Reasoning behind Catholics living in invalid marriage?

[JimG]

Sometimes Catholics marry outside the Church simply because their intended fiance will not agree to be married in a Catholic church. They may agree to be married in any church except a Catholic church. It may be that they have been raised in anti-Catholic homes which do not think of themselves as anti-Catholic, but they have been taught that the Catholic Church is so horrible that the want nothing to do with it. And the Catholic party can’t convince them otherwise.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Why in the world would a Catholic ever want to marry someone who thinks like that?

I said I was done with the discussion, but I’m sorry, this one just escapes me.

 

[babochka]

Not to sound cruel, but she created this situation when she chose to fall away and marry outside the Church. The Church does everything she can to accommodate people in situations like this (annulment, lack of form procedure, sanatio in radice ), but sad to say, sometimes it can’t be fixed. There are consequences to sin, and sometimes those consequences don’t stop to ask whether you were in “good conscience”, whether you had sufficient reflection, whether you had full consent of the will, and so on. That’s just reality.

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was baptized, but never catechized.

Regardless, you asked for reasons that someone might justify their decision to remain in such a situation. This is one such situation.

 

[Emeraldlady]

Why in the world would a Catholic ever want to marry someone who thinks like that?

I said I was done with the discussion, but I’m sorry, this one just escapes me.

It sounds like you were raised in a very ‘uncontaminated’ Catholic environment without possibility of temptation or sin. That can lead to taking things for granted. Not everyone had the advantage of that type of formation. You are being very short sighted in an unChristian way.

 

[twf]

I don’t believe sins of the flesh is limited to only sex, but that’s definitely a prime example.

There’s many other factors. A big one could simply be the fear of hurting / losing a person you love. One can be in a valid marriage and be in this situation as well. I’ve had to deal with immense pressure from my spouse to commit sinful acts. Many have. Sometimes you’re in a situation where it’s “commit this sin or risk breaking up my family”… that motivation could be true in a valid or invalid marriage.

 

[babochka]

I would very much like to see the emphasis of the Sacrament of Penance be upon restoring the state of one’s soul with God, not on some communitarian sentiment.

Then you do not share the mind of the Church on this matter. The concept of Reconciliation with God and the Church (the community) is not some new-fangled post Vatican II thing. Through the sacrament, we are both forgiven by God (restored to a state of Grace) and brought back into Communion with the Church. This has always been the case. Nothing in any of the the sacraments is strictly “Jesus and me”. While the experience of Confession is private, the reality of the sacrament is anything but private. Our God himself is a Community of love and we, made in the image and likeness of that triune God, are made for community. To be in communion with the Church is to be in communion with God himself and all other Christians in communion with him. The two realities are inexorably linked. It makes no theological sense to emphasize one aspect over another because both aspects are the same reality.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Why in the world would a Catholic ever want to marry someone who thinks like that?

I said I was done with the discussion, but I’m sorry, this one just escapes me.

Oh, ma’am, if you only knew… if you only knew…

I have had to fight tooth and toenail for everything in my life that makes and keeps me Catholic. From time to time in my life, I have failed. Even now, I would make my life, and even the lives of people I care about, much easier and happier (in a worldly sense), if only I would “give in” and “do what everyone else does”. I can only say that what shreds of traditional Catholic devotions I picked up in my Catholic high school “stuck with me” — “it’s not what you want, it’s what God wants”, “you don’t mind bearing your cross as long as you get to pick it”, and so on. Everyone else was taught the same thing. A few chose to accept it, many just blew it all off. That’s on them.

People have to give up the idea of marrying someone they “love” every single day of the world. Sometimes the love is unrequited. Sometimes — many times — the other partner finds someone else they like better (or who makes more money, or offers better sex, or whatever). Sometimes the beloved person dies. And yes, sometimes one (or both) lovers are already married to someone else. You can’t help your feelings, you can’t help what your heart cries out for, but you can help what you do about it.

What I am hearing here sounds like a sense of priorities, more than anything else. Put as simply and as baldly as possible, people have to choose between God and His Church, and an earthly good that involves loving another person. The Church bends over backwards to accommodate people in such circumstances, and, let’s just tell it like it is, they are afraid if they don’t, those people will leave the Church, and possibly find another church that does not make these demands of them.

The Church does not have to declare any sacramental marriage null and void — the a priori presumption is that the marriage is valid, and it has to be proven otherwise. As I said above, I would be willing to entertain making such “proofs” as simple as having the spouses to file an affidavit, a short essay, explaining why they lacked certain criteria, such as due discretion, mental capacity, freedom from grave fear or duress, what have you, let them swear on the Holy Gospels that what they say is true, and grant an annulment based solely upon this testimony. That would require changing canon law to admit proofs without witnesses or corroboration, but that is within the Church’s God-given authority to bind and to loose, isn’t it?

 

[4Reverence]

If they don’t they should. Marriage and Family stand at the heart of being Catholic.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I would very much like to see the emphasis of the Sacrament of Penance be upon restoring the state of one’s soul with God, not on some communitarian sentiment.

“Emphasis”. I said “emphasis”.

When someone has been so unfortunate as to fall into mortal sin, do they drop everything they are doing, and get to confession ASAP, because they have lost the state of grace and fear the punishment of hell, or because they seek to be reconciled with the “community”? What’s uppermost in their mind?

You tell me.

 

[lonegreywolf20]

I can give a brief story of my invalid marriage and what I was told to do.

My ex-wife and I are both baptized cradle Catholics. She went through juts baptism and first communion where as I went all the way to cofirmation. Not knowing what the church taught as I wasn’t attending a Catholic church at the time, we went through a JotP. Then two days later were married by her pastor before God.

Fast forward several years and I am trying to get serious about my Catholic faith and ran I to the issue of our marriage not being valid. So, I talked with her about convalidation to which she was adamant about not doing it. Her reason was, we were already married before God and our marriage is valid. So, I talk with people here who said that I can do a radical sensation and that she doesn’t need to be present.

First of, I would never betray her trust like that, and I couldn’t believe that faithful Catholics were telling me to go behind my wife’s back. I would not do so a thing, and didn’t!

That was the first thing that had me really questioning whether I want to be part of a Catholic church that wants you to go behind your spouse’s back and betray their trust.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I can give a brief story of my invalid marriage and what I was told to do.

My ex-wife and I are both baptized cradle Catholics. She went through juts baptism and first communion where as I went all the way to cofirmation. Not knowing what the church taught as I wasn’t attending a Catholic church at the time, we went through a JotP. Then two days later were married by her pastor before God.

Fast forward several years and I am trying to get serious about my Catholic faith and ran I to the issue of our marriage not being valid. So, I talked with her about convalidation to which she was adamant about not doing it. Her reason was, we were already married before God and our marriage is valid. So, I talk with people here who said that I can do a radical sensation and that she doesn’t need to be present.

First of, I would never betray her trust like that, and I couldn’t believe that faithful Catholics were telling me to go behind my wife’s back. I would not do so a thing, and didn’t!

That was the first thing that had me really questioning whether I want to be part of a Catholic church that wants you to go behind your spouse’s back and betray their trust.

Radical sanation is precisely the remedy in a situation such as this. For lack of a better way to put it, it is simply an administrative matter. It is not “betraying her trust”. If she is convinced, though she is wrong, that your marriage as it stands right now is valid, then what harm does it do to her?

I would recommend that you go to a priest, explain that she sees a sanatio in radice as a “betrayal of trust”, and see what he tells you. I do not know your circumstances, but you might explain to your wife that you have to do this as a matter of conscience, to make things right with God.

I hope it works out for you.

 

[lonegreywolf20]

She’s my ex-wife now, so It doesn’t really matter.

You may not see it as not betraying her trust, but when she is adamant about not having it done even after talking with her and she is still saying no and saying that we’re valid as it was done before God, anything I did to make the radical sanation happen was going to be a betrayal of trust.

When I spoke to my priest at the time, I told him what she said, I told him how I felt, and he agreed that this would be a betrayal of trust as I am going behind her back to do something that she is adamantly against.

I can tell you, that nothing that would have been said would have changed my mind to do what they wanted me to do.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

Jesus did send the message that love is more important than the law.

Not really. He said, “if you love me you will obey my commandments.”

 

[Psalm30]

Why in the world would a Catholic ever want to marry someone who thinks like that?

I said I was done with the discussion, but I’m sorry, this one just escapes me.

For the same reasons anyone gets married: they fall in love.

It sounds like you were raised in a very ‘uncontaminated’ Catholic environment without possibility of temptation or sin. That can lead to taking things for granted. Not everyone had the advantage of that type of formation. You are being very short sighted in an unChristian way.

I’ve been a catechist for four years, currently in my fifth year. We have one hour a week, nine months out of the year, to teach the students. There are also days off, so it isn’t even really one hour a week for those nine months.

Absences are frequent. Students miss class due to illnesses and funerals for family members, but oftentimes school, sports, or other extracurricular activities take precedence over religious education. The parents allow this. There’s nothing we can do, other than have students repeat the grade if they miss more than three classes without making up the work. Students often arrive late and miss an integral part of that very important one hour a week time.

As a catechist, I work very hard and do the best I can but it’s very difficult to cram all the ins and outs of our Catholic Faith into the allotted time, not to mention the frequent absences and tardiness.

It’s evident that the catechists these students had in previous years also had difficulty. My first year, during a “let’s see what you already know” activity at the first class, I had about 80% of a class of 5th graders tell me that bread and wine are merely symbols of Christ’s body and blood. Another year, once again 5th grade, hardly any of the students knew that Judas was the one who betrayed Jesus or that Thomas is known as “Doubting Thomas.” The list goes on.

Not all Catholics know enough about the Church to seek to marry another Catholic who wants to follow Church teaching to the letter.

 

[Psalm30]

Not really. He said, “if you love me you will obey my commandments.”

He also rebuked the Pharisees for being legalistic, and He spent time with “tax collectors and sinners” which made a lot of religious people angry.

I see a lot of that kind of thing on this thread.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

but again, you assume everyone subscribes to your version (or the Church’s version) of objective

We are talking about Catholics. If a Catholic doesn’t “subscribe” to the Church’s teachings on marriage they are heretics, formal or material, but certainly one of those.

As I said above, I would be willing to entertain making such “proofs” as simple as having the spouses to file an affidavit, a short essay, explaining why they lacked certain criteria, such as due discretion, mental capacity, freedom from grave fear or duress, what have you, let them swear on the Holy Gospels that what they say is true, and grant an annulment based solely upon this testimony. That would require changing canon law to admit proofs without witnesses or corroboration, but that is within the Church’s God-given authority to bind and to loose, isn’t it?

I suspect you might not as that is essentially the church version of no-fault divorce. Particularly in this day. Making it more difficult is likely to save far more souls than lose them.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

I see a lot of that kind of thing on this thread.

I believe that is a severe misperception on your part. They are concerned for people’s souls. Keep my commandments is pretty straightforward. Believing that we’re are expected to do what God said is not Pharisaism and neither is concern for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

[Psalm30]

I believe that is a severe misperception on your part. They are concerned for people’s souls. Keep my commandments is pretty straightforward. Believing that we’re are expected to do what God said is not Pharisaism and neither is concern for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I’m afraid I disagree. I believe you and the OP are missing the forest for the trees, in a big way. God bless.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

In what possible way is being concerned for those in objective sin Pharisaical?

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I’ve been a catechist for four years, currently in my fifth year. We have one hour a week, nine months out of the year, to teach the students. There are also days off, so it isn’t even really one hour a week for those nine months…

Not all Catholics know enough about the Church to seek to marry another Catholic who wants to follow Church teaching to the letter.

It has to begin in the home. If it’s not taught in the home, classroom catechesis is little more than rescue and damage control.

I too am a catechist, albeit a homeschool one. We have religion/philosophy (yes, philosophy) class two days a week, two hours total, with Catholic/Christian themes permeated through the entire curriculum (history, science, literature, even math, in that math demonstrates the concept of absolute truth). In addition to my single student charge (my son), catechism class is open to anyone else who wishes to participate — in our case, my elderly parents. My mother, whose grasp of the faith is very, very simple, often contributes useful insights. And lest anyone think we have some kind of pious, ethereal ideal Catholic home, I can say that we are quite ordinary. (Think more The Conners and less Leave It To Beaver.) We do the best we can. We use the Baltimore Catechism with other texts, and, at my son’s request, we are going to study the Seven Deadly Sins this week. (He saw this in a video game and asked about it.)