I am engaged to a non-catholic man, who was divorced approximately ten years ago. He has two children with his ex-spouce, however he has not seen them during these ten years; She lives a new life with the children in an undisclosed location to us. this was not my fiance's choice - she left the marriage, took the children, filed for divorce, and then sent the completed paperwork to him after the fact.

We are now engaged to be married, and selected our wedding date six months ago for June of 2002. My catholic priest informed us that we must obtain a Decree of Nullity in order to be married in my church. He told us that it will take at least a year to receive and that we should cancel our wedding date. I am devestated. I want desperately to be married in a catholic ceremony, and my family has already began numerous wedding plans including submission of various downpayments to many wedding vendors. (Florist, photograhper, reception hall, limo, etc.)

My questions are: - Can his anullment be granted in less than six months? - Will the church allow an anullment for him?

To make the situation even more complex, we reside in Texas, and were planning to be married in New York where my family resides. My priest suggested that I find a priest in Texas to begin the anullment process, stating that it's very long and tedious, and we would be better to find someone close to us who can then pass along the necessary paperwork to him. He also mentioned that my fiance's ex-spouse must be notified of his anullment intentions, but we don't even know where to begin looking for her. What should we do at this point? I'm so overwhelmed.

Thank you for your help.

-- Shauna Weise (shaunasmw@aol.com), January 02, 2002

Answers

Hello, Shauna.

You asked, "What should we do at this point?"

There are several things to do, but the very first is to sit back, relax, and stop allowing this to overwhelm you. Pray for the grace to be calm, pray to evaluate things as objectively as possible, and pray MOST OF ALL to avoid the temptation to take things into your own hands and make a sinful choice that will hurt Jesus (i.e., disobeying the Church).

The fact is that everything you have been told has been correct. The priest did not mislead you at all. Your wait for the Declaration of Nullity could be a bit shorter or a bit longer than a year, but is quite unlikely to be as little as six months. The Church will make a good-faith effort to contact your friend's "wife," but if that simply cannot be done, the nullity case will move forward without her testimony.

Therefore, I urge you humbly to accept these facts and the inconveniences (even perhaps loss of some money) this will cause. Don't worry. The sun is going to come up again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after ... Yes, this causes you pain now, but you will get over it and will realize that the pain is much easier to bear than some tremendous sufferings being borne today by people all over the world.

Shauna, please try to accept the fact that the Church is not at fault in this, but is only following a time-tested and just procedure that is required by God.

I don't want to place any blame on you either, because I have no way of knowing how much you knew about the Church's teachings and marriage laws when you first met your friend. Pastors of Catholics should inform their flocks that a divorced person (such as your friend) cannot be remarried if his/her first union is valid. (In other words, someone should have taught you about that when you were still a student.) Acting on that knowledge, a well-informed Catholic will then not even date, much less get engaged to, a divorced person -- until that person has obtained a Declaration of Nullity. (I assume that you just didn't know these things, which is terribly unfortunate.)

The reason for not even dating is that the Church assumes your friend's marriage to be valid -- and that he is still married in God's eyes, until that can be proved otherwise. The Church does not recognize a divorce as capable of breaking a sacramental bond of matrimony. Therefore, there is a chance that the work of the tribunal may result, not in a Declaration of Nullity, but in a reaffirmation of the validity of your friend's marriage. Because of this possibility, a Catholic in your position should do exactly as the priest told you, cancel all wedding plans, remain friends with the gentleman, and pray that God's will be done by the tribunal. If nullity is declared, you will be free to rekindle your relationship and make new plans for marriage. If not, you must continue to go your separate ways.

Shauna, I urge you once again to be patient, to avoid anger, and to stay in the Catholic Church, which Jesus founded and which the Holy Spirit protects from teaching wrongly. Please do not think that you will be happier by attempting (an invalid) marriage outside the Church. There are many thousands of people who have done this and would now tell you how terribly they regret it. I'm sure that, after praying about it, you will realize that living in a state of adultery, the loss of the ability to receive the sacraments, and the potential eternal loss of heaven are an unthinkably high price to pay for being able to stick with your currently planned wedding date.

St. James, pray for us.
God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), January 02, 2002.