Marriage And Divorce

[Ellenita]

If non Catholics married in a protestant church, then later divorced, would they be able to marry a new partner in a Catholic church if they became Catholic? Is the first marriage and divorce recognised?
A friend was asking me and I didn't know the answer!

Thanks.

[cappie]

Two baptised people who freely enter into a marriage are considered by the church to have entered into the Sacrament of Matrimony.
Catholics are governed by Divine law and Canon Law
So a marriage between 2 validly baptised Protestants is considered a valid marriage just as the marriage of two baptised Catholics or a baptised Catholic and a baptised Protestant in a Catholic church.

The revelant laws are below

TITLE VII: MARRIAGE (Cann. 1055 - 1165)

Can. 1055 §1 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole life, and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between the baptised, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

§2 Consequently, a valid marriage contract cannot exist between baptised persons without its being by that very fact a sacrament.

Can. 1056 The essential properties of marriage are unity and indissolubility; in christian marriage they acquire a distinctive firmness by reason of the sacrament.

Can. 1057 §1 A marriage is brought into being by the lawfully manifested consent of persons who are legally capable. This consent cannot be supplied by any human power.

§2 Matrimonial consent is an act of will by which a man and a woman by an irrevocable covenant mutually give and accept one another for the purpose of establishing a marriage.

Can. 1058 All can contract marriage who are not prohibited by law.

Can. 1059 The marriage of catholics, even if only one party is baptised, is governed not only by divine law but also by canon law, without prejudice to the competence of the civil authority in respect of the merely civil effects of the marriage.

Can. 1060 Marriage enjoys the favour of law. Consequently, in doubt the validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven.

Can. 1061 §1 A valid marriage between baptised persons is said to be merely ratified, if it is not consummated; ratified and consummated, if the spouses have in a human manner engaged together in a conjugal act in itself apt for the generation of offspring. To this act marriage is by its nature ordered and by it the spouses become one flesh.

§2 If the spouses have lived together after the celebration of their marriage, consummation is presumed until the contrary is proven