marriage and divorce

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lclay

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I am currently 26 years old.I have never been baptized in any Church but I am very interested in the Catholic Church and have been doing some “spiritual” research and I have been praying a lot trying to find answers for myself. The one thing that I keep getting stuck on is marriage and divorce. I was married for 2 years to a Mormon man, we did not have any children. I really want to be able to embrace the Catholic religion but I am having a hard time getting past the part where if I join the Catholic Church I will never be able to get re-married again. I am a different person that I was when I was 18 and I have different views on marriage and family now. I would love more than anything to one day marry a Catholic man and have a family and raise my children Catholic. Please help!
 
I would make an appointment with the priest of your local parish. You can discuss your former marriage and both the annulment process as well as Pauline Privelege.
 
***I believe you could get married in the Catholic Church since you weren’t married in the Church before. Even Catholics who are divorced can remarry in the Church if they receive an Annulment. I don’t think you’d have a problem with this.

Blessings,
Nicoletta***
 
Nicoletta said:
***I believe you could get married in the Catholic Church since you weren’t married in the Church before. Even Catholics who are divorced can remarry in the Church if they receive an Annulment. I don’t think you’d have a problem with this.

Blessings,
Nicoletta***
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This is not accurate. Non-Catholics are not bound by the Catholic form of marriage. The OP would indeed have to have her marriage examined for validity.

To the OP-- I would hope that your marriage would be found null, or that the Pauline Privilege would apply to you. But, if you are found to have a valid marriage and not granted a dissolution of that bond, I would encourage you to continue to pray for the ability to embrace the Faith despite this very heavy cross. Don’t turn away from the truth just because it’s difficult. Christ indicated the path to Heaven would go through the narrow gate.
 
I highly recommend the book Annulment: The Wedding That Was by Michael Smith Foster. It is very educational, and laid out in an easy “question and answer” format.
 
Thank you all so much for your responses. It really makes me feel better. I have read more about Pauline Privilege, it indicates it was possible if both parties weren’t “baptized”, I am confused as to whether or not this means baptized into the Catholic Church. Based on what the law says, I don’t think my marriage can be annulled. Does the Catholic Church have their own definitions of what “annulment” means? We were not married in a Church, but we were married by the Bishop of an LDS church “until death do us part”. Normally in the Mormon religion people are sealed for “time and all eternity” but since I wasn’t Mormon we did not do this. Sorry to keep going on like this, I just have far more questions than answers.

Thank you very much.
 
lclay said:
Thank you all so much for your responses. It really makes me feel better. I have read more about Pauline Privilege, it indicates it was possible if both parties weren’t “baptized”, I am confused as to whether or not this means baptized into the Catholic Church.
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By baptized, the Church does not mean only in the Catholic Church. It means any Trinitarian baptism where water is poured or the person immersed and the Trinitarian formula is used. The LDS does **NOT **have a valid baptism because it is not Trinitarian. Therefore, presuming your husband had never been a member of any other denomination he would be considered unbaptized by the Catholic Church.
lclay said:
Based on what the law says, I don’t think my marriage can be annulled. Does the Catholic Church have their own definitions of what “annulment” means?
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Could you clarify this, I’m not following you here. Are you referring to a civil law annulment? If so, that has no bearing on validity in the Catholic Church. The Church does mean something very specific when the term nullity is used.
lclay said:
We were not married in a Church, but we were married by the Bishop of an LDS church “until death do us part”. Normally in the Mormon religion people are sealed for “time and all eternity” but since I wasn’t Mormon we did not do this. Sorry to keep going on like this, I just have far more questions than answers.

Thank you very much.
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The only way you will get definitive answers is to go to your priest, lay out all the facts, and begin the investigation process.
 
This is the information I am looking at about annulment according to civil law.

Grounds for a marriage being voidable or void ab initio vary in different legal jurisdictions, but are typically limited to fraud, bigamy, and mental incompetence including the following:
  1. Either spouse was already married to someone else at the time of the marriage in question;
  2. Either spouse was too young to be married, or too young without required court or parental consent. (In some cases, such a marriage is still valid if it continues well beyond the younger spouse’s reaching marriageable age.)
  3. Either spouse was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the marriage;
  4. Either spouse was mentally incompetent at the time of the marriage;
  5. If the consent to the marriage was based on fraud or force;
  6. Either spouse was physically incapable to be married (typically, chronically unable to have sexual intercourse) at the time of the marriage;
  7. The marriage is prohibited by law due to the relationship between the parties. This is the “prohibited degree of consanguinity”, or blood relationship between the parties. The most common legal relationship is 2nd cousins; the legality of such relationship between 1st cousins varies around the world.
  8. Prisoners sentenced to a term of life imprisonment may not marry.
  9. Concealment (e.g. one of the parties concealed a drug addiction, prior criminal record or having a sexually transmitted disease)
Based on this, civilly my marriage could not be annulled. However you answered my question when you said that civil law had no bearing of validity in the Catholic Church. I am feeling a huge weight lifting off my shoulders as I read more into this. I think when I go to talk with my priest I will feel a lot better now that I better understand my options.

Thanks
 
Some of the reasons for civil annulment are similar to those found in Church law-- and they probably have their origin in the Church’s understanding of intent, consent, and validity. But, that is the end of the similarity.

I would really suggest you get a copy of the book I posted above, it will really help you understand the Church’s teaching about marriage, Sacraments, and nullity.
 
Hi Iclay. May I respectfully say that you are “missing the forest for the trees”. That whole “marriage, divorce, annulment” question is moot unless you are Catholic first.

Do you believe that Jesus was a real person, that he was the Son of God, that he died for our sins and left us the Catholic Church to carry on His work of salvation? If you can answer YES or are leaning toward YES, then He is calling you home. Please just let the marriage question go for a while and think and pray on that.

Now, once you have decided that God is calling you home, you need to get into RCIA, then baptized and confirmed. You will now live out your life by loving Jesus and following His Church.

If it comes to pass that your previous marriage is annulled, there is no guarantee you will get married, is there? Perhaps your previous marriage will not be annulled. Maybe this is God’s way of calling you to a religious vocation in His house. Maybe it will be his calling you to live a devout single life.

Maybe all these marriage questions are the devil’s last desperate attempt to deflect your attention, a last roadblock to keep you from coming home.

I will pray that God sends you peace. Have a Blessed Easter.
 
Good advice from TheDoctor. That’s the proper order of things. Worrying about things in the wrong order might cause you to make wrong decisions. If you have discovered that the Catholic Church is the Church given to us by Christ, then you need to trust him on that. Everything else is going to fall into place. Ignoring the promptings of the Holy Spirit because you are afraid of a possible sacrifice in the future, well…that’s not a very good place to be. Sounds though like the OP might be on her way to figuring this out though.
 
dulcissima said:
I would make an appointment with the priest of your local parish.
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I completely agree with this.

In order to make any kind of a judgement, or even begin to offer you advice would require you to give out too much information to be giving out over the Internet.

Not only that, but a Priest is in the best position to ascertain where you are at spiritually and lovingly guide you in the proper direction. He can handle giving you advice on both coming home and handling the prior marriage situation.

The most loving thing all of us here can do is to pray for you;)

Which I will.

Andy
 
TheDoctor said:
Hi Iclay. May I respectfully say that you are “missing the forest for the trees”. That whole “marriage, divorce, annulment” question is moot unless you are Catholic first.

.
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no, not necessarily
if OP for instance ever wishes to marry a Catholic, whether or not she becomes Catholic herself, she must have her previous marriage investigated and a decree of nullity issued before she is free to marry or even enter into a romantic or dating relationship.

OP should speak to the priest who will be overseeing her preparation for entering the Church. Only he can guide her. advice on an individual situation is impossible on a forum such as this.
 
I want to thank you all again for your responses to my post. I am going to be meeting with a Priest, hopefully sometime soon. I hope to get this all sorted out as soon as possible. Thanks again!
 
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