Is it OK to get married civilly and then have the marriage blessed later?

[jas316]

My best friend is Catholic and has been given conflicting advice. Situation: She is engaged to a non-Catholic who was previously married to a Catholic. They are waiting on his annulment. They were told that it was perfectly ok to get married by a Justice of the Peace and then later when his annulment comes through, they can just have their marriage blessed. Because of this advice, she is under the assumption that it is not a sin to marry him and it is not wrong to get married outside of the Church. I cannot find anything in Church teaching that agrees with this. I have told her that the Church would not recognize a civil marriage of a Catholic so, in essence she would be living in sin. She has been told that to get married before his annulment is all right, just not ideal. I am afraid she is being misinformed and is going to make a terrible mistake.
Please your help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Jim_Blackburn]

You have given your friend good advice. A Catholic cannot validly marry outside the Church without permission (cf. The Form of the Celebration of Marriage) so a civil ceremony and subsequent Church blessing is not a moral option. The Church presumes your friend’s fiance’s first marriage to be valid unless and until proven otherwise through the annulment process so she should not even be dating this man.

Consider this scenario: The couple marries civilly and then the Church’s marriage tribunal finds his first marriage to be VALID – he doesn’t get the annulment! Your friend will be civilly married to a man who the Church recognizes is already married to someone else. She’ll actually be living and sleeping with another woman’s husband! She won’t be able to have her marriage blessed in the Church. And, as long as she continues to live as though she’s married to this man, she’ll be barred from receiving the Eucharist and won’t be able to receive absolution through the sacrament of penance. What a mess!

Your friend needs to take a step back and wait for the results of the annulment process. Only then will she know whether this relationship is even something she can morally pursue. She is in our prayers.