I found this on another forum. When it's all put down in text, it's clear as day how powerful the urge to marry is -- how God made men and women to attract one another. It really impresses you on how frail the flesh is, and how it leads so many people astray.


Seeking advice, please, concerning the following matter.

My friend, a Protestant, had started the process of becoming Catholic (he had been going to Sunday Mass for several years and knew quite a bit about the Catholic faith already). Well, he met a lady on-line. She was a Protestant and was in the process of a divorce (she was seeking divorce because her husband had cheated on her more than once). Although my friend knew, having learned about the Catholic faith and wanting to become a Catholic, that divorce was not acceptable to God and that divorced people are still married in God's eyes, he was enamored by her looks and fell into the temptation of meeting up with her. One outing led to another and soon they started dating. He then helped her in paying for her divorce .

A year into their relatonship, he ended up getting her pregant. Since he was in the military, he worried that he would never be able to see his child since the military moves him to live in a different state every 2 years. So, he ended up marrying her in a civil court so that she could move whereever he moved and thus always be in his new daughter's life. She moved in with him as his new "wife". Having studied the Catholic faith and wanting to be a Catholic, he knew that in God's eyes, their marriage was not valid since her civil divorce was not valid in God's eyes.

When I found out about all this, I told my friend that he had to move out the apartment he shared with his "wife" and get a civil divorce (for the legal aspects of it only, since he wasn't really married to her because she belonged to another man). I told him that he was committing adultery being with her. I told him it is better to be away from his daughter than lose his soul. Although he is very unhappy in the relationship with this woman, he said that he could not leave his daughter. I told him to go to an Indult priest for advice and told him that the priest would also tell him that he is in an adulterous relationship.

Well, yesterday, my friend saw the Indult priest. I was shocked to learn that the priest told me friend that he is validly married to this woman. He said that, since my friend is still Protestant and the Protestant religion is ignorant of divorce not being Ok with God, then when Protestants divorce and remarry it is still a valid marriage in God's eyes.

Firstly, my friend has wanted to become Catholic for many years and was in the process of becoming one. He knew the Churchs doctrine concerning divorce and he believed that it was thus God's law also. So for the Indult priest to use the excuse that since Protestants believe in divorce doesn't apply to my friend since he was not ignorant of the truth.

Secondly, man's laws can never supercede God's laws. Protestants who divorce and remarry are objectively committing adultery in God's eyes, even though, because they are ignorant of this fact, God will not judge them for it. This is how ridiculous the priest's rationale is: It's like saying the Aztecs who killed their babies in sacrifice rituals did not commit murder because their religion taught that them it was not murder but a gift to their god. Just because their religion taught it was not murder, it doesn't mean that it is not murder anymore.

Thirdly, if Protestants can divorce and remarry, then why is it that, say, when a divorced Protestant man becomes a Catholic, he cannot remarry again unless his first marriage to the Protestant wife is annuled? This only proves the fact that the Church considers him still married to the first wife or else why would he need an annulment if he wanted to remarry as a Catholic? So if he re-married as a Protestant his marriage would be valid but if he re-married as a Catholic now he would be committing adultery? How does that make any sense? What this shows is that the Protestant religion is making the laws concerning marriage and divorce and not God.

Fourthly, if it is Ok for a Protestant to divorce and remarry, then what is to prevent the Protestant from divorcing and remarrying 10 or more different times. Marry Woman A - she is your wife in God's eyes. Divorce Woman A, she is no longer your wife in God's eyes. Marry Woman B, she is your wife in God's eyes. Divorce Woman B, she is no longer your wife in God's eyes. So God is at the mercy of man when it comes to decreeing right and wrong, truth and untruth?

The only thing I can think of that this Indult priest probably went on was Canon 1099 concerning Annulments, which states:

For marriage to be valid, both spouses must agree to the absolute permanence of marriage. If one or both spouses entered marriage with an erroneous belief that marriage may be a temporary arrangement, that divorce was always an option, or that remarriage was always a possibility, this ground could be considered. The error could include the notion that marriage lasts only as long as the spouses decide, or only as long as they remain in love, or that the state has the authority to dissolve a marriage. This belief must have been firmly held, or in other words, marriage could not be conceived of in any other way than allowing for the possibility of ending or dissolving the marriage.

Well, wouldn't this mean then that every single non-Catholic on this earth who ever got married would not be validly married? Because only the Catholic religion believes in the permanancy of marriage. The rest of the religions, including the Orthodox believe in divorce. So this canon law makes no sense.

Please advise: Was the Indult priest correct in stating that my friend is validly married to a divorced woman who was validly married to her first husband. I know that there are a few priests who come to this site, so I would greatly appreciate especially getting their input on this.

It is hard to believe a priest would not know the Catholic teaching on this matter.

Once again, The Flesh

And the 'Church' made it so easy.  Who'd have thunk.

Yeah, I should have phrased the ending part, "yet still bring his modernism with him."

He was only following the canon law of his religion.

That was me! I posted the question there (and not here) because I knew there were a few priests who were members of that forum and I really needed a priests advice. Unfortunately, the moderator (who has a track history of banning people unjustly or shutting them up because he's adgitated by one innnocent word in the whole paragraph) locked the thread before I could get much input from members.

...Protestants who divorce and remarry are objectively committing adultery in God's eyes, even though, because they are ignorant of this fact, God will not judge them for it.

Protestants who divorce and remarry are only committing adultery if the first marriage was valid.

This is how ridiculous the priest's rationale is: It's like saying the Aztecs who killed their babies in sacrifice rituals did not commit murder because their religion taught that them it was not murder but a gift to their god. Just because their religion taught it was not murder, it doesn't mean that it is not murder anymore.

No, it's not the same. Marriage is marriage. An invalid marriage is not a marriage. You cannot have an invalid killing though!

Thirdly, if Protestants can divorce and remarry, then why is it that, say, when a divorced Protestant man becomes a Catholic, he cannot remarry again unless his first marriage to the Protestant wife is annuled? This only proves the fact that the Church considers him still married to the first wife or else why would he need an annulment if he wanted to remarry as a Catholic?...

No. It proves that the Church wants to investigate whether the first marriage really was a marriage or not, or whether there are grounds to declare that it never was a marriage in the first place. Annulment is not divorce. It does not change anything. It does not end a valid marriage, which only death can do.

I gather that, in polygamous cultures, a man who is converting, is allowed to choose whichever wife he likes, because he may not remember which he married first!

Really? the Church allows this? :faint: