I guess I'm not Catholic anymore

[Lady0Faith]

I’m going to try to seek guidance in this post and leave hurt/anger out of this. I’m currently in my 30’s so is my husband we have a daughter (2.5 yrs old) and another child on the way. I was baptized Roman Catholic although my parents are Eastern Catholic originally. I attended Catholic school as a child and even received my PhD from a Catholic University. Being Catholic always felt like “home” to me. When I was 20, I was married to a different man of my family’s culture. I was a sheltered kid growing up in an Arab (Christian Arab) American World. So getting engaged to another Jordanian male seemed normal, it’s what our culture did. I felt somewhat pressured but too naive to do anything else and felt like I was doing the “right” thing. It turns out it was a Greek Orthodox marriage and I never understood the entire ceremony. I ended up leaving him after 6 mos because he was abusive and I knew I didn’t want to have kids with him. As time progressed I got older and wiser and my parents and immediate family supported me. I finally married a man of faith who is Protestant. After he proposed we did pre-marital counseling in my Catholic church here in the states and he agreed to convert and allow our children to be Catholic. We had the rings blessed by my Catholic Priest. Once we set the date witht he priest to marry I showed him the annulment letter from the other Greek Orthodox Priest and he said, well sorry you can’t marry here. Yes, stupid me for not keeping up with the rules of being Catholic (thank you if that’s what you are thinking). So we married under my husband’s Presbyterian Paster in a military church (my husband’s parents flew him from PA to FL to conduct the marriage). Flash forward several years later and we have 2.5 year old that I want to baptize catholic with her soon to be born sister. Currently there is a military catholic Chaplin (since we are military) who can make our marriage Catholic, but I also know we will ask me if I have ever been married before. I know one of the rules is that in order to get annulled in the catholic church I need a 10 page paper from my ex (which will never happen, I don’t even think he’s alive or even in the country). I will be brutally honest the hurt and anger that i feel makes me want to lie and tell this priest that “no I have never been married” for two reasons, in my heart of hearts I wasn’t and because I want my children baptized in the catholic church and our marriage to be Catholic. I don’t feel like this is my fault because of the way I was guided and as a young adult I was honoring my mother and father who do admit today that they steered me wrong and feel guilt over it. So now I don’t even know if I am even Catholic and I am struggling with approaching this priest with the truth that I was married before and having to deal with mos and mos of paperwork before I can ever get my children baptized OR finding a new faith possibly being Protestant. Out of all hurts I have felt in my life, feeling this rejection from what I thought was my faith hurts more than anything, some days i feel anger and tell my husband I think I’m ready to give protestant religion a chance other days I feel sad and can’t do it. I think for the first time in my life, I’m leaning on leaving the church. If there are any new rules that I do not know about, maybe your advice might help.

 

[jeannetherese]

Hello LadyOFaith,
I’m confused by the title of your thread. It seems from your thread that you were baptized and raised Catholic. Is there a reason why you think you might not be Catholic?
May God bless you and guide you through your struggles.
Amen.
jt

 

[Lady0Faith]

Yeah, the rest of my thread explains it. I feel stuck, how do I move forward and baptize my children Catholic now?

 

[jeannetherese]

I think your priest might be able to walk you through this far better than I.
I read through your thread and saw nothing that would make you non-Catholic.
Please do go to your priest-perhaps with a printout of your CAF thread, and ask him to help you with your questions.
May God bless you and your husband and your children.
Amen.

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

I know one of the rules is that in order to get annulled in the catholic church I need a 10 page paper from my ex (which will never happen, I don’t even think he’s alive or even in the country).

Instead of making unfounded assumptions about what is required – for example, your ex is not required to do anything though he has a right to participate if he wishes – why don’t you meet with your priest, ask your questions, and get things started.

So now I don’t even know if I am even Catholic and I am struggling with approaching this priest with the truth that I was married before and having to deal with mos and mos of paperwork before I can ever get my children baptized OR finding a new faith possibly being Protestant.

Again, you are making unfounded assumptions. Why would there be months and months of paperwork before your children could be baptized?

A declaration of nullity will indeed take time and effort, but that’s separate from baptizing your children.

You’re giving up on things without ever even starting to find out the truth.

 

[mjs2001]

I think that you should talk to another priest. First, I don’t think that the annulment process requires a ten page paper from your first husband. If he cannot be located or doesn’t want to cooperate, then the process can still go forward. Second, because your first marriage was to a non-Catholic, it may not have been valid if you did not receive a dispensation for your local bishop. If that is the case, then your annulment is easy–it’s basically filling out a form, and your first husband would not even be contacted. Third, if illicit orthodox weddings are recognized in the Catholic Church, then the fact that you have an orthodox annulment should help you get receive a catholic annulment because it means that the wedding was not properly celebrated. I strongly encourage you to investigate it further.

Additionally, please remember to put the annulment process in perspective. The Church is trying to protect the sacred institution of marriage.

God bless you and your family.

 

[someperson555]

Im very sorry to read about your dilemma. But why can’t you get your children baptized?? Whats the obstacle for that? Don’t tell me they wont allow your kids to be baptized.

 

[MaryT777]

I think your priest might be able to walk you through this far better than I.
I read through your thread and saw nothing that would make you non-Catholic.
Please do go to your priest-perhaps with a printout of your CAF thread, and ask him to help you with your questions.
May God bless you and your husband and your children.
Amen.

Great advice, bring the printout with so he knows how you are feeling and can give you solid advice and correct any misconceptions.
Good luck with everything~
Mary.

 

[MyNameIsDan]

I think that you should talk to another priest. First, I don’t think that the annulment process requires a ten page paper from your first husband. If he cannot be located or doesn’t want to cooperate, then the process can still go forward. Second, because your first marriage was to a non-Catholic, it may not have been valid if you did not receive a dispensation for your local bishop. If that is the case, then your annulment is easy–it’s basically filling out a form, and your first husband would not even be contacted. Third, if illicit orthodox weddings are recognized in the Catholic Church, then the fact that you have an orthodox annulment should help you get receive a catholic annulment because it means that the wedding was not properly celebrated. I strongly encourage you to investigate it further.

Additionally, please remember to put the annulment process in perspective. The Church is trying to protect the sacred institution of marriage.

God bless you and your family.

I definitely agree with this one. Talk to another priest. Actually, if you can find a Canon lawyer (I believe every archdiocese has one), you might be able to find what you’re looking for. Or you may try to contact the Marriage Tribunal. Try going to your archdiocese’s website and look for the names and contact information of relevant people. People who are well versed in Canon Law, marriage, etc.

 

[Hodegetria]

Yeah, the rest of my thread explains it. I feel stuck, how do I move forward and baptize my children Catholic now?

Hi Lady0Faith,

Don’t worry, You ARE still Catholic, and you can get your children baptized and your marriage blessed. There’s no need to lie–this will be well worth it. Im pretty certain you can baptize your children Catholic right now, as long as the Godparents are Catholics in good standing. **Someone please correct me if I’m wrong (that should be my tag line), but I base that on the fact that I’m Godmother for many kids, some of which the parents weren’t even married…so it seems Baptism may be the easier of the two.

As far as annulment, you don’t need anything from the first “husband”. I didn’t. I got an annulment without his cooperation.

Make an appointment with the Tribunal of your local Diocese. They are awesome and will guide you every step of the way.

As I recall, I only needed to send a letter to my first husband’s last known address. He probably threw it in the garbage… they’re just giving him an opportunity to give his side of the story. It’s only fair. Whether your ex wants to participate honestly or just cause trouble, it will not affect the outcome unless he has serious contradictory information about the marriage in question.

I needed a couple letters from friends and my own history of the marriage, the marriage certificates, my baptismal papers, etc… The whole process was simple and took about three months. The cost can be free if you’re in need, but as I recall mine was $250 to $300, this was 20 yrs ago. They are very easy that way, too–ask if you think the price will hurt your finances too much, they will work with you.

Good luck and God bless you and your family.

 

[St_Francis]

I know people who have had their babies baptized before their annullment came through, but they had steadily been attending Mass (without receiving Communion), so the priest might ask you to wait until he feels comfortable that your children will be raised Catholic (a requirement–that there is a “well-founded” idea the child to be baptized will be raised Catholic).

Also, when mine were baptized, I had to attend a class (my husband who was lapsed was not so required). The class was required of parents under certain circumstances, and so one of the couples was actually going to have their 6th child baptized and they had run baptism classes in their previosu diocese! But they had to attend this class because they had recently moved to the area. So don’t be upset if they require a class.

Others have given you good info about the annullment–one caveat: Orthodox papers are very “flimsy” as they are less rigorous than Catholics; however, the fact of your naivete and the pressure you felt may well be factors. Not to mention that you didn’t find out he was Orthodox til afterwards (!) if that would have made a difference to your agreeing to marrying him and he withheld that info from you.

Please don’t worry: put it all in the hands of Christ and He will see that you are all right.

 

[Catholic1954]

Lying to the priest will just make it worse. Make an appointment, tell your story and follow the advice of the priest. If you were married outside of the Church, without permission, it might just be a matter of filing some paperwork, but you will not know until you make an appointment and check it out. Also, your marital status is not considered if you want to baptize your children; the issue is if you intend to raise them Catholic (and you do), not if you are married in the Church.

 

[JRKH]

You already have received wonderful advice and can only add my support to that.

I went through an annulment myself and can assure you that your ex’s participation is not a requirement. My ex chose not to participate and it did not prevent my annulment going forward.
One other thing, If you are concerned about getting conflicting our unclear information from your local priest, you can contact the Diocese chancery and ask them to put you in touch with someone who specializes in annulments.

God bless you and your family

Peace
James

 

[Origen52]

Yeah, the rest of my thread explains it. I feel stuck, how do I move forward and baptize my children Catholic now?

Whether you are married in the church has no bearing on whether your children can be baptized, at least not for Pope Francis.

There are, however, many sources that attribute to him the following statement, also when he was still Cardinal Bergoglio:
In our ecclesiastical region, there are priests who don’t baptize the children of single mothers because they weren’t conceived in the sanctity of marriage.
These are today’s hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation. And this poor girl who, rather than returning the child to sender, had the courage to carry it into the world, must wander from parish to parish so that it’s baptized.
This would, again, indicate that he thinks that babies coming from problematic family situations should be baptized.
ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/did-pope-francis-baptize-a-baby-whose-parents-arent-married-12-things-to-kn

 

[Dorothy]

Dear OP,

You have gotten good advice here.

Whoever said that you needed a ten-page letter from your ex was misinformed.

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you and lead you on your spiritual journey!

 

[JRKH]

Dear OP,

You have gotten good advice here.

Whoever said that you needed a ten-page letter from your ex was misinformed.

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you and lead you on your spiritual journey!

I think that the “ten page letter” probably comes from the fact that the questionnaire one fills out is about 46 essay type questions. Both parties are given the same questionnaire. It can easily run to ten pages by the time it is all filled out.

However, as we have already stated, the ex is not obligated to participate. The Church will make a good faith effort to contact the person and to give them the opportunity. If they cannot be found, or they choose not to respond the process will proceed with what information IS available.

This is actually an interesting scenario - different from what we usually see here - since it evidently involves Eastern rite Catholic and a Greek Orthodox ceremony. I do not know how these things are viewed by the RC in regards to matters of form etc. It could turn out that the process is really fairly easy and straight forward.
She already has annulment papers - I presume from the Greek Orthodox Church. I may be wrong on that.

The OP definitely needs to sit down with someone knowledgeable on these matters and talk it through.

Peace
James

 

[Dorothy]

I think that the “ten page letter” probably comes from the fact that the questionnaire one fills out is about 46 essay type questions. Both parties are given the same questionnaire. It can easily run to ten pages by the time it is all filled out.

However, as we have already stated, the ex is not obligated to participate. The Church will make a good faith effort to contact the person and to give them the opportunity. If they cannot be found, or they choose not to respond the process will proceed with what information IS available.

This is actually an interesting scenario - different from what we usually see here - since it evidently involves Eastern rite Catholic and a Greek Orthodox ceremony. I do not know how these things are viewed by the RC in regards to matters of form etc. It could turn out that the process is really fairly easy and straight forward.
She already has annulment papers - I presume from the Greek Orthodox Church. I may be wrong on that.

The OP definitely needs to sit down with someone knowledgeable on these matters and talk it through.

Peace
James

Thank you for your post!

 

[Anne1964]

LadyOFaith,

In your OP you mentioned that you think your ex may be dead. If that is the case and you can prove that, then no annulment is required and you are free to marry.

If he is still living, you will be asked to make an effort to find out what his address is so that he can be contacted about the annulment.

Other posters here have given you good advice. Many people have been granted annulments without the cooperation of the former spouse.

Please ask the priest for help with this.

 

[SMHW]

I’m going to try to seek guidance in this post and leave hurt/anger out of this. I’m currently in my 30’s is my husband we have a daughter (2.5 yrs old) and another child on the way. I was baptized Roman Catholic although my parents are Eastern Catholic originally.

I think there are several things you need to deal with here.

Baptizing your children is one. Dealing with your marriage situation involves several steps.

Parishes (and dioceses) differ in their policies regarding baptizing children when the parents aren’t Catholic. But you ARE Catholic even if you are in an “irregular marriage”. These days it is common for parents to have to undergo instruction classes prior to the baptism of children. The parish might have more to say to you given the situation but at most it would result in a delay in the baptism, not a refusal.

As far as the marriage situation is concerned, as others have said, you should contact your pastor. The one piece of advice I would give you that I haven’t seen addressed yet is to make sure your pastor is familiar with the rules for Eastern Catholics and Orthodox. Your pastor may need to seek some special guidance.

It is my understanding that Orthodox annulments are not recognized by the Catholic Church but any documentation that you have from that ruling would probably be of help to you.

(By the way, if your former husband happens to be deceased that would simplify the whole situation so I think you would want to know.)

 

[O_Sapientia]

I’m going to try to seek guidance in this post and leave hurt/anger out of this. I’m currently in my 30’s so is my husband we have a daughter (2.5 yrs old) and another child on the way. I was baptized Roman Catholic although my parents are Eastern Catholic originally. I attended Catholic school as a child and even received my PhD from a Catholic University. Being Catholic always felt like “home” to me. When I was 20, I was married to a different man of my family’s culture. I was a sheltered kid growing up in an Arab (Christian Arab) American World. So getting engaged to another Jordanian male seemed normal, it’s what our culture did. I felt somewhat pressured but too naive to do anything else and felt like I was doing the “right” thing. It turns out it was a Greek Orthodox marriage and I never understood the entire ceremony. I ended up leaving him after 6 mos because he was abusive and I knew I didn’t want to have kids with him. As time progressed I got older and wiser and my parents and immediate family supported me. I finally married a man of faith who is Protestant. After he proposed we did pre-marital counseling in my Catholic church here in the states and he agreed to convert and allow our children to be Catholic. We had the rings blessed by my Catholic Priest. Once we set the date witht he priest to marry I showed him the annulment letter from the other Greek Orthodox Priest and he said, well sorry you can’t marry here. Yes, stupid me for not keeping up with the rules of being Catholic (thank you if that’s what you are thinking). So we married under my husband’s Presbyterian Paster in a military church (my husband’s parents flew him from PA to FL to conduct the marriage). Flash forward several years later and we have 2.5 year old that I want to baptize catholic with her soon to be born sister. Currently there is a military catholic Chaplin (since we are military) who can make our marriage Catholic, but I also know we will ask me if I have ever been married before. I know one of the rules is that in order to get annulled in the catholic church I need a 10 page paper from my ex (which will never happen, I don’t even think he’s alive or even in the country). I will be brutally honest the hurt and anger that i feel makes me want to lie and tell this priest that “no I have never been married” for two reasons, in my heart of hearts I wasn’t and because I want my children baptized in the catholic church and our marriage to be Catholic. I don’t feel like this is my fault because of the way I was guided and as a young adult I was honoring my mother and father who do admit today that they steered me wrong and feel guilt over it. So now I don’t even know if I am even Catholic and I am struggling with approaching this priest with the truth that I was married before and having to deal with mos and mos of paperwork before I can ever get my children baptized OR finding a new faith possibly being Protestant. Out of all hurts I have felt in my life, feeling this rejection from what I thought was my faith hurts more than anything, some days i feel anger and tell my husband I think I’m ready to give protestant religion a chance other days I feel sad and can’t do it. I think for the first time in my life, I’m leaning on leaving the church. If there are any new rules that I do not know about, maybe your advice might help.

I think this matter is both incredibly simple and somewhat complex at the same time.

First off, if both of your parents are Eastern Catholics, then you are an Eastern Catholic as well even if you were baptised and raised in the Latin Church. Church membership is transferred through the parents, not through the minister of baptism. So there may be a little legalese to work through. I don’t know if the Latin Church would have legal competency to hear your case, you might need to speak with an Eastern Church Canon Lawyer. You should definitely look into that, and your local Latin diocese will be able to help you with this.

Secondly, if you did not know that you were marrying an Orthodox Christian, if you did not know that it was an Orthodox wedding, and if you did not have the permission of the Church to marry outside of the Church then you were not validly married. This seems like a clear cut case. If you were given permission to marry outside of the Catholic Church, then I still ponder the validity of the permission, assuming that a Latin ordinary may not have the authority to dispense an Eastern Catholic from Canon Law, since you would be bound by the Eastern Codes, not the Latin Codes.

Everything I’ve said here may not necessarily be the case. This is the best reading possible from the information I have. What I am trying to show you is that your case is not hopeless. You’ve not even begun to explore your options! So keep your chin up!

Now, if the above is true, it is also true for your current marriage. If you married outside of the Church without dispensation, then you are not validly married. You have not formed a sacramental bond with your husband right now. This isn’t meant to devalue your relationship, and the mutual love you have for one another. And nor is it the end. If, as I suspect, your initial marriage was indeed valid, you can very easily then proceed to have your current marriage blessed by the Church.