Someone who is a practicing Catholic please explain how a married man cohabitating with a single woman and having children by her gets his marriage consecrated by the Catholic Church.
As a practicing Catholic this is a horrible abuse.
GOOD QUESTION,PLEASE SEND ME A ANSWER IF YOU GET ON.
GODBLESS!
It's a simple answer: Widowers are free to remarry.
Can't explain it. The onus is on Jodi because presumably, she's the Catholic. Michael is a Lutheran, I think.
I wonder if they said that part, "If there is anyone here who knows a reason why, these two..."?
Technically the confession and penance aren't even necessary to be married so long as he isn't already married.
He's not married. He's a widower. Perhaps he's converted to Catholicism (someone says he was Lutheran) and repented?
The new wife, however, sure seems to have placed herself outside Catholic teaching being divorced, knocked up by Michael, etc.
Were they continuing to live together before the marriage? Sure does seem something very strange here.
First of all, as others pointed out, the Florida Bishops' basic response to Terri's situation was "Buh-bye, Veggie Girl" --- translated into turgid Ecclesio-garble and modified only at the last moment when they were presumably under pressure from Rome.
Second, the fact that Michael lived for a decade with girlfriend Jodi while Terri was still alive, clearly demonstrates that he does not believe in the kind of fidelity which the Church considers constitutive of the Sacrament of Matrimony. A man who lives in bigamy/adultery for all those years and does not repent, is not capable of making a valid vow, because he manifestly rejects the requirements of the Sacrament.
Third, even in the case of common garden-variety fornication, the priest is supposed to tell the couple to cease and desist, and live separately for a period of time, to underline that marriage is not just an upgrade of a freelance rutting situation. Marriage is sacred and should be started on a "clean" basis.
You sense there's something a little unseemly about the Schiavo-Centonze nuptials? Then you're a better Catholic than Bishop Robert Lynch.
He was not married to anyone else. His first wife is dead, thus he's free to marry anyone he wants, as long as his intended is free to marry in the Church as well.
We may not like it, but there it is. He is the one who will have to answer to God for his own actions.
money talks. That is a bit much though.