Topic:  Can I marry a divorced, non-Catholic?

Source of this posting: Moderator response

Date originally posted: November 20, 2003

Moderator who originally posted this source: Father Phillip

Question:   Hello,I have sort of a complicated situation. I am a Catholic who is engaged to a non-Catholic. My fiance has been married before in a non-catholic church and is now divorced. Is there anything that we can do to still be married in the Catholic Church? If not, what alternatives to a Catholic ceremony do we have to exchange our vows?Thank You,Kim

Answer: 

That you want the Church's blessing for your proposed marriage is an evidence of your faith, and we all rejoice in that fact!

The Church is always pre-disposed to believe that marriage is a good, life-long, binding commitment of love to which God calls persons. Whether that marriage happens in a Catholic Church, a Protestant Church, or even in a civil ceremony (the latter 2 options presume that neither of the parties is Catholic), the Church believes that the marriage lasts until death parts the woman and the man.

So, your fiance, in the mind of the Catholic Church, is "still" bound by the commitment that he made to his first wife.

(There are a number of caveats to this statement that would need a great deal more information before I could even try to apply them certainly in the particular case of your fiance and his first wife, but generally, the Catholic Church holds that marriage is for life.)

Since your fiance's first marriage has, I presume, ended in divorce, he can ask the Catholic Church in the geographic area where he lives to help him go through a process called, "Petitioning for a Decree of Nullity."

Since the first marriage was, presumably, a binding marriage, he would probably need to go through the entire process of asking for a Decree of Nullity.

Whether he and his first wife were Catholic does not matter (probably -- though there can be extenuating circumstances which are too complex to try to explain here) because the Catholic Church assumes that they went into the first marriage intending it to be for life. We try to assume, in all situations, the best of people and their intentions!

To begin the process of asking the Church for a Decree of Nullity, you and your fiance need to make an appointment with the Campus Minister or Pastor of the Parish where you go to Mass. And then ask the Campus Minister or Pastor how to go about the process and whom you should contact.

Realize that the process is thorough and can take anywhere from 9 months to 3 years to complete. A lot of what determines the length of time involved is how cooperative the parties involved are with the process and how "busy" the people who run this office (usually called the "Tribunal") are.

The Church usually asks that the couple help pay for the salary and benefits of all the people -- usually lay people -- who work to make the Decree of Nullity process a life-giving, ministerial experience for those involved. However, if the couple can't afford to help defray some of those costs, I have never heard that the couple was turned away.

If you follow this process faithfully and cooperate fully, I feel fairly confident that you and your fiance might very well be able to be married with the blessing of the Catholic Church. After all, we want you to be happy!

Make the appointment to talk to your Campus Minister or Pastor as soon as possible!

Blessings,
Father Phillip