Thank you to those who have replied to my most. My fiance tells me that he had indeed taken final vows, and that he was very close to becoming ordained as a priest. At the time he was at the Unversity of Strasbourg, working on his doctoral degree in biblical studies. He was a gifted researcher and scholar, well-experienced in transcribing many of the ancient texts on the life of Jesus, which was his thesis. When he decided to leave the monastary in order to marry, he was made to feel quite humiliated and “condemned.”
Well, duh. He broke his vows. What did he expect? That his Order would throw him a party?
It is possible to be releasd from the vows, but he did not ask. He just walked away. That is a mortal sin. It can, like all sins, be rectified.
When he talks about it now it is with strong emotion, and he has made it clear that he has no wish to travel back into the past, all of which happened so very long ago.
If he loves you and wants to be reconciled with the Church (and wants to ensure you do not marry outside the Church and thereby separate yourself from the Sacraments and Church) then he will do what it takes to be reconciled with the Church and released from his vows.
We often want to avoid unpleasant things. But, how we handle unpleasant things demonstrates our character or lack of it.
He also strongly believes that God would not be so cruel as to require him to do this, and that any “sins” he has committed have been forgiven long ago.
You say he was a scholar and had studied extensively and yet he misses the very basics of the Faith. God certainly does require us to be faithful, live according to his Law, and to go to Confession for our sins.
Has he totally rejected the Faith all these years?
In his marriage he was a devoted husband and father, and he and his late wife loved each other devotedly and completely. They suffered great tragedy when their first child, a son, died in a motor vehicle accident at age 18, just months before he was to graduate from high school. After this his wife developed melanoma which was treated and went into remission, only to resurface a few years later. She died from it four years ago. Surely this man has suffered enough grief in his life to have fully expunged his “sins.”
That’s not how it works. God did not visit any suffering on him as “punishment.” His son’s death and his wife’s death in no way “make up” for the sins he freely committed.
He can be reconciled with the Church. He needs to take the steps to do so.
In any case, I will not insist that he put himself through the ordeal of going into the long-ago past to dredge up once again all those painful memories. It is vexing for me, in many respects, because I have struggled with my own faith but have come round to my original Catholic roots. I embrace the Church and identify as Catholic, although I must admit I do not aree with all of the Church teachings. I cannot imagine being married in any other church, but it looks like we will have little option.
If you want to freely choose to separate yourself from the Church and Sacraments, to commit mortal sin in order to be with this man, then I hope you will think long and hard about the eternal consequences of that. All of our freely chosen actions have eternal consequences.
I don’t understand why he will not fill out some paperwork and do the right thing. Pride seems to be it.
My biggest regret in all this is that my mother will, once again, be hurting in her heart. My brother and sister remarried outside the Church and it was a source of great pain to her. Now she will go through it yet once again. The Church loves its children but also does a very good job of pushing them away, it seems to me.
Um, no, it doesn’t push anyone away. You are freely choosing to walk down that path all by yourself. You are rejecting the fact that Christ and his Church have authority over us, over the Sacraments, and that there is a thing called Truth. You want the Truth to conform to you, instead of the other way around. That is indeed tragic, but it is not the Church creating the situation.
Again, thank you to those who have taken time to reply. My local parish priest has not returned my call, I have the feeling he does not want to go any where near this issue. I spoke to someone at our city’s Tribunal office, a nun experienced in Canon Law, and she stated he must contact his monastary to do the inquiries. Having come round in my faith, I must admit I now feel I’m on the outside again looking in.
It’s not that big of a deal for him to contact his Order and put this to bed. He is making it a big deal because of some “hurt feelings” that are 30 years old. Honestly, it seems a pretense to me. He’s holding on to a grudge for a very long time. He is the one who walked away. He is the one who made that choice. He is the one who can fix it.
