Expert: Griff Ruby - 10/3/2008

Question
My parents divorced about two years ago after being married for 24 years. My
mother was raised Catholic and my father was raised Presbyterian. They did
have a Catholic wedding. Shortly after the divorce my father started seeing
someone and very quickly was remarried. His new wife is Catholic and wishes
to have their marriage blessed by the Catholic church, and the only way for
this to happen is for my mother and father to get their marriage annulled. My
mom does not wish to do so, for it would leave my brother and I as
illegitimate children. My dad went to the Archdiocese  of Los Angeles to help
with the annulment, but my mom does not wish for it to be annulled. So here
is my question, how is a Presbyterian man
supposed to have a say so with the Catholic church and a Catholic marriage.
Granted it is his past marriage, but shouldn't the actual Catholic in the
marriage be able to do what they please?

Answer
This is not a matter of which partner in a breaking marriage should be "able to do what they please," but about the fact that if they had a Catholic wedding, that means that the non-Catholic partner has consented to agree to the Catholic terms, which means there can be no real divorce.  It also means that the possible justifications for an annulment have already been accounted for and cannot validly provide any real basis for an annulment.
In short, what your dad is doing is something he has no right before God and Man to do, pure and simple.  He married your mother, who is still alive, and given the additional layer of investigation it takes to approve of a mixed marriage, one can be certain that correspondingly extra caution was provided to ensure that the marriage was valid, so there is no valid room for an annulment.
The sad part is that the "Archdiocese of Los Angeles" is about as Catholic as Anton LaVey and may in all likelihood be only all the more willing to grant such utterly gratuitous and frivolous annulments, especially in view of the utter lack of any valid basis for one.  If only King Henry VIII of England could have applied to them he could have gotten all the annulments he ever could have wanted.  What he is doing not only wrongs your mother and you and your brother, but also even the "other woman" he is shacking up with.  He has gotten her hopes up when in fact he is in no position to deliver on his promises to her.
By all means, do try, with your mother, to get in a word to the Archdiocese to recommend against any annulment - give them a chance to redeem themselves (in case they might - you never know).  If that doesn't work, what I am about to recommend here is no more low than what he is doing in abandoning his family for some new fling of his.  Discuss this with your mother and brother of course before ever actually doing it, also bearing in mind that he might cut you or them out of his will, or never want to see you or them again, but these are risks one takes in trying to urge a person back into behaving honorably.  Here is the idea:  Go to the other woman your dad is leaving your family to be with.  Simply explain to her that any man who would leave his own family is not the sort of man a woman should want to get involved with.  If you do this daring approach (and only if the Archdiocese path fails, and with agreement and support of mother and brother, or even one of them might be the one to go and do it), bear in mind that it is if anything the other woman you are doing a favor.  A man willing to do such a thing is not a man worth getting back nor worth having, and even an "other woman" can often be quite smart about these sorts of things, especially once they are explained.
However, as to the concern about being "illegitimate children," even if the annulment pushes through you are not, and in any case this is no longer Feudal times when such things deprived said children of inheritance or other rights or privileges of any kind.  Only any specific change made in his will would change that.  For what it may still be worth, you are still legitimate children no matter what the Archdiocese may say, be it with you or against you.  That really shouldn't even be your first, or even second concern.  His rehabilitation, if it can be brought to happen, should be your first priority, and I give my above advice on the fact that even if he doesn't listen to you or to your mother (as obviously he does not), at least he might listen to his new honey.  If he cannot or will not reform his life, then the next duty is to protect your mother and brother, and even his new honey (to what extent she is willing to listen) as well from his dishonorable conduct.
True love for a person always seeks for their honorability, that they should do what they know to be right, and not whatever pleases them, and it must be given selflessly, knowing that you could lose all for doing the right thing, and for doing what you can to force him into returning to doing the right thing.  True love says "I don't care what happens to me; I won't let you do this to yourself."  For in doing this, no matter how much he hurts you or your mother or brother, or even the other woman, he is hurting himself most of all.  But if he no longer cares, if the annulment goes through, if the other woman doesn't mind being in a fictional marriage to someone who could psychopathically abandon his own family, you must let them go to wallow in their sin and he is almost as if dead to you.  Life can deal such blows at times and if it does, it won't do to just "accept it" and pretend all is well just to "get along" with him.
Forgive him of course, but by that I only mean that you do not go about nursing hatred for him in your heart; place him "in the hands of God, and it is for God to deal with him."  "Forgive him" does not mean to accept what he has done nor to admit him, with his new honey, into your family circle, only that you don't go around holding a grudge.  And of course if he does free the other woman to go and get for herself a real husband and return to his family then by all means the forgiveness must be total and in that case you do welcome him back to your family circle.