they brought it to your attention?

c) is the parish (and pastor) fairly orthodox, or not?

The situation sounds screwy to me. Either the facts are wrong, or someone, or several someones, are a sandwich short of a picnic when it comes to the rules and regulations of the Church.

We had a priest in our diocese that gave a “blessing” to a trio; I don’t recall whether it was two men and a woman, or two women and a man. In any event, he got hauled up short pronto. And he was old enough to know better… thankfully, our bishop isn’t a wimp. So it may be that your priest needs a “refresher course” (and if the facts are as loose as they sound, maybe it could start in the woodshed…). Then again, maybe you just have another example of “he said she said they said someone said”. :dancing:

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

The Divorced spouse could have presented sufficient evidence that the marriage was invalid (Documentary case). In this instance nothing else is necessary the case is decided on the evidence contained in the documents. Technically this is not an Annulment process in the normal sense.

 

[aquinas24]

There is not likely to be a vaild reason for this to occur. The document cases that have been mentioned ( lack of form, favor of the faith, ligamen, Pauline privilege) are all situations where the freedom to marry is able to be be shown without testimony. It would appear that these would not apply to the present situation because if when these cases are approved the parties would be free to marry before a priest and would not need the aid of the Judge.

It is more likely that the Priest in this case is ignoring canon law and procedure by shunning his duty and blessing the couple rather than instructing them. Some Priests point to a process called internal forum which can justly free someone to marry in very rare and isolated situations. For example: two Catholics marry in Vietnam 45 years ago and one party escapes and seeks a divorce and an annulment here in the States. The spouse is alive but uncoorparative and there are either no witnesses to the marriage or the witnesses’ lives would be endagered if contacted. Here there would not be proof of invalidity substantial enough to overcome the petitioner’s burden. If the external forum ( the tribunal) is unable to properly investigate, a person with the aid of a knowledgable priest may be able to come to a determination, and a just one, that their marriage was invalid. This situations is very rare and creates many problems. For instance, if the parish community knows that this person was married and is now married to another with out the decree of nullity it could creat a scandal and would require receipt of the sacraments in private. Also a priest cannot witness the marriage because it is a sacrament of the Church and public and externally that person is still married to another and so says the Church records.
Needless to say this has been an abused process for sometime.

The other issue that is often created by this forum is that the right of defense for both the marriage and the other spouse goes out the window. That is why this is supposed to be a very rare instance. The situation in which a former spouse may become violent if contacted is also rare and not in itself a reason for internal forum. If proof, and I mean serious proof, of the potential for violence can be found the tribunal can avoid contacting the spouse but a formal case must be tried first before one can even begin to think about the internal forum.

 

[J.Kennedy]

It would seem to me, that the possibibility of the first husband becoming violent has no bearing on whether or not the marriage is valid.

He could be a terrible drunk, but that shouldn’t have any bearing on whether or not they were validly married. He could have changed over time, 5 years, 10 years, etc. and was a perfect for the first years.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I would tend to agree with Aquinas that this is possibly an abuse of the “Internal Forum”. Which I don’t even like to bring up. When it comes to Marriage cases we do not know all the facts and details so it is very hard, if not impossible, to provide any real specific answers.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Br. Rich SFO:

I would tend to agree with Aquinas that this is possibly an abuse of the “Internal Forum”. Which I don’t even like to bring up. When it comes to Marriage cases we do not know all the facts and details so it is very hard, if not impossible, to provide any real specific answers.

I recall reading or being told that the use of Internal Forum in Marriage cases has been forbidden because of the abuses.

 

[Catholic2003]

Joe Kelley:

I recall reading or being told that the use of Internal Forum in Marriage cases has been forbidden because of the abuses.

I find it hard to believe that the Church would deny justice to even one person, merely because of the abuses performed by other ill-intentioned people. Perhaps it is the abuses themselves that have been condemned by the Church.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

See ewtn.com/expert/answers/communion_of_divorced_and_remarr.htm

Remarriage. As noted above in the citation from the Catechism 2382, a ratified and consummated Christian marriage is indissoluble. This is a marriage where the vows are exchanged by two baptized persons, with the proper intention, and consummated by sexual intercourse. No power on earth can declare such a marriage null and the parties free to remarry. However, a marriage tribunal of the Catholic Church is empowered to judge whether a marriage actually did occur and to issue a Decree of Nullity (popularly, but wrongly, called an annulment) when it judges it did not. (See: Annulment/Decree of Nullity) A person who receives a Decree of Nullity is free to marry in the Church since the first marriage was defective from its beginning (i.e. no marriage). A person who remarries in the Church after an annulment is free to receive the sacraments under the usual conditions (as noted above).

However, often times individuals or couples who have remarried but without a Decree of Nullity want to come into the Church, or if already Catholic approach the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist. Sometimes they are even told they can judge these matters in their own conscience without going to a Marriage Tribunal (sometimes called “the internal forum solution”).

In “Concerning the Reception of Holy Communion by Divorced-and-Remarried Members of the Faithful” the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in a letter to the world’s bishops on October 14, 1994 said,

7. The mistaken conviction of a divorced-and-remarried person that he may receive holy communion normally presupposes that personal conscience is considered in the final analysis to be able, on the basis of one’s own convictions, to come to a decision about the existence or absence of a previous marriage and the value of the new union. However, such a position is inadmissible. Marriage, in fact, both because it is the image of the spousal relationship between Christ and his church as well as the fundamental core and an important factor in the life of civil society, is essentially a public reality. [library/curia/cdfdivor.txt

Sorry, I can’t make that link in the quote work. I think it links to the Vatican Document.
[/quote]

 

[Catholic2003]

It looks like the document is condemning the internal forum solution as an abuse (as opposed to revoking its legitimate use because of the abuses of some).