Expert: Tom Schott - 8/14/2008

Question
QUESTION: I am a lifelong Catholic and divorced.  I am currently going through the annulment process. I am seeing a baptized non-Catholic Christian who was married in the Baptist church twice and is twice divorced.  If we want to marry, would he have to obtain an annulment for both previous marriages or just the first marriage?

ANSWER: Michelle,

He would have to obtain an annulment for each of his previous marriages.

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QUESTION: But why would the Church even recognize the second marriage?  From everything I have read, it seems like in the eyes of the Church the second marriage would not be valid since the first was never annuled.

Thank you so much for your reply

Answer
Michelle,

Whether the marriage was annulled does not determine whether it was valid or not. That is what the annulment process determines: whether the marriage was "sacramental," i.e., Christ-centered. So it's possible one of the marriages in a number may have been valid, hence the necessity to annul all previous ones. I know this is somewhat tendentious logic, but this is, after all, the Church, which is not always crystal clear.