Should I need to convalidate my marriage?

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Update, I spoke with the tribunal at my diocese and he told me the same thing. He also refused to allow me to appeal to any formal hearing or a promoter of justice on the basis that I “don’t have a case”. He was extremely rude and angry and even though I went on to explain that I respect him and his judgment I feel I need to continue with the issue and he called me hostile and vulgar. Can someone please help me?
 
Baho said:
Update, I spoke with the tribunal at my diocese and he told me the same thing. He also refused to allow me to appeal to any formal hearing or a promoter of justice on the basis that I “don’t have a case”. He was extremely rude and angry and even though I went on to explain that I respect him and his judgment I feel I need to continue with the issue and he called me hostile and vulgar. Can someone please help me?
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This is so bizarre. Is there any element we are missing? A prior marriage on either of your parts? It seems surreal that this fairly straightforward-seeming situation is being misunderstood by so many people.
 
There is at least one member of CAF that is a canon lawyer, but I cannot remember his name. Can anyone else summon him?
 
Nope. We were 18 and 19 when we were married. She was in a methodist church and had been baptized (protestant), I had not yet been baptized. I was baptized in a Baptist church 6 years later. He stated that if neither of us had been baptized it would be valid but it isn’t because it was mixed. He called me “contentious and vulgar” when I was extremely careful to state that I respected him, his authority and his expertise and that I simply felt I had to push it forward. He gave me a hard no on raising the issue any further and refused to let it be heard above him or taken up with a promoter of justice. He said he would be telling the bishop about me.

Its seriously making it hard for me to continue with our entry into the church.
 
@acanonlawyer, is there any advice you can give in this thread?
 
Baho said:
He gave me a hard no on raising the issue any further and refused to let it be heard above him or taken up with a promoter of justice. He said he would be telling the bishop about me.
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As I said, this seems so bizarre. I understood the RCIA deacon not getting it – but the Tribunal personnel should understand this fairly common situation. I’m sorry you’re dealing with all this.
 
JulianN said:
This is so bizarre. Is there any element we are missing? A prior marriage on either of your parts? It seems surreal that this fairly straightforward-seeming situation is being misunderstood by so many people.
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That’s what I was thinking, too. Yet, it doesn’t seem right to ask @Baho for additional (and very personal!) information on a public forum.

The case – as stated – shouldn’t lead to the answers Baho is getting.

Let’s step back for a second. Upthread, Baho said that his marriage – albeit ‘valid’ and ‘civil’ – was nevertheless “outside of even my wife’s church”. On the face of it, that sounds confusing to us Catholics (even us armchair canonists). The typical understanding is that Protestants do not have requirements of form and therefore, a valid civil marriage is considered valid by their Protestant denominations.

I think this is the ‘gotcha’ in this case. Why, @Baho, did your wife’s church consider your marriage invalid…? And, are we talking about her Methodist congregation, or the Mennonite congregation in which she was baptized?

Is the Church, perhaps, noting that she was married outside the wishes of her parents or her Mennonite community, and that’s what’s relevant in this case? (Just thinking out loud here…)
 
I didn’t get the impression his wife’s church considered their marriage invalid – rather just that it occurred outside the church. Methodists would definitely consider this a valid marriage – and even if they did not, the Catholic Church would. Unless someone was Orthodox or Catholic, this really makes no sense.

I am really sorry he’s dealing with this.
 
JulianN said:
I didn’t get the impression his wife’s church considered their marriage invalid – rather just that it occurred outside the church.
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Yeah, he did say that:
Baho said:
since my wife was baptized (protestant) at the time of the wedding but I was not and the wedding was outside of even my wife’s church, convalidation will be necessary
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JulianN said:
Methodists would definitely consider this a valid marriage – and even if they did not, the Catholic Church would.
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Presuming that there were no previous marriages, which Baho has asserted time and again.

My Spidey-Sense is telling me that this has something to do with Baho’s wife’s membership / status in her Mennonite church and their view of the validity of the marriage, and that this is what is carrying the day in this case. That’s an esoteric enough consideration that we probably can’t speak reasonably on the subject.

Since @SerraSemper has participated in (at least part of) this thread, maybe we can start there: could there be a complication here that we haven’t considered, due to the Mennonite angle?
 
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They didn’t state that it was invalid I just meant that it wasn’t physically in her church. As a prot her church doesn’t even have an official membership though.
 
she was baptized in a Mennonite church but her parents left and then spent several months attending a new church each week. Eventually they settled into a Wesleyan (methodist basically) church which they have also since left because it got a new pastor.
 
Baho said:
They didn’t state that it was invalid I just meant that it wasn’t physically in her church.
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Cool. That’s a common misunderstanding in the Catholic context, too. When folks talk about people being married “in the Catholic Church”, it’s often misinterpreted as “in a Catholic building.” (It doesn’t mean that – it’s possible to get a dispensation from form and be validly married “in the Catholic Church”, even when the ceremony isn’t “in a Catholic building.”)

Still, it makes even less sense that a canonist would say “since ya’ll weren’t married in a Protestant building, your marriage isn’t valid.” I’m guessing that – since you mentioned this in the context of what they told you, right? – therefore they mean that, for whatever reason, it wasn’t considered valid by her ecclesial community.

From the way you report it, you sounds like bridges have been burned, but it would be interesting to know, specifically, why it is considered invalid. If you feel that you are able to engage your deacon, that would be the question – “I understand that you’re saying that the wedding resulted in an invalid marriage, but I don’t understand why it’s invalid; everything I’ve read seems to suggest that it should have been considered valid. What am I missing, here?”
 
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SerraSemper is a canon lawyer and, based on my understanding of the facts, I agree fully with what she said about the utter lack of justification for demanding a “convalidation.” I am 1000 (yes, a full one thousand)% sure she is correct. Unfortunately, this is another occasion where being right makes little difference when “the powers that be” say otherwise.

Dan
 
Specifically they’re stating the catch is that my wife was baptized at the time but I wasn’t. Apparently if neither of us had been baptized, or both of us, it would be fine. Once he told me that I was willing to take his word for it since he’s a Canon law expert and Im not but I asked if I could know where I can find that in church doctrine just so that I could have the peace of mind, reading it for myself. He told me no and that I could find it myself. I’m feeling very down right now.
 
what should I do? Go back to my baptist church with my tail between my legs or be confirmed only to be denied communion because my marriage is invalid and Im cohabitating? I really don’t know.
 
Side question… if you guys are canon lawyers, is there any way that one of you can discuss this with my diocese for me?
 
Baho said:
He stated that if neither of us had been baptized it would be valid but it isn’t because it was mixed.
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This is simply not true. IDK what this person is thinking!
Baho said:
He called me “contentious and vulgar”
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I am SO SORRY this is happening to you. I hope you can forgive the person you spoke with, he’s human and SHOULD be understanding and helpful but priests are people too and some of them have issues that make them less than fun to deal with.
Baho said:
Its seriously making it hard for me to continue with our entry into the church.
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I’m so sad to hear that.

I hope you won’t let this keep you and your wife from the sacraments and the Church.
 
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