Is it true that an observant Catholic cannot marry (in a Catholic ceremony) someone who has been married and divorced?
Does it matter if the previous marriage was not a Catholic marriage? For example, if Jane is married to Fred in an Anglican ceremony, and is then divorced, does that preclude her marrying Percy the Catholic in a Catholic ceremony and in a Catholic church? Or would a Catholic have regarded her as living in sin during her first relationship, which would not be regarded as a real marriage, making her marriage to Percy her first real marriage?
The Catholic Church can issue an annulment based on a variety of flimsy excuses, although I don’t know if they can do it for someone married in another church.
Yes, the Catholic church would not allow a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic who had been married & divorced before. Even though only Catholics are required to be married in a Catholic ceremony, the Church regards all marriages to be binding in the eyes of God, and considers any divorce & remarriage to be sinful. As Chefguy notes, Catholics can also get their marriages annulled. I have no idea what would be involved in a non-Catholic getting their marriage annulled in order to marry a Catholic.
YMMV between different branches of the RCC. My father, a previously divorced Danish Lutheran, had his marriage to his current wife, a previously divorced Roman Catholic Hungarian, officially blessed at a Catholic service, although the marriage itself was held in a Lutheran church and officiated by a Lutheran priest.
His wife did have her previous marriage annulled, but I do not know whether his was annulled, or at the very least considered annulled in the eyes of the RCC.
I know a woman who was looking to marry a guy who’d long since gotten divorced after a non-Catholic wedding to someone else – and, the way she tells it, the Church was perfectly willing to do it, so long as the guy’s ex-wife would just sign a little something saying that said marriage could be considered annulled.
Marriage 1: A and B marry in a Catholic ceremony. Get divorced.
Marriage 2: A and C marry in a civil wedding. Get divorced.
Marriage 3: C wants to marry D, D’s Catholic.
Q: Is Marriage 2 invalid in the eyes of the Church so C was never really married/divorced so they’re cool with performing Marriage 3? (With no annulment trick. I presume an annulment of Marriage 2 would be simple-ish, though.)
C should be able to obtain a relatively simple annulment based on “lack of canonical form.” This is what my husband obtained since his first marriage was in a Lutheran church. But if he’d married his first wife in the Catholic church, obtaining an annulment would be more complicated.
The present Queen of Spain was previously married, albeit in a civil ceremony only, and divorced from her first husband. The Catholic Church let her get married in the cathedral to husband #2 (the present King Felipe VI) without an annulment, because they considered the first marriage not canonically valid in the first place (owing to the lack of a church wedding).
The Spanish royals are historically Their Most Catholic Majesties.
IANAC(anon)L, but there are several factors that determine how the RCC views the validity of non-Catholic marriages, especially with regards to whether one or both parties are validly baptized and whether one or both have former spouses who are still alive.
–A marriage between two non-Catholics who are validly baptized and have no living former spouses will be presumed valid. (Said status doesn’t apply to forms of marriage that the RCC doesn’t recognize at all, like same-sex, polyamorous, etc.). Since both are validly baptized, their marriage is sacramental. Thus, if such a couple divorces and one party wants to marry a Catholic, an annulment will be required.
–A marriage in which one or both parties is unbaptized or invalidly baptized is presumed valid as long as the conditions above are met. However, because one or both lacks the sacrament of baptism, these unions are called “natural” marriages rather than sacramental. Under a limited set of circumstances, the RCC can/does set them aside in favor of a new union.
Letizia Ortiz had been married, in a civil marriage which lasted pretty much as long as it took them to say “oh shit” and get divorced. There were no obstacles to her marriage to then-Prince Felipe of Spain (canonical and civil, single ceremony). The first marriage had never been registered with the RCC or otherwise formally recognized by it and it was dissolved by the time the request for the second one took place. It is understood that when someone who has “Church weddings” available specifically chooses to go civil, they are specifically saying their marriage is non-canonical; someone who at the time the marriage begins belongs to a different denomination or religion, or who cannot register an otherwise-canonical marriage (previous marriage in process of annullment vz Carolina de Monaco, no priest available) has only a “formal defect” and the marriage is canonically valid from day one.
Oh and that first marriage took place in Mexico, to a Mexican citizen. It didn’t even get recorded with Spanish authorities - by the records in Spanish Civil Registries, Letizia Ortiz’s current marriage is her first. And look at that recent mess where same-sex marriages were recognized by some US States but not by others nor by the Federal government; in this case, not due to “not having done the paperwork” but because of having different regulations about which marriages were valid.
This kind of thing doesn’t just happen between the RCC and other legal systems; it happens between any two legal systems which include marriage.
My mother had converted to Catholicism before she and my father met.
My father, Catholic at birth, was married and had been separated (not divorced) from his wife for many years before he and my mother met.
When they decided to marry my father got what was called a “paper divorce”. I’m not sure what’s involved but I do know that his wife was served papers and their marriage was dissolved in some way because of “abandonment” (IIRC my father wasn’t even sure of her last address, that’s how long it’d been since they last saw each other).
Because of this, they couldn’t get married in the Church.
They eloped one weekend.
They petitioned the archdiocese a few months later to have a chapel wedding, which is a Catholic wedding without the Mass. The archbishop at the time must’ve been progressive in some way and/or my parents made a very strong case for it; the fact that my father had been born Catholic had a lot to do with it. The stipulationn was that the ceremony could NOT take place in a church, but it COULD take place in a chapel. And it did. They had a breakfast reception afterward.
My husband and I wanted a chapel wedding: Neither of us are practicing Catholics, although my husband’s family is quite devout. Because of that and his family having longtime clerical friends, we were allowed Mass only because we had to appease them. Whaatever :shrug: