Can I marry a man who was sterilized?

[ellie3]

This is a second marriage for both of us. We are in our mid to late forties. I have three children and he has four children from his previous marriage. He had a vasectomy fourteen years ago because his first wife was very at-risk in her own health to have another child. (He has confessed this.) We are engaged to be married and have completed all the necessary steps to be remarried in the Catholic Church. We both are very much Catholic. It bothers me that he has had a vasectomy and this will be part of our marriage. I want to be open to God, even though we are older. I don’t think he wants to reverse the vasectomy, but I want to ask him to. Is there any good reasoning that I can use that will help him to understand God’s will, and to understand how I feel about being open to God?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

A couple entering into marriage must be open to the possibility of life. This does not mean that a sterilized person may not marry, but that someone who is entirely closed to the idea of life cannot validly consent to marriage. The Church does not require a man to have a vasectomy reversal because such procedures are often prohibitively expensive and pose their own health risks, but your fiance must truly and honestly be able to say that the sterilization is something he would reverse if he could. If he cannot do that, then he very likely is not open to life and thus could not validly consent to a sacramental marriage, which could make marriage to him presumptively invalid.