Is an annulment likely for a fully informed Catholic?

[Marie_Ostermann]

Please forgive me. This is still new to me. Not sure if I’m doing this correctly. Am I supposed to send my questions to the ‘preview post’ first? or just press ‘submit new thread’? If so, here’s the question again:

If an informed Catholic, raised in the Faith from birth, sets aside Catholic teachings in preference to the reasonings and preferences of his own mind, lives with a girl who he convinces to join the Catholic Church by attending RCIA and who subsequently becomes baptized (but she doesn’t really embrace Church teaching), they get married in the Church to regularize their earlier civil ceremony, and now (after 2 children) she gets a divorce and remarries, while he lives with another woman and seeks an annulment so he can get married to her…will the Church in this situation likely grant him an annulment?

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Marie,

There is no way to answer your question because there are simply too many unanswered questions. So, let’s approach this from the other side. What are the grounds for an annulment? Bascially, anything that affects the four *bonae *or goods of marriage. those four bonae are: 1) fidelity, 2) permanence, 3) openness to children and, 4) for the good of the spouse. Anything that would negatively affect these will render the marriage invalid. Let’s assume someone had no intention of being faithful, or thought that if things didn’t work out a divorce could fix it, or didn’t want children or was marrying to make the spouse miserable (that’s teach him/her) – the marriage is invalid. There are also questions of consent: was it freely given (no shotgun weddings), was it given by two persons who were free to marry (no hidden spouse someplace else), was there any attempt to pretend to be someone you weren’t. All of these can affect a marriage and make it invalid. Of cource, a Catholic who doesn’t follow canonical form (married in a church by a priest or deacon) without a dispensation has an invalid marriage. Mental health also enters into this: can the person understand the covenant that he/she is making and can that person correctly enter into the covenant.

As you can see, there are a lot of things that can make the marriage invalid, but your question doesn’t allow us to address these.

Deacon Ed

 

[otm]

In addition, two things need to be remembered: 1) not all petitions for annullment are granted; and 2) some petitions are granted with requirements, such as extensive counseling. It is not a "get out of jail free’ card, like some make it out to be.

 

[puzzleannie]

the scenario you describe, which is quite confusing, seems to have the ex-Catholic lying to his prospective new spouse about his faith, his intentions, and his view of marriage, all of which might invalidate full consent. Hope the new gal runs the other way he sounds like a jerk.