Catholic seeking to marry baptized Catholic, no further sacraments

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I am a practicing Catholic (baptized, all sacraments completed). I am engaged and planning to marry, and my fiance was baptized Catholic, and is practicing, but never completed the remainder of his sacraments. He plans on enrolling in RCIA, but we wonder, does he need to complete this before our Catholic church wedding, or only if we plan on having a full mass at the ceremony? Also, I was civilly wed (10 years ago, at a young age), have a child from that civil wedding, but divorced after 2 years. My priest, who I consulted at the time, said that if I were to seek to marry in the Catholic church later in life, I would not need to have it anulled first, because it was a civil ceremony that the church never recognized as valid. Did I understand this correctly?

-- Roxanne (roxiegirl1027@hotmail.com), August 19, 2004

Answers

"does he need to complete this before our Catholic church wedding"

A: Technically yes; however if he is actively participating in RCIA, with the intent of receiving his sacraments at the conclusion of the program, that is usually taken as sufficient show of good faith to procede with the wedding.

Your priest was mistaken. Some people who should know better seem to lack a sound understanding of what annulment is. He is correct in stating that the Church did not recognize your marriage as valid because it was a civil ceremony. An annulment is simply an official statement by the Church that what your priest said is correct. An annulment is not "dissolution" of an "unrecognized" marriage. It is a statement that a given marriage is not and never was valid. In your case the likelihood of being granted an annulment is essentially 100%. But that doesn't mean you can bypass the annulment process and fail to obtain the official statement. In other words, even when the facts "speak for themselves", we cannot simply "assume" lack of validity. The Church must still speak officially on the matter before we can procede. Obviously, if everyone who was involved in a prior marriage was free to decide for himself/herself when the facts speak for themselves, there would be chaos. In cases like yours the annulment process is generally simple and relatively fast (perhaps 1-2 months, depending on the workload of the tribunal).

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), August 19, 2004.


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