A reader writes:
My friend is an awesome convert, and is in RCIA, but being denied the rites and Sacrament because he is divored without an annulment. He is not remarried or engaged or even in a relationship. He is eligible for RCIA, is he not? How can I prove this to the gal who runs the program? She denied him the rite of election today.
First, that’s horrible. Your friend may be devastated by this, and you should do all in your power to console him and to set this straight.
Assuming that the RCIA director is clear on the fact that your friend is not married or planning to marry in the near future (you should verify that she knows this), the most expedient way to do set things straight may be to talk to the pastor of the parish, who presumably is better informed on this point than the RCIA director.
The Church makes no requirement that people who are divorced get an annulment before they can join the Church. That is nowhere in canon law, and the burden of proof is on the lady to show where it is. (It ain’t there.)
The reason that people need annulments after divorce is to prove that they are free to remarry, not to prove that they can join the Church. As long as your friend is not remarried (or engaged or in a relationship) then he has no pressing need for an annulment.
It may be advisable for him to pursue one in case he wants to remarry in the future, but the fact is that annulments are NOT a prerequisite for joining the Church. All kinds of divorced people join the Church without annulments. You only need one if you want to remarry.
I mean: Suppose that there is a divorced person who’s marriage to his wife is valid, so that he is bound to her and not free to marry someone else. Okay, fine. He can’t marry anyone else. But that has NOTHING to do with whether he can join the Church.
God is not in the business of keeping people out of his Church just because they are divorced. There can be very good reasons why a civil divorce may be necessary–even when the marriage is valid–and the Church acknowledges this (cf. CCC 2383).
Now, if it becomes necessary to get into the canonical details of this case (which it shouldn’t be if you talk to the pastor), here is where to start:
Can. 843 §1. Sacred ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who seek them at appropriate times, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.
§2. Pastors of souls and other members of the Christian faithful, according to their respective ecclesiastical function, have the duty to take care that those who seek the sacraments are prepared to receive them by proper evangelization and catechetical instruction, attentive to the norms issued by competent authority.
The clauses in blue indicate that if your friend is to be denied the sacraments of initiation on the grounds that he lacks an annulment that they’re going to have to cough up a law that prohibits such persons from receiving them, and there ain’t on such law.
You’ll also note that section 2 of this canon mentions precisely NOTHING about needing an annulment.
Further,
Can. 18 Laws which
establish a penalty, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an
exception from the law are subject to strict interpretation.
Here the blue text tells us that in order to bar your friend from exercising his right to freely embrace the Catholic faith, they’re going to have to come up with a law that unambiguously denies him the exercise of that right because of his lack of an annulment. The law has to be clearly do this in order to meet the strict interpretation test, so no trying to bend ambiguous clauses to come up with the solution the RCIA director wants.
Now let’s suppose that your friend is not baptized. What are the requirements of baptism for adults?
Can. 864 Every person not yet baptized and only such a person is capable of baptism.
Can. 865 §1. For an adult to be baptized, the person must have manifested the intention to receive baptism, have been instructed sufficiently about the truths of the faith and Christian obligations, and have been tested in the Christian life through the catechumenate. The adult is also to be urged to have sorrow for personal sins.
Ain’t nothing in there about an annulment if you’re divorced and not remarried.
Okay, so suppose your friend is already baptized and needs to be confirmed? What are the requirements for that?
Can. 889 §1. Every baptized person not yet confirmed and only such a person is capable of receiving confirmation.
§2. To receive confirmation licitly outside the danger of death requires that a person who has the use of reason be suitably instructed, properly disposed, and able to renew the baptismal promises.
Again: Nothing about nedding an annulment if you’re divorced and not remarried.
The burden is therefore entirely on the RCIA director to cough up a law that says people are to be barred from being initiated into the Church for this reason–and it has to be a clear law whose requirements stand up to strict interpretation.
Rather than hash all that out with her, though, the simplest thing is likely to be to talk to the pastor.
Please reassure your friend–who may well be devastated by this turn of events–that the Church cares for him and wants to facilitate his joining it and that the woman who denied him rite of election on these grounds is an idiot.
She is, however, an idiot who is trying to do what is right as she understands it, and that’s a good thing, so he should try to understand that as he prays for her to get smartened up.
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