These questions are best taken to a tribunal by the priest or the individual, and I advised the original poster to do so in private message. Now that his situation has been clarified, some comment on the principles may be useful for future reference. I really urge caution when someone asks a question like this though. Good intentions don’t always have correct results, and it’s probably best to direct posters to their local tribunals.
This pertains to situations when the original marriage involves two non Catholics, the subsequent marriage involves two non Catholics, one or both of them wants to become Catholic, and has to petition for nullity (rather than dissolution by privilege).
Tribunals judge the nullity of marriage of non Catholics when it is necessary to establish the free state of at least one party before the Catholic Church. This free state must be determined when a divorced and currently remarried non Catholic, whose prior spouse is living, seeks to enter into the Church by baptism or by reception into full communion. This free state must also be determined when a divorced non Catholic, whose prior spouse is living, seeks to marry in the Catholic Church, or to “straighten out” an irregular marriage to a Catholic.
The question to be resolved is whether or not a prior bond was created by a first prior marriage, which disqualifies the person from a valid second marriage. The basis for this is the divine law impediment of canon 1085 §1: a person bound by the bond of a prior marriage, even if it was not consummated, invalidly attempts marriage.
Normally, a first prior marriage would enjoy the presumption of validity. Indeed, it usually does when it’s the first marriage between two non Catholics.
However, that presumption of validity would yield to a right to marry if a Church process established the nullity of that marriage. As canon 1058 says, all persons who are not prohibited by law can contract marriage.
This would mean that at the time of a second marriage, all other things being equal, such a person was not factually disqualified by the divine law impediment of prior bond. Remember, that it is the actual impediment that disqualifies a person from valid marriage, not the appearance of one which is later discovered not to have existed.
A null marriage cannot create the impediment because it cannot create the bond. To say a marriage is null, is to say it was null from the very beginning.
Now two non Catholic “Protestants” are not bound to the Catholic form of marriage. They can legitimately manifest consent in a non Catholic or civil ceremony in order to enter a second marriage if the first is factually invalid.
On the basis of canon 1057 §1, we recall that the consent of the parties, legitimately manifested between persons qualified by law, makes valid marriage. That’s all it takes, and the marriage cannot be made any more valid than that, not even by entry into the Catholic Church. That’s what happened here.
It is also useful to recall that two non Catholics are not bound to the canons on simple convalidation (cc. 1156-1158) since they are merely ecclesiastical law (c.11). On the same basis, radical sanations are not given in the marriages of two non Catholics.
As well, the prohibition against contracting another marriage even if a prior marriage is invalid unless its nullity or dissolution is legitimately and certainly established, is a matter of ecclesiastical law (c. 1085 §2). That prohibition would not apply to the second marriage of non Catholics or invalidate the second one if the prior marriage was in fact invalid.
