Weddings and the Catholic Church

[mom2collegekids]

So, lets say Rachel and Jacob are both 18 and are from observant Jewish families. Rachel becomes pregnant. Jacob is the father and is pressured into marrying Rachel.He is very bitter about this as it forces him to drop out of school and go to work. The only reason they are marrying is that Rachel is pregnant. Rachel and Jacob eventually split and there is a civil divorce and a Get.

Jacob later wishes to marry someone Catholic and agrees to do so in the Catholic Church. The fact that he has a Get will not enable him to marry in the Catholic Church. If however he is willing to submit to the annulment process, the fact that he was pressured into marrying because of Rachel’s pregnancy means that he did not freely consent to the marriage and the Church would probably say it was therefore not a valid marriage. He could then marry in the Catholic Church. @jonri

While this is essentially true, It is really true when involving Catholic/Christian persons in a failed marriage as you described. But in the case of non-Christians in a marriage that fails, all of that is not required for the Pauline Privilege to be invoked so that the the non-Christian could marry a Catholic in the Church

The devil is in the details. If a Catholic marries a non-Catholic in an invalid marriage, then if they divorce, not only is the Catholic free to marry in the Church, but also the non-Catholic…Because the entire marriage was invalid.