My wife's younger (adult) sister has become pregnant. She is 5 months along now.

The day she told my wife months back, my wife immediately counseled marriage-- marriage in the Church.

She was baptized Catholic, and confirmed (NO, of course), but doesn't practice at all. She flirted with Protestantism as a teenager because of their oldest sister who apostasized at some point as a teenager herself and sought to convert the heathen Catholic siblings (my wife always ignored those overtures, before we met), but I digress...

So she's a Catholic in the NO sense, at least the baptism is valid, but now we're 5 months into the pregnancy and no wedding, no wedding date.

My wife probably shouldn't have left it alone after the initial conversation, probably thinking her sister realized the gravity of her situation.

Anyway, her sister has made off the cuff comments about a civil marriage. She also claimed that they decided they wanted to get married *before* she even got pregnant. Either she's saying that out of shame, or he lied about his intentions as I figure if that was true (he intended to marry her) he surely would have taken her pregnancy as an opportunity to expedite his plans...no?

This guy, the father, is a piece of work. A manchild. He is probably nearing 40 and still fixated on souping up his car and his motorcycle. He's divorced about 6 years ago, so he cannot keep a promise apparently. He has two kids that he pays child support for, so there are real questions as to whether this clown can even support her and her child, but his financial decisions (the car, the motorcycle, etc) don't help anything.

He's got a steady job he's been at for awhile, but he's never gotten beyond an apartment and recently moved in with his married brother's family, so I'm wondering if he can even handle paying rent...

Anyway, I'm not sure if this guy would even consent to a Church wedding, or whether my wife's sister "gets it" and thus, the baby would probably go unbaptized...

Not sure what to advocate here: we are not sure what the point of a civil marriage would be(?) and a Church marriage seems unlikely. Further, what would a divorced guy do with either marriage? He has already demonstrated he'll cut bait when it gets hard. Would she be better off just being a single mother than a divorced mother, as we suspect she'll eventually be anyway?

Is a useless, irresponsible man better than no man at all?


Prayers please? And your thoughts/input? Please be charitable toward this girl. She undoubtedly made bad decisions, you don't have to point that out. Let's see with prayer and counsel if a good decision can come from this. I worry about this baby and she's not even born yet.

Iuvenalis, you're most charitable to solicit prayers. They are desperately needed and you are assured of mine.

The practicalities:
1.  Technically he's married.  Divorce is null, unless he was married civilly.
2.  As to the two of them being 'married' civilly, you and your wife are correct, what's the point?  Catholics cannot advise that, it is assisting in another's sin.

The rest is dependent on #'s 1 and 2.  IF he can marry, it must be in the Church or it doesn't matter.  But since you say neither are inclined to this, that's a long shot all the way around.
So whether or not he's a bum (and it sure sounds like it) is moot.  He could be the greatest guy in the world.

Are you and your wife able to take her in?  I know, that's huge on so many levels, but she needs protection now, and moral and spiritual support and guidance, and the child can be raised in a proper Catholic home.

When you think about  it, it's easy for us, isn't it?  Deo gratias, when we have a major crisis, we turn to to God, our priests, our Faith, and we find the answers and comfort.  
But for those outside the Faith, when crises hit, their dysfunctional lives become an abyss of chaos and pain.  Poor souls, the remedy is so simple.  

God bless your family!

Iuvenalis, I will pray for your sister-in-law, and Deo Gratias she didn't make the decision that's not hers to make! It would seem that even the NOrdo exposure did much more for her than may seem apparent right now. Whew.

Personally, I'd think on her situation as that of a single mother who needs the strength of her family and peers and most especially of the Saints' interventions that she may be fully converted into the Faith, so at the very least the baby can be born into the Church, with a mother learning (re-learning?) the Faith and raising a child dedicated to God in the Church. THAT will be her family: Church and child and her biological family (including you and your family). Definitely start with much praise and thanksgivings that your SIL has kept her child and WILL return to the Faith. This is the most important thing, that SIL and her child are in the Church. She'll find much support and many blessings for the good works she's done so far, and the great witness she's demonstrated.

Once she's back in the Church and has a Confessor, I believe her own prayers added to everyone else's can be directed to the the baby's father, who might agree to attend Mass, and be guided to conversion to the Faith. (This sort of thing strikes close to me because of my name Saint: God worked through St. Cecilia to get St. Valerian, surely aided by the intent prayers of Cecilia in her dire-seeming circuмstances, during which God appeared to her and Valerian.) These days, these times, I can surely see such a thing being ordered of God, as backwards as it may seem.

 

Plucked from elsewhere but I agree with this 100 percent.

Divorced people have messed up the one thing in life they are supposed to get right; marriage. How is it then rational or desirable to let them have a second and third go at it, despite the wreckage left in their wake. Which we then have to deal with.

Something weird is going on in the mass-mind. We seem to be having one long pity-party in the West. It's nauseating.

Wow, even though it is a common occurrence these days, it is such an awful mess.

The man already has two children from his marriage, this means a Church wedding is not an option because the man is still married. Getting married at all, before a judge or otherwise will only make two wrongs.

It is a terrible mess to be a part of, prayers for you and all involved.

His first marriage was not in the Church

Stubborn, your statement re:civil marriages is almost the exact ooppisite of what I remember reading.

Do you have a reference?

Stubborn is correct.  When two non-Catholics are married (assuming they are able to marry), whether it is by a protestant minister, a civil authority, a rabbi, a witchdoctor, or whatever, it is a valid natural marriage.  It is non-Sacramental, but it is still a valid marriage, and a civil divorce does not change that.  The only way a natural marriage is dissolved is by the death of one of the spouses.

The only circuмstance when marrying in front of a civil authority is invalid is when one or both of the parties is Catholic.  The only way a Catholic can validly marry is within the Church.

This is what I am saying, he was raised Catholic but his first marriage was not in the Church.

I still do not think that marriage would be annulled, mainly because of the children. I think the Church would sooner grant a dispensation and declare the marriage sinful but valid rather than declare the marriage null and the children illegitimate.

Suppose the marriage was annulled on account of the civil ceremony. Suppose the bum and your SIL were then married in another civil ceremony, had a few more children then after 4 years they divorced and had that marriage annulled.

Now the bum would have 4 step children, all illegitimate - and he could repeat the process 5 more times with 5 more annulments all for the same reason before he died and have 20 illegitimate step children, step aunts, step uncles, step grandparents, step in-laws etc.

I remember learning that this is one of the reasons that the Church recognizes all marriages as valid for the good of the family unit and society, so as to avoid all the "step-families" - you know, families with so many different "steps", no one even knows who their related to - which is the shape we are in today.

Even in the case of the Pauline Privilege, the couples are hard pressed to get permission from the Church to separate from bed, much less from bed and board, much more less divorce, even more less annulment.