Tom would have to have the tribunal investigate his marriage to see if he is free to marry Matilda.
If he decides to ignore the Church teaching on this and marry Matilda at first church of what’s happenin now or the courthouse, Tom and Matilda will still not be married in the eyes of God. The internal forum is where Tom goes and confesses to the sin of having a marriage outside of the Church, then, he and Matilda live as brother and sister - they do not have sex - so Tom and Matilda can recieve the Eucharist.
here’s the rest of the practical advice…
But they have this divorce-and-second-marriage thing, and they want the Church’s blessing, but, for any number of reasons, they cannot go through the annulment process, or do not want to. (Some, for instance, feel the process demeaning or an invasion of privacy, and some cannot afford the legal fees, even though they are low, as legal fees go.) The bottom line is that their conscience is clear about this second marriage.
We may be going too fast here. How do Tom and Matilda know their conscience is clear? Because they know Tom’s first marriage is dead, and that there’s no possibility of going back to it. Tom is sorry for his inability to do better the first time, Tom is fulfilling his legal obligations to the children of his first marriage, and they both firmly believe that they will live a better Christian life in this marriage, and Tom wouldn’t dream of leaving Matilda any more than Matilda would dream of leaving Tom. They believe this marriage is good, and, so far as they can tell, something God wants for them, now.
The canon lawyers who are currently urging greater use of the internal forum solution make a good deal out of the distinction between two kinds of previous marriage: 1) a marriage that was “invalid” but whose invalidity is difficult to prove before a diocesan marriage tribunal, and 2) one that was valid but is now dead, and as non-functional as a blind man’s binoculars. As one pastor put it in James Bowman’s book, Bending the Rules, “People know there was a [first, valid] marriage. There just wasn’t enough Christ in it to make it for life.” In practice, the distinctions make little difference to those who have to make a decision in good conscience. Tom and Matilda still have to make up their own minds that they are doing the right thing. They may not have the legal acumen to figure out which one of the Church’s 14 causes of nullity might apply in Tom’s case. But they do know when marriage number one has died. Almost from the beginning, Eastern Orthodox churches have continued to embrace their sons and daughters who have experienced various forms of marriage death. But there can be more than one kind of marriage death.
what I don’t get is, why do I need the tribunal to investigate if adultery cannot be used as a reason for annulment? So freaking complicated. I am just going to convert to another faith and marry 4 wives, not!
