Why Marry in the Church?

Only if the non-Catholic was baptized and married to another baptized person.

Good point. Here's two scenarios:

Non baptized person (divorced) wants to marry a Catholic. a) annulment still required? b) baptism required, if married in The Church?

scenario #2:

Baptized person, divorced from non-baptized person, wants to marry Catholic. Annulment still required? Or does the Church still recognize this marriage?

(no wonder this was hard work, Sink! It can get tricky, lol)

Only if the non-Catholic was baptized and married to another baptized person.

Two baptized persons are presumed to be in a valid marriage.

You may be thinking of the Petrine privilege, where a baptized non-Catholic is married to an unbaptized person and wishes to marry a Catholic. The Pope may dissolve the marriage in favor of the faith, to allow the baptized non-Catholic person to marry the Catholic.

There is also the Pauline privilege, where two unbaptized persons marry, then one decides to be baptized a Catholic. The Catholic decides to dissolve the marriage. The Pope can also dissolve this natural marriage, after a civil divorce.

Both of these cases involve non-sacramental marriages, so the Pope is simply dissolving a natural marriage. These are not annulments, but the tribunals do the paperwork to forward to Rome.

Non baptized person (divorced) wants to marry a Catholic. a) annulment still required? b) baptism required, if married in The Church?

a) Yes, an annulment is required. b) baptism is not required for a valid marriage.

Baptized person, divorced from non-baptized person, wants to marry Catholic. Annulment still required? Or does the Church still recognize this marriage?

No, but paperwork must be sent to Rome for dissolution of the marriage. See "Petrine privilege" in my post above.

http://www.catholic.org/cathcom/international_story.php?id=12606

2/8/2005

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 9, 2005 (Zenit) - "Dignitas Connubii" Clarifies Norms of Canon Law. The Holy See has published a new guide to help diocesan and interdiocesan tribunals in cases of marriage annulment.

Cardinal Julián Herranz, president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, presented the instruction "Dignitas Connubii" (The Dignity of Marriage) to the press today as "a sort of vademecum," a handbook.

The guide helps to interpret the Code of Canon Law, whose laws for the declaration of marriage annulment continue entirely in force.

The 219-page text, subdivided in 15 chapters and 308 articles, was written by the pontifical council with the collaboration of other Vatican dicasteries: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, and the Roman Rota.

"'Dignitas Connubii,'" says the document itself, "is intended as an aid for judges and those who work in the ecclesiastical tribunals, who have been entrusted with the sacred office of decision in cases of marriage annulment."

The instruction affects only the tribunals of the Latin Church (it does not affect those of the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome).

It states that "the right to judge cases of marriage annulment of heads of state is solely the competence of the Roman Pontiff."

In his presentation to the press, Cardinal Herranz explained that some observers are tempted to misinterpret "annulment processes," "as if they were simply ways to obtain a divorce with the apparent consent of the Church."

In this way, "through a clever manipulation of the causes of annulment, any failed marriage becomes null," the cardinal said.

The popes, however, Cardinal Herranz continued, "have shown many times the authentic sense of marriage annulments, inseparable from the search for truth, as the declaration of annulment is in no way a dissolution of the existing bond, but rather the verification, in the name of the Church, of the inexistence from the beginning of a true marriage."

Article 23 establishes that "all the bishops must constitute for their own diocese a diocesan tribunal."

At present, there are 800 diocesan or interdiocesan tribunals of the Latin Church, which address almost exclusively cases of marriage annulment.

The instruction is the result of extensive work, initiated in 1996, at the explicit request of John Paul II.

For now, the Vatican Publishing House plans to publish the text in Latin-English and Latin-Italian.

Thank you all

Marriage should be a sacrament, a channel of God's grace to bless the union of a man and woman...otherwise, it's just a contract between two people to give them a legal right to sexual exclusivity for the duration of the contract...not nearly the same thing.

The difference between a covenant and a contract in a nutshell. In a covenant persons exchange themselves to each other. A contract is merely an exchange of goods or property.

A covenant is formed by swearing an oath (sacramentum).

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