Should my mother-in-law have been allowed to become Catholic?

[jeannie_p10]

Just this past Easter, my mother-in-law became a Catholic. She was previously Episcopalian but had not been to church in several years. She walked into a local Catholic church in January and was confirmed in April. She was previously married in the Episcopalian church, had four children, and got divorced. She is now remarried in the Episcopalian church to a non-baptized man. She says that the Catholic parish she joined said that it didn’t recognize these marriages because they were not in the Catholic Church. Is this right? It’s really bothering me.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Assuming what you have reported here is accurate, your mother-in-law should not have been confirmed and allowed to receive the Catholic sacraments unless she and her current husband agreed to live as brother and sister. Only if she was eventually granted an annulment or her first husband predeceased her could she then have her current marriage convalidated.

That said, your mother-in-law is now Catholic. Rather than ruminate over whether or not she should have been “allowed in” to the Church, it would be more constructive to graciously welcome your mother-in-law as a fellow Catholic and then respectfully give her the information she needs to live out her Catholic faith.