Divorced Episcopalian/Catholic Marriage

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i hope someone can answer my questions; i have read most of the threads and have ended up more confused. i am a baptized and confirmed episcopalian who divorced a pentacostal man after being married in the episcopal church. i am still a practicing episcopalian and i am now involved with a never-married baptized and confirmed catholic man. we are just starting to discuss the possibility of marriage. i assume i must pursue an annulment and subsequent conversion if we are to marry in the catholic church. is this correct? can we marry as a catholic and an episcopalian without an declaration of nullity in the catholic church? is this a case where a dispensation would apply? please advise.

-- Alex (alexandriaramos@hotmail.com), June 19, 2003

Answers

Yes, if you marry this man you would need an annulment. You should go talk to a Catholic priest to see what you must do before you can get married.

Converting is not required. If you did convert I think that would be an awesome thing, but you can't just convert to get married, you must convert because you really believe that the Catholic Church is the One True Church. If you "converted" and didn't hold what the Church teaches that would be a lie.

-- R. (none@none.com), June 19, 2003.


Thanks for your response and I do fully understand that conversion is a serious consideration and separate from the future of this particular relationship. If I understand your response, I can marry in the Roman Catholic Church as an Episcopalian?

-- Alex (alexandriaramos@hotmail.com), June 20, 2003.

Alex,
If your fiance's bishop gives permission ["dispensation"] for a mixed marriage -- you can (as an Episcopalian) marry a Catholic man, and the sacrament of Marriage may be celebrated within a Catholic church.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), June 20, 2003.

I may be wrong but.... even though Alex is Episcopalian(Anglican) and not Catholic and because she desires to Marry a Catholic she is right in saying that she should persue an annulment if by that she means having her previous marraige formally investigated by a Church Tribunal, however there is no gaurantee that she would be granted an annulment, as the tribunal would issue a declaration that says in effect that either she was validly and sacrementally married and canot remarry, OR, that her "marriage" was not valid, not Sacramental and hence she is free to marry for the first time.

Also this process could take weeks, months or even years, my strong advice to Alex and The Catholic man is to get this process underway as soon as possible. I guess that as Christian's she and her former husband/partner did make a serious efforts to reconcile before coming to the conclusion that they had to have a civil divorce.

While this is happening perhaps Alex might also look into the claims of the Catholic Church as to it being the historic Church that Christ founded.

-- Anthony P (cdiscipulus@catholic.org), June 30, 2003.


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