Upcoming wedding

[reelgals]

My daughter has been baptized, had her first communion, and confirmed Catholic. She has met and fallen in love with a Lutheran. He was married and divorced about 5 years ago. No children are involved. She would like to get married or at least blessed by the Catholic Church. They have an October 28th wedding planned, but have now been told this is impossible because his Lutheran wedding needs to be anulled by the Catholic church and can take up to 8 months.

Does anyone know of any options to fulfill this special day?

Also… they are living together. Although this is fairly common amoung our young, do they lie if asked about their living situation?

These are two wonderful people. I am very frustrated. It is important to my daughter to get married in a church, but it seems to get more difficult every day as we get closer to their special date.

I am looking for advise and answers please.

 

[puzzleannie]

the only person who can answer their questions is the priest preparing them for marriage, and he will speak only to them, not to third parties. Please urge her to see the priest. In any case in most Catholic parishes the recommended time frame is 6 months to a year for marriage prep so she is already pushing the window. Yes if either has been married before that marriage must be investigated, and they are not free to marry, to become engaged, to become romantically involved until and unless that previous marriage is found to be null. Obviously they cannot live together as man and wife that would be wrong according to both their religions. However they are both adults and they, not family, make their own decisions. If she has been properly taught by you she knows what she is doing.

 

[joanofarc2008]

As a Catholic she does have a duty to be married in the Church or receive dispensation to be married elsewhere. This is something that needs to be discussed with the priest. They need to see the parish priest immediately anyway to start your daughter’s fiance’s paperwork for the annulment. 8 months is quick but this can vary from diocese to diocese. She will not be able to marry him without him receiving this declaration of nullity. If she marries him without dispensation or decree of nullity then she will not be able to take Eucharist. This is a very sad thing.

As far as the cohabitation - her fiance until that decree of nullity is granted is a married man. she is cohabitating with a married man. There are many issues with cohabitating anyway but I personally recommend cohabitating as it can take away from the understanding of the comittment to the Sacrament. Of course they should not lie to the Church when asked.

These are all things that you and your daughter were probably not aware of but now that you are maybe the best thing to do is for her to move back in and observe chastity until the decree of nullity and the wedding. After all no one guarantees a decree of nullity - it is not a right - it is an investigation. Just because other young people do it doesn’t make something right.

 

[Love_Divine]

Also… they are living together. Although this is fairly common amoung our young, do they lie if asked about their living situation?

Lie to a priest? Lying is bad as it is. Lying to priest is even worse. No, they do not lie about their living situation.

They tell the priest the truth, and do as he instructs. What’s been happening with my friends is the priest instructs one of them to move out until the wedding. In another case, where the two of them were with child, the priest permitted them to live together, but instructed them to live as brother and sister in separate rooms until the wedding. She’ll also have to go to confession too.

 

[1ke]

My daughter has been baptized, had her first communion, and confirmed Catholic. She has met and fallen in love with a Lutheran. He was married and divorced about 5 years ago. No children are involved. She would like to get married or at least blessed by the Catholic Church. They have an October 28th wedding planned, but have now been told this is impossible because his Lutheran wedding needs to be anulled by the Catholic church and can take up to 8 months.

“At least” be blessed by the Church? If that is so, then she should show some respect and restraint by waiting until this person’s marriage is declared null-- IF it is declared null. The person she calls her “fiance” is married to someone else. What she proposes is to commit adultery. And, she has no idea if the marriage will actually be declared null. If she marries him outside the Church and his marriage is found to be valid, she will have put herself outside the Sacraments and in mortal sin with no remedy but to separate from him.

Does anyone know of any options to fulfill this special day?

Yes, wait until she knows he is free to marry and marry properly in the Church.

Also… they are living together. Although this is fairly common amoung our young, do they lie if asked about their living situation?

Cohabiting is a grave sin, as you know. Lieing is also a grave sin. So, no, she should not lie. What she should do is stop living with him.

These are two wonderful people. I am very frustrated. It is important to my daughter to get married in a church, but it seems to get more difficult every day as we get closer to their special date.

Well, since she chose to get engaged to someone who isn’t free to marry it is she who has created the difficult decision.

I think you should stop calling it her “special day.” It is the day she plans to formalize her adulterous relationship.

I’m sorry if this seems harsh, but really she needs to understand the full **gravity **of what she’s doing. She should not be receiving the sacraments now, and will permanently separate herself from them when she marries this person, barring the positive outcome of a decree of nullity.

What you can do is encourage her to go talk to her priest now, before she makes such a huge mistake, go to Confession, and start living an upright life. If she insists on disregarding the Church in this matter, then I guess the best you can hope for his that he does receive a decree of nullity and that they approach the Church for convalidation.

 

[Bookcat]

She needs to go to the Church…the Church needs to look into if it was a valid marriage or not. If it was not valid and thus there is a decree of nullity …she will be able to get married to him before God.

If they just go “get married” they are “playing marriage” …not entering it.

(to say it mildly…)

They want the real deal

She needs to approach the Priest and get the ball rolling.

And remember he is married …they need to be acting accordingly until it may be shown that he in fact did not enter into a valid marriage at that time. They really need to back up.

Now you may not be able to move them to do fully the right thing…(it may or may not work…but do what you can…you may be surprised) but in addition to certainly not supporting them per se in the wrong and urging them to the good…certainly they need to be sent to the Priest… “Truth with love”

 

[insideitall]

how do they have the wedding planned already when they just found out the previous marriage needs to be investigated?

it sounds to me like they picked a date, started calling vendors, and only later decided to actually call the church and book the date.

if she really cares about following catholic teaching (which is not a given, despite being raised catholic and having received the sacraments), she would either have known about this ahead of time, or would be willing to suck it up and change the date without complaint. it seems to me that all she wants is the idea/looks of a churchy wedding.

as far as lying to a priest… I can’t believe anyone would actually have to ask that question, but the answer is absolutely not.

you may think they’re wonderful, but wonderful people can and do make mistakes and dumb decisions all the time, and need to be responsible for the consequences.

It is important to my daughter to get married in a church, but it seems to get more difficult every day as we get closer to their special date.

this is entirely her own fault, and as a result she may very well not be able to have the wedding exactly as she wants. this focus on the date and not the sacrament seems to indicate what I wrote above, that she doesn’t care so much about church teaching as the appearance of the wedding. it seems that you feel the same way. besides, there’s nothing special about getting married if they’re already living together, as far as I’m concerned.

personally, I think it’s a sham when the couple insists on getting married in the church just because the family wants it, the church is pretty, and/or they “were raised” catholic. if they don’t agree with it, why are they standing up there making those promises? not to say that every catholic agrees 100% with everything, but if they’re not even making an effort to understand/follow the teachings… I have friends getting married in a few months. the guy was raised catholic, but at least he’s man enough to admit that he doesn’t care, and they’re having the wedding at the reception hall.

 

[surfinpure]

reelgals,

I know all of these answers may sound terribly harsh, but please understand that your daughter’s situation raises very serious concerns. But surely even the Lutheran man she is involved with has these verses in his Bible, in Mark 10:

2 The Pharisees approached and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. 3 He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They replied, “Moses permitted him to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” 5 But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother (and be joined to his wife), 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ **So they are no longer two but one flesh. ** 9 Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” 10 In the house the disciples again questioned him about this. 11 He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Though our culture has strayed far from this teaching of Christ, it has not changed in 2,000 years. Therefore, she is currently living with a married man, which is a very serious sin. Planning to “marry” this man is not a reason for celebration, because he is unavailable to marry unless and until his marriage is declared null.

Now, the *good *news is that a good many Protestant marriages receive a degree of nullity fairly quickly. If you think about it, eight months is a blink of an eye when compared to the *lifetime *he vowed to love and serve his now-divorced wife. It’s nothing at all. And if your daughter truly loves him, she can back up, move out, go to confession, and start over in the right order if and when the time comes.

Since it sounds like she has no intention of doing those things, the only thing left, as everyone else has said, is to send them both to the priest, who will do his best to sort out this mess of a situation.

God bless,

mary