What if one (or both) of us has been married before?

If you are planning a wedding in a Protestant church and neither of you are members of the Catholic Church, a previous marriage may not be difficult to deal with, but talk with the pastor before you make final plans.

If you are planning to marry in the Catholic Church and either of you has been married before (even a civil marriage or common law marriage), you need to establish your “freedom to marry” according to Catholic Church canon law. Even if you are a well educated Catholic, you may not know enough to determine whether a previous marriage is “valid” or “invalid” by the standards of canon.  Talk with your pastor or someone qualified to help you with this before you make wedding plans. If you are not sure about who to contact, For Better & For Ever ® provides this kind of assistance as a free service.  Email us about your situation > Rob Ruhnke.  I may ask you to talk with me on the phone or meet on Zoom if I need more information than you already provided. However, before you send me an email read the rest of this page carefully to help you determine what you and/or you partner need to do to become “free to marry” in the Catholic Church.

A word of caution.…the following is rather complex. It is my attempt to explain what divorced folks need to know about the rules of the Catholic Church if they want to marry (again) in the Catholic Church. I am trying to explain something that is well known to canon lawyers….but not so obvious to the rest of us!!!!

IF YOU ARE NOT A CATHOLIC:

If you are not a Catholic and you have been married before ~ even a common law marriage ~ know that the canon law of the Catholic Church treats any former marriage as equal in value to a marriage between two Catholics done in the Catholic Church. This may sound odd to you, but if two people who are not Catholic marry before a Justice of the Peace, Catholic Church law gives that marriage the same status/value as any marriage that took place in the Catholic Church. If this couple divorces, and later one of them ~ who is not a member of the Catholic Church ~ wants to marry a Catholic in the Catholic Church, he/she will have to prove that his/her former marriage failed to meet the criteria of the Catholic Church for Christian marriage, he/she would do this by going through the Catholic Church annulment process (just as if he/she was a member of the Catholic Church!).

If you are not a member of the Catholic Church and are divorced ~ and want to marry a person who is a member of the Catholic Church ~ it may “come across” as unfair that the Catholic Church would require you to go through the Catholic annulment process even though you are not a member of the Catholic Church. If you feel like you are being treated unfairly by the Catholic Church, I can understand your feelings.  At the same time, when you understand that Catholic Church law views your former marriage as equal in value to Catholic marriages, you might decide  that ~ because your former marriage failed ~ you may want to make use of the Catholic annulment process to show that your former marriage was never a true Christian marriage. 

So in summary…..I tried to make it clear that the Catholic Church law presumes that all marriages of those who are not members of the Catholic Church are “valid” Christian marriages even if one or more of the individuals does not claim to be Christian! This may sound odd, but the point here is that Catholic Church law makes no negative judgment about the marriages of those who are not member of the Catholic Church…it considers them to have equal value to the marriages of Catholics.

IF ARE CATHOLIC AND DIVORCED.

POINT 1 – If you are a Catholic who is divorced, it is important to know that the Catholic Church law makes additional rules for Catholics! I explained above that Catholic Church law states that the marriage of a person who is not a member of the Catholic Church is valid as long as it is legal….for example, it may have been a civil marriage witnessed by a Justice of the Peace. Here I need to explain that the Catholic Church make additional requirements for Catholics, for example, a Catholic is required “to marry in the Catholic Church.” This phrase ~ “to marry in the Catholic Church” ~ means that the Catholic must follow certain rules that are more restrictive….such as, the marriage must take place in a Catholic Church or there must be a formal dispensation from the Catholic bishop that allows the marriage to take place in, e.g., a Baptist Church. If a Catholic does not follow the additional “rules” for Catholics ~ for example, gets married before a Justice of the Peace ~ then the Catholic Church law considers such a marriage “invalid.” Note, the marriage would be “valid” in civil law, but it is “invalid” by the standards of Catholic Church law.

Point 2 – Because of the additional requirements for Catholics, it can happen that a Catholic enters a marriage that is “invalid” by the standards of the canon law for Catholics. If this marriage ended in civil divorce, and the Catholic wants to marry (again) in the Catholic Church, it is not necessary for the Catholic to go through the Catholic Church annulment process. Why? Because the Catholic Church annulment process is for dealing with marriages that are assumed to be “valid” in Catholic canon law (which would include a marriage between 2 persons who were never members of the Catholic Church).  But in the case of a Catholic who entered an “invalid” marriage, he/she only needs to provide certain documentation to his/her pastor that will “prove” that the marriage was “invalid,” and then the Catholic pastor will assist the person to obtain a declaration that he/she is “free to marry” (again) in the Catholic Church……see the next Point for more information about the documents that are required.

Point 3 – So if you are a Catholic who entered into a valid civil law marriage ~ but this marriage was NOT valid by the standards of the Catholic Church for members of the Catholic Church ~ and then the marriage failed and ended in civil divorce…..if you want to marry (again) in the Catholic Church, you need to establish your freedom to marry by the standards of Catholic canon law. In order to do this you need the following 3 documents:

1 – A NEWLY ISSUED AND DATED Baptismal certificate. NOT the original certificate that your parents may have. The reason for getting a newly issued certificate is that, when you marry in the Catholic Church, the information about your marriage is sent back to the place of your baptism and is recorded in the baptismal register. Whenever a NEWLY ISSUED COPY of the Baptismal certificate is made a special form is used which has places for the baptismal information AND ALSO information about Confirmation and Marriage that has been recorded in the baptismal record. If a person was married in the Church, this information will be included on the NEWLY ISSUED COPY. If a person was not married in the Church, the space for recording the information about the marriage will include a notation of “no information” and this is part of the “proof” that the person was not married in the Catholic Church.

This newly issued certificate has to be obtained from the parish where you were baptized. It is possible they will not mail it to you but only to the priest (this is to make sure that no one tries to alter the document).

2 – The marriage registration for your first marriage. This will provide evidence about where the marriage took place and who was the official witness of the marriage (this is another part of the proof that the marriage did not take place in the Catholic Church and was not witnessed by a Catholic priest).

3 – The divorce decree which will prove that you are free to marry again in civil law.

When you have these 3 documents (perhaps the baptismal certificate will be mailed to the priest), then you set up a meeting with the priest to fill out a standard form into which he will copy all of the information in these documents. He will also ask you a number of questions that you must answers under oath, such as, was your marriage ever validated in the Catholic Church? It is possible to re-establish the former marriage? Have all the conditions of the civil divorce been taking care of?…such as child support. When this form is completed and the priest is confident that the answers given to the previous questions are appropriate, then he can assure you that you are indeed free to marry (again) in the Catholic Church. [Note. In some dioceses the pastor will have to send this form to the diocesan Tribunal and they will do the processing.]

Point 4 – In addition to what I said above, it is important to add that you may need to know more than what I wrote here. I talked about a situation in which a person was married once before to a person who was “free to marry” by the rules of the Catholic Church. But if you were married more than once ~ or if any of your former partner(s) were previously married ~ this will be critical information that may radically change how the Catholic Church will deal with your situation. In some cases, it may be to your advantage that you or a former spouse was previously married! My critical point here is that you need to provide not only information about your former marriage, but also any previous marriage(s) of yourself or your former partner(s).

Point 5- I highly recommend that you consider ordering my marriage preparation book > For Better & For Ever ®……order 1 "packet" ~ that include two copies ~ one for each of you. It has tons of information. And it can serve as your formal marriage preparation program, I would be happy to talk to your priest about this if he is not familiar with For Better & For Ever ®.

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