Inter faith marriage and divorce

[Primrose]

I am a non denominational bible believing Christian of 6 years. In 2000 I married my soon to be ex husband in a civil ceremony on the beach in Australia. He is a lapsed Irish Catholic. I didn’t realise until 6 months ago that the Catholic church doesn’t recognise our marriage.

So, if I meet a Catholic man and want to marry him in a Catholic church would I be able to as the Catholic Church doesn’t recognise my first marriage?
Primrose:shrug:

 

[kycanonist]

You will need to get a copy of your first husband’s baptismal record (which you will be able to get from the parish where he was baptized as an infant… or the priest will be able to get it when you approach him that you want to marry another Catholic), as well as a copy of your marriage license and divorce decree.

While the Church does not recognize the marriage, you would still have to have record of it having happened on the books to ensure that everything is above board.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Another point: Since you will already have had a marriage which came apart, in addition to what Kycanonist pointed out, you will probably need to undergo some counseling so that you will be sure you know what a true Catholic marriage entails and that you would be able to enter such a marriage with full knowledge and full consent. You won’t ‘have’ to become Catholic (though if you are considering marrying another Catholic it would be certainly be an intelligent move for you to understand what Catholic teachings are all about–and hopefully the more you learn about the reality of our faith, the more you will be drawn to it), but you really should know ‘his’ faith (and he should certainly ask you how you feel about your faith, and how you understand it, as well).

 

[kycanonist]

Honestly, I’m not sure how counseling could be required… you can’t attach any sort of restriction to marriage after a lack of form case, so I’m not really sure how that would be forced upon them.

They would likely have to go through some sort of marriage preparation, which could possibliy include some form of marriage counseling, but it wouldn’t be as a condition of the lack of form of the first union…