Invalid Marriage & the Eucharist

[jesshhh26]

Hello,

I was raised Catholic and left the church for 15 years, during which time I entered into a civil marriage with a non-Catholic. We were divorced, and then I remarried another person in another civil marriage. Fast forward to a few months ago; I came back to the church and brought my civil spouse with me—he was also raised Catholic but left the church.

We visited our priest, and he told me that my first marriage was invalid. I am waiting on paperwork for an annulment. We are both going to confession weekly and mass multiple times during the week. We have been remaining abstinent during this time until our marriage can be validated, as both of us have felt called to do so.

My priest never said we could not take communion. He did mention regularly attending confession during this time. I am wondering if it was to be understood that we should not participate in the Eucharist, or if him not saying anything about it just means I/we still can. Do I need to wait until my annulment is official per the diocese and my current marriage is validated in the church, or does my priest stating my first marriage was invalid and remaining abstinent in the interim allow it now?

Thanks!

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Hello,

I was raised Catholic and left the church for 15 years, during which time I entered into a civil marriage with a non-Catholic. We were divorced, and then I remarried another person in another civil marriage. Fast forward to a few months ago; I came back to the church and brought my civil spouse with me—he was also raised Catholic but left the church.

We visited our priest, and he told me that my first marriage was invalid. I am waiting on paperwork for an annulment. We are both going to confession weekly and mass multiple times during the week. We have been remaining abstinent during this time until our marriage can be validated, as both of us have felt called to do so.

My priest never said we could not take communion. He did mention regularly attending confession during this time. I am wondering if it was to be understood that we should not participate in the Eucharist, or if him not saying anything about it just means I/we still can. Do I need to wait until my annulment is official per the diocese and my current marriage is validated in the church, or does my priest stating my first marriage was invalid and remaining abstinent in the interim allow it now?

Thanks!

If you are living in an abstinent "Josephite" marriage, provided no scandal is given, there is no reason you cannot receive communion, though I would recommend verifying this with the priest just to make sure.

If both you and your spouse were baptized Catholic, your marriage would be invalid due to having married in a civil ceremony (as would have been the first putative marriage), but just from the facts you present, it doesn't sound like an annulment would be hard to get. Indeed, when it is a case of a Catholic marrying outside of the Church, it is ipso facto invalid, and only requires documentation that you never had a valid marriage to begin with. When lack of canonical form (viz. marrying in a civil ceremony) is the only invalidating factor, it is ordinarily not difficult, indeed, it can't even strictly be called an "annulment", but standard procedure still needs to be followed.

I noted the possibility of scandal. Are your fellow parishioners aware that you married outside the Church? If not, I see no problem. But do discuss this with your priest and make sure it is okay for you to receive communion.

 

[po18guy]

As I have been instructed, if "spouses" are living as brother and sister, and are unaware of serious sin, then the Eucharist may indeed be received. As to scandal, I 'believe' that it does not occur because of misperception by those beholding a given situation. Rather, it is an active behavior which does indeed cause scandal.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

As I have been instructed, if "spouses" are living as brother and sister, and are unaware of serious sin, then the Eucharist may indeed be received. As to scandal, I 'believe' that it does not occur because of misperception by those beholding a given situation. Rather, it is an active behavior which does indeed cause scandal.

Scandal would be given if it is common knowledge that the spouses are living in an invalid marriage, with the presumption that they engage in conjugal activity, because that is the normal course of affairs for married people, unless perhaps they are very advanced in age. Whether such a couple would wish to let people know that they are living celibately, until such time as they can have their marriage convalidated, would be up to them. A solution for the time being might be to receive communion at a church in a nearby city where their circumstances are not known, and to wait until the marriage is convalidated before receiving communion in their home parish. At that time, they could make it known to people that their marriage has, indeed, been convalidated.

In a small town, and I grew up in one, a second marriage would be common knowledge, as would whether a couple had married in the Church or not. In a larger city, where people don't necessarily know one another, and people are always moving in and out, they likely wouldn't know and wouldn't care. (I live in a city just large enough to be like that, and I'll take it over a gossipy small town any day of the week.)

 

[po18guy]

Yet, any presumption by others would be the sin, no? Charity demands that we think the best of others and do not pry into their lives.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Yet, any presumption by others would be the sin, no? Charity demands that we think the best of others and do not pry into their lives.

I know of no traditional Catholic moral teaching that says "never assume that another person is committing a sinful act". It would be awfully naive to see a couple, especially of a virile age, known not to be in a valid marriage, cohabitating and presenting themselves to society as being "married" (or even just living together), and say "but that doesn't mean they're having sex".

Look at it this way. If a priest goes to a single woman's home and spends several hours indoors, day in and day out, extending into the evening hours, would it not be naive not to think "maybe there's something going on"? If strangers are constantly in your neighborhood looking for a specific house, and then parking, running in the house, and coming right back out with a bag in their hands? If a lone man goes to the playground in the park, day after day, and sits there looking at the children adoringly? I could keep citing example after example.