What is my marital status?

[elchante]

My first husband and I were Catholics married in the Church. He died accidently in 1967 when I was 27-years-old. We had four children. I married and divorced three times since he died. None were Catholics, none were marriages in the Church. I’ve been divorced for the last time since 1997 and now live a life of chastity dedicated to the Lord. I am an active Catholic and still consider myself a widow. I receive Communion. I have received the sacrament of reconcilation to cover all this, but how does God and the Church rate my marital status?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

You are unmarried and expected by the Church to live a life of chastity that befits an unmarried person. If you wish to marry again or to enter religious life, you should place the three marriages after your first marriage before a Church marriage tribunal for adjudication. If marriage or religious life does not interest you, then you need merely continue as you have.

As for whether or not you are a widow, you may certainly consider that you were widowed after your first marriage.