Posted on 01/26/2009 5:35:29 PM PST by Salvation
You are a rare specimen: a mature adult.
There are so many details with an annulment.
Did either of the wives really want to be married?
Did the really want to have children?
If your answer to either of those questions is “NO”, then you have a very simple “lack of form” annulment.
Then it gets more complicated from there.
Did you have church weddings or were you married by a Justice of the Peace or a mayor, etc. Those civil marriages are not recognized by the church and are also easy annulments.
Like I said, there are so many ins and outs on this subject. If you still desire to be a Catholic I suggest you find a Catholic priest who is knowledgeable in this area; he will help you walk through the process.
Yeah, in many dioceses you have to pay for the considerable time and work that go into an annulment. I don't like it, but I think it's not fair to characterize it as paying for the annulment. You want something that's involved, SOMEBODY's paying for the people doing the work.
(2) If I go to Christ and ask for forgiveness for being an adulterer, ...
But, strictly speaking, you are saying that you are not going to stop committing the sin. It's hard to reconcile that with your saying it's a sin.
Yeah, we all know when we go to confession, that we're probably going to do whatever we confessed again, and distressingly soon too.
But here's a case where you have a choice. It's not like swearing or eating too much. You have to do the work and pay the expense to get an annulment. YEAH, that's a burden, but you can do it, and compared to quitting smoking or something, it's not so very hard.
But if you don't mean to do it, then your act of contrition in confession is patently insincere. And that's not good for you.
And as to your earlier question, for quite some time now the Church has left questions of the legitimacy of offspring to the state. In the state's eyes you and your current wife were married before. The children are "legitimate". There's no problem.
But in the Church's eyes, either you were not married before or you are not married now.
This is all pretty straightforward. The basis for it is biblical. Either there was fornication before or there is adultery now. So that's the problem.
This isn't personal. It's just an effort to explain what's going on.
That reason has to come from your heart. I would suggest your read some stories about converts. You might identify with one and the “reason” would virtually jump off the page at you.
For some Yankees I would recommend Them'uns.
Sounds a bit redneck...
You say that like it's a bad thing ....
There you go agin, lyin' through yer tooth.
;-)
No Catholic fails because of divorce. Maybe mistakes were made, but that doesn’t mean your faith has failed.
Sit down with a priest and talk to see if you can start back on the journey toward receiving the Eucharist. You might be surprised.
From what my local parish has told me, in the eyes of the church, I am not married now.
And again, I do not disagree with the Catholic Church or the positions they hold, but their positions I can not abide by or that I find too restrictive, Granted, it is a state by state position, but isn't that in and of itself a contradiction? I mean, it's right or wrong, right? So I am left with a choice.
Many may not agree with my choice, but I will leave it to God to decide. So, if the Catholic Church considers me to be an adulterer because I have divorced and remarried, so be it,I'll let God decide that. After all, Maryland may but Pennsylvania may not? Again, God knows me better than all and I'll let him decide before any one human or board of them (with or without fees) does. So be it (Amen)
When I was a musician, I used to play in a bar where we used to say:
” The patrons had tatoos and were missing their front teeth, and that was just the women”
To which, I would reply, “Someday I’m gonna marry that girl!”
Well the Ol' Mizris says she really wanted to right up until she was. But by then it was too late.
Serious, Wha'? here. State by state or diocese by diocese? It sounds like you almost fell into the teeth of the Catholic machine. Others are tired of my saying it, but the old line is, "I don't believe in organized religion; I'm a Catholic."
Many may not agree with my choice, but I will leave it to God to decide.
Always a good idea. Well, FWIW, my advice is keep nagging Him about it.
before any one human or board of them (with or without fees)
And that would be one of the things to nag him about. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," which is to say, the Church thinks of itself (rightly IMHO) as having apostolic authority and the gifts necessary to exercise that authority. ON the other hand, few humans are so very human as a bunch of ecclesiastical bureaucrats. It is as true in the Church as in the world that 100 IQ is average.
It is always appropriate to nag God. Remember the widow.
LOL!
See thar? Ifn you HAD up 'n married her, we prob'ly woudn' be havin' this conversation.
Hush up and pass me one them ham biscuits, wouldja?
A good book to read about the subject
http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/
Only if you want to believe a bunch of ignorance.
That is true of a great many churches/denominations. People who just show up because it is the thing to do.
Membership in any corporation will not provide salvation.shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach AdonaiOnly by calling His NAME will provide salvation.
His NAME is Yah'shua
which in G-d's language means:
YHvH is my salvation.Salvation is from YHvH.
I am currently going through the annullment process. For me it is "easy" because I married a divorced Catholic against the advice of several people including a priest. We were married by a Justice of the Peace so it is about Canonical form. (ah, to be young and stupid)
His (my ex) first marriage was in the Church, his other three were in front of JPs. While he says he doesn't have a problem with the annullment per say... all other statements he makes say that he does. His complaint is that "they are suppose to be about forgiveness and people make mistakes". He has this warped idea that annullment makes children from the marriages illegitimate. Even ours.... As a bonus, my annullment should be final on what would have been our 25th.
OTOH, I know a non-Catholic who has been married three times, all by ministers.
The appearance to the casual observer is that non-Catholic clergy take the sacrament of marriage less seriously.
The thing that people really, really overlook is marriage is not a sacrament with the Catholic Church but a covenant between a man and a woman. Not a contract to be broken or renegotiated. Since we live in a society of disposables, marriage becomes another disposable commodity easily cast aside at the first sign of discontent.
Didn't you mean the opposite? It is a sacrament, and that makes it a covenant between the spouses and God, rather than a contract of two people.
The sacrament/covenant is not with the church but rather the people, the priest is a witness.
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