Marriage/Annulment question

[flameburns623]

I’ll bet these get tiresome. I am not asking anyone to convene a Court of Nullification or whatever y’all call them, but hope you’re able to help me point a friend in a direction they sometimes have questions about.

My friend was baptised (but never confirmed) as a Roman Catholic. Apparently he was raised Protestant, and now attends and Episcopal church. I gather that as an adult he never set foot in a Catholic Church. He married a non-Catholic, a woman who had been married previously. She claimed to be a baptised Christian prior to the marriage, but after the marriage she indicated that she had only been baptised to please her first husband, and that she didn’t even believe in God. Eventually the two were divorced. My friend has remarried to another woman who was married previously. This woman was raised in a Baptist Church but has apparently never been baptised; nor was her first husband ever baptised.

Because of the oddities that the Episcopal Church lurches into, my friend sometimes looks into going to the RCC but figures he could never be a full-fledged member given his marital status. My guess is that he likely could readily gain an annulment from his prior marriage, given the permutations I just described. Is this a reasonable surmise?

 

[kleary]

I’ll bet these get tiresome. I am not asking anyone to convene a Court of Nullification or whatever y’all call them, but hope you’re able to help me point a friend in a direction they sometimes have questions about.

My friend was baptised (but never confirmed) as a Roman Catholic. Apparently he was raised Protestant, and now attends and Episcopal church. I gather that as an adult he never set foot in a Catholic Church. He married a non-Catholic, a woman who had been married previously. She claimed to be a baptised Christian prior to the marriage, but after the marriage she indicated that she had only been baptised to please her first husband, and that she didn’t even believe in God. Eventually the two were divorced. My friend has remarried to another woman who was married previously. This woman was raised in a Baptist Church but has apparently never been baptised; nor was her first husband ever baptised.

Because of the oddities that the Episcopal Church lurches into, my friend sometimes looks into going to the RCC but figures he could never be a full-fledged member given his marital status. My guess is that he likely could readily gain an annulment from his prior marriage, given the permutations I just described. Is this a reasonable surmise?

It seems that your friend, in order to be a full fledged practicing Catholic will have to have his first “marriage” go before the Diocesean Marriage Tribunal for annulment proceedings and the woman he is with now will also have to file for annulment of her first marriage.

I do not think it makes a difference about him being baptized in a Catholic Church in the first place, he still was baptized and “converted” from the Catholic Faith to non-Catholic Protestant faith, yet his first wife claims she was “forced” so to say into baptism… this would be one the marriage tribunal lawyers would love to digest…

Either way they BOTH would have to have annulments and have their current “marriage” convalidated or cenated in order for him to be a “full fledged Catholic”.

I believe he would go thorugh the annulment process first and then RCIA to be confirmed and receive First Holy Communion… most likely they could have the convalidation on that day as well in front of everyone at the Easter Vigil. It will however be a long road ahead.

Ken