Is my parents marriage valid?

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Jeffrey_Flaig

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Blessings and thank you in advance for any help on this matter.

The eternal salvation of my parents souls are of great concern for me.

This is suppose to be their 50th wedding aniversary of my parents but I wonder if I should even congratulate, telling them that in Gods eyes they are still married???
  1. My mother was married when she was 17 and got divorced civilly (no children). Not sure if the person she married was a validly baptized Christian.
  2. My Father is Roman Catholic.
  3. My Mother is Lutheran and rejected converting to the Catholic Church.
  4. Parents married only civically, my Father never received dispensation etc.
  5. Parents divorced civilly.
Since my Mother didn’t get an annulment of her first marriage and my Father didn’t get married according to the Catholic form is this even a marriage? Where my parents ever married?

Pax Christi!
 
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Lots going on as stated by @(name removed by moderator). I couldn’t follow who was who, but if someone is celebrating a wedding anniversary and at least one is your parent, yes, congratulate them.
 
I agree with the other posters who said you should speak with a priest. I’m afraid you may get conflicting responses here, and it will be difficult to decipher what is correct.
 
God brings people to salvation in many different ways. You should pray for your parents, but not worry. Also, it’s not your place to judge the validity of your parents’ marriage.
 
It sounds like your parents’ marriage is not valid based on the fact that your father was baptized Catholic but married outside of the Church without a dispensation. The only way it would be valid is if they somehow had it regularized without your knowledge, which sounds unlikely.

Not sure talking to a priest would shed much light on the status of their marriage since it’s not your own and he would probably be reluctant to delve too far into their situation since you’re a third party.
 
Thanks for the response, I updated the post a bit.

I want to congratulate them on their 50th anniversary but I don’t believe that their marriage is valid.

What I am getting at is that my Mother didn’t have the freedom to marry my Father if she was married previously civilly and divorced civilly. If she was married to Christian before then the Catholic Church would consider that a valid marriage.

If my parents told a priest before they married that my mother was married previously than I would imagine that she would need to get an annulment first before getting married to my father.

The civil marriage part of this is confusing I guess.

Pax!
 
God brings people to salvation only through the Catholic Church so of course I am concerned about the souls of my parents.

Both of my parents have committed adultery many times over. My Father decided to “marry” recently, again outside of the Catholic Church, so of course I am seriously concerned for their repentance and returning to the sacraments and reconciling with God and the Church.

I pray for them but I also need to tell them to repent, I need to call out their sin and repentance and reconciliation.

Pax!
 
The validity of your parents marriage, the sins they may (or may not have) committed are no one’s business except for your parents and their priest.

The commandment about honor for your parents does not come with loopholes. Unless your parents ask you to research for them, best to simply love them.
 
I am loving my parents by being concerned for their eternal salvation. I don’t ascribe to a “love” in which I just allow them to continue in their sin without calling out the sin and the truth.

I pray that my Father will divorce his current “wife” and reconcile with my Mother and have their marriage “regularized” in the Catholic Church. I of course pray that my Mother receives my Father back and converts to the one true holy Roman Catholic Church and that my Father will repent and receive the sacraments of penance and Eucharist.

Pax!
 
Wait—your parents are divorced from each other? Whose anniversary is being celebrated?
 
Should you congratulate your parents on what would be their 50th anniversary? What would that accomplish? You seem to have a fantasy that your parents will eventually remarry and become the people that you want them to be. Is that at all realistic? Do they accept your advice?

Aside from praying for them daily, perhaps you could speak to your pastor or a family counselor about this.
 
Jeffrey_Flaig said:
I am loving my parents by being concerned for their eternal salvation. I don’t ascribe to a “love” in which I just allow them to continue in their sin without calling out the sin and the truth.

I pray that my Father will divorce his current “wife” and reconcile with my Mother and have their marriage “regularized” in the Catholic Church. I of course pray that my Mother receives my Father back and converts to the one true holy Roman Catholic Church and that my Father will repent and receive the sacraments of penance and Eucharist.

Pax!
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Pray for their salvation.

Be a good example.

Do not dig around like Matlock and try to be a Canon lawyer.

There is too much “Parent Trap” going on in your wishes.
 
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It is good that you are concerned about the salvation of your parents.
 
OsculeturMeOsculo said:
That doesn’t sound right.
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Why?

We have confession in secret. Why does being someone’s child entitle you to know their most intimate sins?

The OP can suggest getting right with the Church, but he is in no position to suss out how that will look.
 
Because she is basically telling him to not care about the spiritual state of his parents. Also he isn’t trying to find out their secret sins.
 
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I think if they have been together for 50 years you should congratulate them, take them out to dinner and honor them. They have outdone a lot of couples who have been validly married. Pray for them and I would even advise you to silence in this case.
 
OsculeturMeOsculo said:
Because she is basically telling him to not care about the spiritual state of his parents. Also he isn’t trying to find out their secret sins.
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No. Just no.

He can care about their spiritual state. Absolutely fine. In that he should encourage them to work with priests.

What he cannot do is play annulment investigator trying to figure out if they have grounds for an annulment, if they were validly married, if whatever. It’s NONE of his business. Zilch.

What he’s doing now is simply trying to act as judge and jury for his cause, namely, to get his parents back together in what he’s pieced together as a “valid marriage”. He cannot possibly know the things he needs to know to come to the conclusions he has. In that, he needs to back off and butt out. He is, in fact, trying to figure out what private sins lead to what occurred.

What he CAN do if he cares about his parents is to pray and to give them resources that they might use to make choices. He should not be trying to make the determinations he has. He dosn’t even know enough about his mother’s first marriage to know if it was valid. Nor should he.
MaryEstelle2 said:
I think if they have been together for 50 years you should congratulate them, take them out to dinner and honor them. They have outdone a lot of couples who have been validly married. Pray for them and I would even advise you to silence in this case.
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His father has a new wife. His parents are not together.
 
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Ironically it isn’t your place to tell him what to do. You seem to be assuming a lot regarding his intentions and actions.
 
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I believe he said they are divorced and his father is married to another woman, not his mother.
 
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