Children are Consummation of a Marriage?

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without_sin

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Someone I know did not marry the woman who he had cohabitated with for about 17 years, raised two children with, split the scene, found another woman online very shortly thereafter, and married her “in the church”. In my opinion, this person should not have been allowed to marry “in the church” because of the mess that he created in his selfishness. True, he was not married before and did not have the necessity of a divorce, but how different is this with respect to our Catholic doctrine regarding divorce and remarriage? This was a grey area that he exploited so that in his mind had no consequence in the Church or an obligation to the abandoned “spouse”. This guy was all about Catholic doctrine by the way, dwelling in it. As a married man with family who has faithfully endured the vocation for thirty years, I am insulted. Am I wrong about this? TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, OF COURSE.
 
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without_sin said:
Am I wrong about this?
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You aren’t wrong to be disheartened by his observable behavior and lack of regard for the Church while cohabiting long term.

You do not know what counsel he went through with his priest to determine his freedom and ability to marry validly. You do not know the intimate details, only the appearance from outside.

You are wrong in your assessment that this is equivalent to divorce and remarriage. It is not. It is entirely different. He retains his responsibilities towards his children, but he made not vows to his former live-in girlfriend. He gave no consent to lifelong marriage with her.
 
“The appearance from the outside” was that God blessed them with children and it was indeed a family for seventeen years not unlike any other family on this earth. Oh… in a technical way you can dice this with parameters, which I was expecting to hear, but practically you cannot. Hmmm, no betrothal after the first child… how about the second? The contract to marry began, it was not fulfilled, but when they separated something that resembled a broken family remained which is the basis for the Catholic doctrine on remarriage and for our civil law. How would you like it if God did not fulfill His covenant?
 
God gives men and women free will. They can have sexual relations, if they do at the time when the woman is fertile there is a likelihood she will conceive.

Children are not magically withheld by God from those who are sinning when they have sex, if that were the case there would be FAR fewer people in this world! Heck, there would never be a child conceived from an act of rape or incest, no pregnant teens, no single dads trying to raise a child after mom has vanished into the night.
 
You try to make it sound that the children were not part of a family and that they were illegitimate. Are they? For seventeen years they were part of a family in which a certain parent was too selfish to formally commit. Nonetheless, a marriage was being lived. Let’s not excuse this lifestyle as being something other than a marriage because in every other way it was. They lived as a family under the same roof. The Church didn’t put its rubber stamp on it, …that’s all? Again, satan attempts to distort reality with excuses and formalities to enable a wrong doing. Those other occassions of rape and one night stands are not admissable in this case.
 
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Did the priest who married them KNOW about the situation???
 
A higher court?
I gather this person is someone close to you.
 
I was close at one time and did try to encourage the right thing.
For as much as the Church focuses on divorced Catholics, how does something like this get overlooked?
 
You don’t know that he has not repented.
I would say, don’t assume the worst of his confession and advocate.
 
I don’t think you are wrong for thinking his actions were out of line with his professed faith. They aren’t in line with Church teaching and they were certianly harmful to his children and hurtful to his former girlfriend (who isn’t without culpability).

That said, don’t allow his actions to impact your faith. If you want to know the truth your former friend is the person to ask. Having sinned I’m thankful for the forgiveness God has provided and strive to heal wounds I have caused; we can only hope your former friend is the same.
 
You are playing some notes Claire, notes that I do hear and understand because it is the ultimate song of forgiveness and love. What have we here?
 
without_sin said:
…This was a grey area that he exploited so that in his mind had no consequence in the Church or an obligation to the abandoned “spouse”. …
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The Catholic is bound to the marriage laws of the Catholic Church for life, which does not recognize as valid a celebration of marriage without the approval of the Catholic Church (between 1983 and 2010 those Catholics that formally defected were able to marry validly per canon law in other celebrations).
 
I am a bit insecure on how to see this. If someone acts like this man, yes, I would have a feel like “now he´s pretending the good catholic guy”, but this would be possibly a wrong judgement. His marriage don´t set him free from the responsiblilities - emotional and financial - for his children.
If he respects this and went to confession, it´s his burden to bear and the burden of their new marriage - a huuge past (and don´t get me wrong, I don´t see this children as a bad burden, but he will never be that free for his wife as a virgin man for example. I meant it this way, please don´t see it as offense).
On the other hand, marriage is not equal to living together as a family, and I think this is good, as it protects the special worth of marriage.
See, they had the chance to marry, to not concieve children out of marriage, they don´t, so it was their choice - both the man and the woman´s.
One effect of living together like, but not as husband and wife is the poor consequence to be left after 17 years like this. Both knew this, so no, the church has no fault with holding the meaning of marriage higher than of simply being a family.
 
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Even if you are close to this man, you don’t know the whole situation and there may well be private aspects of it that he did not discuss with you. I would hope the priest who counseled him on his marriage knew about this situation and advised him regarding his obligations to the children he fathered. However, the man was clearly committing the sin of fornication with his unmarried partner over the long term, so if he decides he wants to leave that sinful situation and get into a valid Catholic marriage, then why would the Church discourage that?

This man also did not “create the mess” all by himself. The woman who chose to live, unmarried, with him for 17 years and have 2 children with him was an equal partner in it. She could have insisted that they be married first before the kids started to come along. She could have even insisted on marriage in a Christian church, or in the Catholic church. She didn’t.

The institution of marriage, from a practical standpoint, is designed to provide some protections to a family, in part to prevent this situation of one spouse (in the past it was generally the man, as here) skipping out on their obligations to the family. If you decide to live with somebody and have children without this protection, then you are accepting the possible consequences of your action in that your partner could just up and leave and even marry someone else on short notice.
 
without_sin said:
Someone I know did not marry the woman who he had cohabitated with for about 17 years, raised two children with, split the scene, found another woman online very shortly thereafter, and married her “in the church”. In my opinion, this person should not have been allowed to marry “in the church” because of the mess that he created in his selfishness. True, he was not married before and did not have the necessity of a divorce, but how different is this with respect to our Catholic doctrine regarding divorce and remarriage? This was a grey area that he exploited so that in his mind had no consequence in the Church or an obligation to the abandoned “spouse”. This guy was all about Catholic doctrine by the way, dwelling in it. As a married man with family who has faithfully endured the vocation for thirty years, I am insulted. Am I wrong about this? TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, OF COURSE.
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You may actually be correct; Pope Francis has stated that some cohabitating couples may actually be in sacramental marriages even without making vows. That could very well be the situation here, but it would be up to his priest to make that determination.

 
tseleehw said:
Pope Francis has stated that some cohabitating couples may actually be in sacramental marriages even without making vows.
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No, not the case here. Catholics cannot enter a valid marriage via common law.

Non-Catholics can enter common law marriages. The Church recognizes these. Nothing new there.
 
without_sin said:
For as much as the Church focuses on divorced Catholics, how does something like this get overlooked?
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There is nothing to overlook. Had he been purportedly married in the church for those 17 years, but received an annulment, he would be just as free to remarry anew. Without church vows recorded with his baptismal records, the church sees no formal impediment to this marriage.

The priest may advise against the union based on his behavior, but the prohibition against remarriage following divorce is NOT a punishment. The prohibition reflects the permanent nature of the wedding vows when two baptized Christians unite.

The church further canonically delegates alimony, palimony, and child support to the state. Leaving a “mess” of these matters is not alone a basis to deny the church’s witness of marriage vows.
 
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Another thing–this guy chose for 17 years not to marry the mother of his children. Given all the inconvenience involved in doing so, that was not the path of least resistance.
 
1ke said:
but he made not vows to his former live-in girlfriend. He gave no consent to lifelong marriage with her.
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Actually, we don’t know what promises he made / did not make. We only know they were not made in the public forum.
 
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