A reader writes:
A friend of mine is catholic. He plans to marry a woman who is divorced from a man who abused her.
Okay. She might have grounds of an annulment if the abuse is a product of a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of the former husband about the nature of the marriage commitment.
She was married in a Baptist church and they don’t have annulments in the Baptist Church.
Wouldn’t matter if they did. The Church only honors its own annulments since nobody else applies the same standards that it does to this situation.
They have asked several priests and they say nothing can be done. That seems wrong.
It sure does.
If she were catholic and it is a marriage that would be given an annulment, shouldn’t the Church be able to grant some kind of annulment to her since her church won’t or at least recognize it somehow so they can be validly married?
It certainly can do this. The mere fact that the lady in question is not a Catholic does not prevent her from having a Catholic marriage tribunal examine the marriage and determine whether or not it was valid. Catholic marriage tribunals hear the cases of divorced individuals seeking to marry Catholics all the time.
It’s hard for me to imagine that the priests they talk to were ignorant of this point, it is so common in parish life. My suspicion is that there was a misunderstanding of some kind–that the question wasn’t put to them in a manner that would elicit the desired information.
I suggest that she simply call a local parish, state that she is a non-Catholic hoping to marry a Catholic and that she needs to pursue the annulment process. They should be able to help her get the paperwork needed to begin this.
That being said, there are no guarantees that her first marriage really was null, or that it can proven to be null. As a result, she should not be making any kind of definite wedding plans (with the Catholic gentleman or anyone else) until it can be shown that she is free to marry. Christ was rather strong on this point (Mark 10:11-12).
Hope this helps, and God bless!

