We often hear about the pains of getting an Annulment (which is not Catholic Divorce, but that is a topic for another time). What I would like to focus on is the good that can come out of the Annulment Process.
There are three goods that I think can come from trusting the Annulment process (however the outcome):
Humility (self-reflection and trust in God’s grace)
Forgiveness (willing the good of others)
Respect (for God’s plan for Marriage)
One can go into the Annulment process with hurt, anger, sorrow, and so many emotions. And one can go into the process with trusting and retreat-like disposition.
Not all Annulments will be granted nor found to be warranted. Going in knowing that this is a possibility will help you not be bitter if things do not turn out the way you think it should have.
The Annulment process can open back up some old wounds and (in some cases) may require interacting with individuals who have hurt you, but take time to Pray for them. It is hard to hat when we will the good of another. This does not mean that what the individual has done in the past was acceptable. It means that we will the good in/for them today (by God’s grace).
Let go of anger. Anger towards those who hurt us. Anger towards yourself. Anger towards the Church. Lay it at the foot of the Cross.
The Annulment process is not a punishment. It is respect for the Biblical view of Marriage.
May God bless anyone who is going through this process. Know that you are in my Prayers as you Pray, “Come Holy Spirit” in moments where you let the emotions get the best of you. Jesus loves you. He wants you to heal and He can help you to heal, and to forgive, and find peace in Him. Jesus, I trust in You.
Thankfully, I only have third-hand experience of this. My Mom and my Dad went through it and it was not a good experience. My Mom ended up leaving the Church and my Dad was never really a Church guy.
I do have personal experience with this. It didn’t go well for me, personally. The specific details are a bit sketchy since this happened a good number of years ago, but I want to share my story:
I was married outside the church when I was young. I’m not even sure if my former wife was baptized and neither she nor her family was religious. I was not practicing the faith at the time either. We divorced.
A handful of years later I met my wife (married nearly 25 years now) and chose to get married in the Catholic Church. My wife was raised Methodist but later converted to Catholicism. The Deacon that married us had to submit certain annulment forms to our Diocese. The Diocese, I believe, tried to reach out or was successful at reaching out to my ex-wife (who I have never had contact with since our divorce approx 30 years ago). Whatever the result, the Deacon said the annulment was completed and we were free to marry in the Church.
About ten years into our marriage and three children later, I was having a one-on-one meeting with our parish priest. I would meet with him about once per month in his office and as part of that, he’d hear my Confession and give spiritual direction. During one of our talks, I’d made mention of my first marriage. I thought that I’d told him about that long before, but either he didn’t recall or I hadn’t in fact mentioned it to him. He asked a lot of questions about my previous annulment and said he was going to check with the Diocese to make sure everything was in order, correct, etc as it should be.
Later he informed me that after checking with the Diocese, he determined that a certain form was not completed by the Deacon who married us and as such, the priest informed me, much to my absolute and utter shock, that 1) Our marriage of around ten years at that time was invalid. It didn’t count. 2) Our children were therefore, illegitimate. 3) In God’s eyes, my wife and I had been living in sin that entire time. 4) My wife and I should cease going to Communion and instead should both only come up for a public blessing during each Communion until the matter was straightened out by the assistance of the priest. 5) We needed to get married again in the Church in order for our marriage of ten years to be legitimate in God’s eyes.
We went into the church right after we both met with him in our “street clothes”. He pulled in the church secretary and a newly ordained priest as witnesses and the priest married us. It was embarrassing. No question the church secretary was apprised of the situation.
Prior to standing for the impromptu wedding, the priest said he should hear both of our Confessions. I went first and waited in the church. My wife came out crying. I asked her what was wrong. She said the priest told her she needed to confess the sin of fornication (ie during our apparent period of unknowingly living in sin). The priest had NOT told me the same during my Confession with him.
About a week later I asked the priest in the Sacristy why my wife had to confess the sin of fornication when we both thought we were married in the Church and both in a State of Grace. I was a lector at the time. The priest said “there was a certain level of culpability” and that’s all he said on the matter.
As any woman can imagine, and also any man who has been a groom to a bride, my wife was devastated at the time, being told by our priest that her one and only wedding in her life didn’t count and that essentially, our children were bastard-children.
Tank you for sharing and welcome back to the forum : ) I am responding to each as I read it, so if I respond to something that you clarify later in the post, I probably didn’t get to it until I respond to it.
If true, then the Priest was doing the right thing, though it would be shock!
Children of an invalid Marriage are not “illegitimate.” This is a common misconception. If the Priest told you this, then he was likely ill-informed.
Possibly. I still have questions about your first Marriage’s validity.
Correct, one should obtain from Holy Communion in humble obedience until the matter was addressed. This is not a punishment. This is to protect the individual from possibly receiving unworthily.
Was this the conclusion? That both the first and the second Marriages were invalid? If sow, then what a great way to recommit to your Wife (in front of your children). Explain to them (if they are of age) and, by your witness, that this was not expected. That it was not easy. And that still, God is faithful. God is good. And that they are loved beyond any hardships that you and your Wife have been through as a result of human error on the part of your former Diocese. Explain to them the importance of Marriage and how it is important to Marry someone who is Godly (like their Mother).
Though this Priest thought he was doing the right thing, I think the way in which he did it was uncharitable. But, what he was trying to do for you was very good.
This is what I imagine Confessing to St. Padre Mio must have felt like. There are stories of him bringing up unconfessed sins.
As @Literalman often points out. If we commit as sin unknowingly, then were are not held culpable.
If we later find out that what we did was sinful, then it is prudent to Confess the sin, but not necessary.
I can think of a few reasons this might be. Some possibilities may sound like I’m making excused for him and other reasons might sound like I am accusing him of being sęxist in the matter.
You said that you were meeting with this Priest on a monthly bases? And you were telling him about your situation and your situation was coming up from time-to-time? If your Wife was not meeting with him during this same time, he might have misremembered you not Confessing it and confusing your moments of spiritual direction for times you had Confessed. Or he was an old-school chauvinist, who thinks boys will be boys and so they get a pass.
Again, I do not mean to imply that you did anything wrong. You were told by the Deacon that everything was in order (and I believe he thought it was). There was a clerical error. Mistakes were made. And yet, it is all how we take these misfortunes in our life. We can let the Lord lead us or we can be bitter (and I’m not saying that you are bitter or were not obedient). I’m just speaking generally of how one might react if they were in the same situation that you and your Wife found yourself. Some would leave the Church over something like this. Some would hold a grudge. It is hard to forgive those whom we fell have done us wrong (intentionally or unintentionally).
I would like to know more about why he thought this. Again, it could be that he was ill-informed or that he was an old man raised in a certain environment.
The fact is that the Marriage may indeed have been invalid. And the Priest was trying to right the situation, though the way in which he did it was less than charitable. Secondly, your children are not “bastard-children.” They are very much loved! Perhaps you were speaking in hyperbole. If the Priest told you this, even worse. Pray for him.
So you did leave. Have you since returned? Do you go to a different Christian denomination?
I’m sorry that this was your experience. What you guys went through should not have happened. How we respond to moments like these matter. And this is what I am getting at in my original post. We can view it as a punishment or stupid rules. Or we can look at it and walk through it in grace. You were hurt. And this is often why individuals leave the Church. It is sometimes why individuals turn their back on God altogether (I Pray this was not your response).
I’m not big on Church-hopping to find a Priest that tells us what we want to hear, but I think in your situation, it would have been good for you to seek out another Priest who would be more sympathetic to your situation, but not at the expense of the realities of the situation. It would not have been good to go to a Priest who says it doesn’t matter if your Marriage is invalid. This would not be good for anyone.
Your story reminds me a lot of Fr. Augustus Tolton! He was the first Black Priest in America. He was raised in a slave-family and worked in a Tabaco factory. Tolton had a desire to be a Catholic Priest. The Church in which he attended was very divided along lines of race. He had applied to Seminary after Seminary, but was rejected. With the help of his German Priest, he eventually was accepted to a Seminary outside of the United States, only to run into more hurdles. His hopes & dreams of becoming a Priest were slashed over and over again. Anyone else would have given up and walked away. Thanks be to God that Tolton remained faithful and trusting throughout the process of becoming a Priest!
I believe Fr. Tolton should be the patron Saint of the annulment process. Though he did not have a vocation of Marriage, he knows what it is like to have to go through clerical red-tape or error to become validly Ordained in his vocation.
Fr. Augustus Tolton, Pray for all who are going through the annulment process or have gone through the process. Help them to remain faithful, as you remained faithful. May they trust and persevere in Christ’s love. And even if they are hurt by clerical error, help them to let go of bitterness and to forgive. Forgive past relationships that might have been or ended ugly. Forgive Priests and Deacons who might have been less than understanding or even bigoted. And that God may bless every soul on all sides of the process. May we “will the good of another.” In the name of the Father, and of His Son (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost, Amen! ♱
@Cade_One I don’t have time today to respond to your reply item by item.
The priest was not old, he was in his 40’s at the time.
I’d either forgotten to tell him about my first marriage or he didn’t recall, so no, I hadn’t previously confessed being married before as a sin. Therefore it wasn’t a situation where he remembered me confessing that sin previously (I hadn’t) and that’s why he told my wife she had to confess the sin, but didn’t tell me the same.
Our 10 minute impromptu and unplanned ceremony the priest insisted on did not involve our children. It was a spur of the moment thing.
Your info regarding no culpability of people who are unaware they’re sinning is interesting, but is that literally Church teaching? Is it in the Catechism? Here’s how I see Catholic teaching on this issue in a literal sense:
Priest said our marriage of ten years was invalid and therefore we were living in sin as an unmarried couple (in the eyes of The Church). Fornication. Fornication is a Mortal Sin and prevents the person/people from being in a State of Grace. Had I not mentioned the topic to the priest, my wife and I would presumably have lived out our lives naturally assuming that we of course, were married. Had one of us or both of us died with Mortal Sin, Purgatory aside, would we have been able to enter Heaven? Unless I’m wrong and it’s actually written otherwise, that situation could have been damnation based on a technicality unknown to us.
I will purposely avoid further explanation as to what our current faith situation is because I do believe one’s faith is ultimately a very deeply personal thing and it’s all too common for many religious, including Catholics to breech boundaries in the name of supposed concern over another’s salvation.
As an example: If I was talking to someone and they shared that they were sexually abused by a priest and it caused them irreparable lifelong psychological damage and resulted in them leaving the Church, I would personally NEVER try to say something to try to get them back to the Church. After offering them my deep and sincere sympathy, at most I’d perhaps tell them that I hope they were/are able to have some sort of relationship with God, if I was so inclined, but I would mention absolutely nothing about the Catholic Church to them and certainly nothing about how they should go back to it, despite the unfathomable crime committed against them.
Yes, the Catachism address this in paragraphs 1857-1859:
"For a sin to be mortal , three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent…”
If your Marriage was indeed invalid, then your Priest was correct.
Also true.
Paragraph 1859 says the following:
Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law.
Though you and your Wife would be unknowingly living in sin, you would not be held culpable for your ignorance (if your Marriage was indeed invalid). It does not mean that you were not living in sin, but that your ignorance (through no fault of your own; in my opinion) would be mortal to your soul. So, if your Marriage was invalid (through no fault of your own, you are not culpable for it). Hope this makes sense.
Would it be prudent upon finding out that one was living in sin (even through no fault of his/her own) to confess these sins to God in the Sacrament of Repentance, yes. I think there can be healing in doing so. Even if just asking Christ to shed us of bitterness or ego that has resulted in the matter. We can do this in this life or in Purgatory. Why not allow Jesus to help us now, more so than later? When we hold onto anger, unforgiveness, envy, pride, or other dispositions, these things prevent us from giving fully of ourselves to God. These things keep us enslaved. Jesus wants to free us from the things of the flesh (sometimes referred to as fallen human nature) which enslave us.
If you are interpreting anything I have said here as anchorable, I apologize. That is not my intention.
Please allow me to give you an analogy that tries to explain where I am coming from. Let’s say you are young and you fall into prostitution. To feel safe, you trust a pimp who promises to protect you forever, while injecting you with a substance (sin) that enslaves you. Then you later are out of that situation that you have stumbled into (some your fault and mostly through no fault of your own). Are we not to will for that individual to seek physical, spiritual, and mental healing?
I do not know where you are on your faith-journey, but I believe that Jesus heels (Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24) . Jesus frees us from sin (John 8:36; Romans 6:18; 2 Corinthians 3:17). And He wants a relationship with you. Jesus gave the Apostles and their successors the authority and the responsibility to forgive sins (John 20:22-23).
Jesus was treated horribly by human beings, and yet, He still suffered and died so that even they might have life! “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
Priests who have committed unthinkable things and robbed individuals of their innocence do know what they are doing and will be brought to justice, if not in this life, when they die (Romans 2:6-8; 12:19; John 3:36).
God can bring good out of any bad situation. And God can use the victims of serious evil to bring hope to others (Romans 8:28). It does not mean that God willed for this to happen to them. It does not mean that the Church willed for this to happen to them. Nor does it mean that I am defending the evil actions committed by these individuals. Does this make sense?
Did the Church purposely commit a clerical error to invalidate your Marriage (on paper)? I still have questions if it was an invalid Marriage or not. Did the Deacon purposely mislead you? I would assume not. Was your first Marriage valid or not? These are questions that an Annulment seeks to answer. Did the Deacon tell you your first Marriage was annulled? Did the Priest intend to hurt you? Or did he do what he believed was right for someone in your situation (though very poorly I agree)? These are questions that I cannot answer. But, what I do know is that God loves you. He wants a relationship with you. And He wants to free you and bring you healing. He wants you to forgive in your heart (not to say that what was done to you was right nor justified, but to forgive).
To be clear, what I pointed out is that, according to Catholic teaching, for a sin to be mortal, the person committing it must realize that it is seriously wrong. That doesn’t mean that nothing is sinful if you don’t realize it’s wrong. I wrote a short piece about this on my website two years ago: Serious Catholic Thoughts.
A little more about ignorance of sin, from The Other Side of Christ by Father Robert D. Smith (Magnificat Press, 1987):
“It is often thought that if a clergyman omits all mention of certain sins, he may be facing trouble on judgment day, but that the people themselves are excused from those sins on the ground that they were never warned about them, not even by their own religious teachers. But in the case of serious sins against the law of God written in the heart of every man on earth, there is no excuse either for the clergyman or for those who hear him.” There is “an idea among modern preachers of false religion: that if they omit these teachings they are saving the souls of their hearers, whom they presume to be in ignorance and good faith.… The salvation of their hearers, if they violate unmentioned commandments, is very far from being assured, and the preachers’ own charity is only an illusion.”
Some of my thoughts on Pax’s story: “The Deacon said the annulment was completed and we were free to marry in the Church.” So you knew the requirements and believed you had fulfilled them, which indicates to me that there was neither ignorance nor intentional disobedience. And the priest concluded that your marriage was invalid because “a certain form was not completed by the Deacon”? Could this not mean that your marriage was valid but lacked a required proof? If this was the case, I would think that your marriage should have been presumed valid while the church awaited the proof, if it was available, and if it was not available, still the marriage should have been presumed valid. My feeling is that the way you were treated was not only wrong but goes against the church’s teachings on marriage, attacking your marriage that was sacramentally established. God’s covenants and yours are not abrogated because paperwork is missing.
What all scriptures tell us is that we are eternal spiritual beings. In the spiritual dimension, the spiritual realm, everyone has a spiritual form, a spiritual sense of self, a spiritual personality and an eternal spiritual relationship with God, a relationship of loving reciprocation.
An annulment is a declaration that there is no legitimate basis for a relationship. Therefore the relationship is declared non-existent.
Everything in the material nature ,everything… is a temporal reflection of the eternal reality. But people on earth tend to take it as some near and dear. And they struggle very hard, to maintain it, to insure it, to defend it, to enhance it, to render service to it. It is a copy of the eternal reality. We pursue it, like the animals in the desert that pursue the illusion of water in a non-existent oasis. It is something we can’t keep. It is something that that cannot satisfy us. But we keep trying. This is the process of worshiping Mammon.
Therefore Jesus came to declare an annulment of our illusory relationship with the things of this world, by explaining that this is not our real life. “Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.” “Give it all away to the poor and follow me.” “I didn’t come to refute your rules, but the highest rule is simply to love God with all of your heart.” “Don’t seek your fulfillment here.” Jesus came to facilitate our annulment, from a way of life, an orientation that has no basis, nothing permanent to stand on.
But we use our religion differently. We pray to God to facilitate and enhance our relationship with Mammon, with things that cannot endure, with things that we cannot keep. Jesus teaches us, to pray to God for the ability to love Him, with all of our heart. But our love is divided. To the degree that we love the things of this world…to that degree we are unable to give our hearts to God. Therefore Jesus warns us that “a man cannot serve two masters.”
The bottom line is that Jesus came to give us an annulment from our relationship with Mammon. But we want to have our cake and eat it. We want to come closer to God, while desiring material satisfaction is so many ways.
This is why monasteries are created…for those who want the annulment that Jesus came to bestow upon us. There are various forms of addiction. Addiction to the pursuit of fulfillment through things that cannot endure…this is the way of the world. We have to take stock and admit that we are addicted in this way. But at least let us begin to understand the goal. Let us contemplate the sense of direction that Jesus has prescribed.
This is why we worship the pope. Because he is a spirit soul who is showing us by example what it means to draw closer to God. He sets an example of one who has embraced the annulment that Jesus came to share with us.
Jesus tells us that he didn’t come to put families together. He came to break them apart and extricate the one who is ready to follow him, the one who is ready to accept the annulment that Jesus came to offer to all of us.
Even if we can’t do it…let us just begin to contemplate these ideas…that’s a step in the right direction…the direction that Jesus came to teach us.
You are correct that I was Catholic at the time of my first marriage (ie married at the county courthouse by a judge, with two people in line behind us acting as impromptu witnesses).
According to the information you provide, the first marriage was not valid at any point according to the Catholic Church. With that being the case, why would there have been a need for my wife and I getting married two different times in the Catholic Church?
It’s been years since the situation with the priest occurred, but thinking back as much as I can I think an issue at the time that seemed to support the priest’s opinion that our marriage (my second) in the Catholic Church was invalid and a complete and correct annulment was required had something to do with: "Did the Catholic (me in that case) at the time of the marriage, whether or not it was performed in a Catholic church (my first marriage was NOT in a Catholic church) believe they were committing to the other person for life? If so, then I think the rationale was that the first (non-Catholic) wedding was valid to the point of needing to be annulled? I just don’t remember where that memory originated with me (e.g. did that priest tell me that? Did I read that somewhere at the time on the subject? I can’t recall the source).
I’m glad you are here! You make great points all across the board : )
Bases on the details we’ve been given, I side with your theory; that the second Marriage was indeed valid, but that there was possibly a clerical error ether with the filing of the paperwork or the perhaps between the Priest and the individual he checked with. Either way, I think you are correct in saying that the Marriage should have been presumed valid until proper confirmation could be proven otherwise. Thank you for correcting me.
Thanks for sharing… I too lack personal experience, but the results you shared identify a critical problem within Catholicism, namely, a near total complete lack of teaching what we believe and HOW we can believe it… I am near 81, a lifetime Catholic, and an active catechist. Until and unless the significance of the Real Presence is ingrained from the pulpit, the exodus of “catholics”, one needs to Be an Informed and fully practice to justify the title of “Catholic”.
My annulment process was bad and it caused much division between my wife and me. The first Diocese took only three months to declare the marriage null and void. Overturned by the court of second instance. The Diocese of Portland Oregon worked three years but couldn’t find any reason to decide that the marriage wasn’t valid. My wife seemed to blame me for the decision. Bad news all around. A scandal to the Catholic Church. It’s difficult for me not to agree with Protestants who call annulments “the Catholic Divorce.” Much more if desired.
First, I want to say that I’m sorry that you had a bad experience.
Second, welcome to the Forum.
Third, I’m having trouble following the events that you described. When you say “Wife” are you referring to your current Wife or the Wife of a previous Marriage?
Just so I am understanding you correctly, either you or your current Wife was previously Married and went through the annulment process prior to Marrying your current Wife? Is this correct? That previous Marriage was deemed null, but then later over-ruled upon further review?
Or the second understanding is that there was one Marriage to your only Wife, who wanted a Civil Divorce and then went through the Annulment process, which was first granted, but later overturned. If this is the case, was your Wife mad at you, because you challenged the ruling and thus it went back for further review and the Marriage was found to be valid?
Forgive me if I’m not understanding your explanation. In the first case, I do not see how it is like “Catholic Divorce.” The Church determined your first Marriage to be valid upon further review. In the second case, you are still Married to your Wife, whom I assume is not happy about that.
Or is the reality of the situation something other than I have understood in these two scenarios?
This was the reason for my post. Well, two reasons really. One is to get individuals to place their emotions under God’s mantle (so to speak) during this process. Second is to get young Christians to truly discern Marriage and whom they are Marrying.
The Catholic Church takes Marriage seriously and Biblically. I am sometimes dumbfounded by how many “Bible-believing” Christians ignore what the Bible says in regards to Marriage & Divorce. Many will say that one can break their covenant with their spouse, while at the same time say that one cannot break their covenant with God (and lose their salvation). Jesus compares His relationship with the church (Ephesians 5:31-32) as that of a Husband and a Wife. “What God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6; Mark 10:9).
If God has not joined two individuals to Marry, but they did so themselves with impediments or chose to be “Married” in an invalid form, then the Marriage could be null. This is what the tribunal is trying to investigate in the Annulment process. If a Marriage is valid, then it is forever “as the two shall live.” And just as one can walk away from Christ, it is not to be celebrated. And if one joins a covenant with a false god (or spouse) other than, he/she is committing an offense.
There are valid reasons to remove yourself from a violent situation. If a Husband is not honoring Ephesians 5:25, then the Wife may, for her own safety and the safety of her children, remove herself and the children from a dangerous situation. I’m not telling anyone they must stay in an abusive relationship. Could this Marriage have been invalid from the start? It is possible, but there is also a possibility that it was valid. This, again, is what the tribunal would determine. Whether or not an annulment is granted or not, you should still be Praying for the husband. For he clearly has disordered issues or addictions and we should will the good for him. I am not saying that you must put yourself and/or your children back in that abusive environment if the Marriage is considered to be valid. And in this case, you would not be permitted to be validly Married to another, because you are already Married (though one is not honoring his Marital vows). Because you are Married, it would make any attempt at a valid Marriage with another invalid. If your Husband were to pass away (and don’t get any ideas), then you would be free to Marry and assuming you are doing it in the proper form and there are no hindrances (and the one you are Marrying is not validly Married to someone else).
