Married Outside Of The Church

[homeschoolmom]

I'm wondering why the Church has people who are married outside the Catholic church (converts for example) have their marriages blessed? If the original marriage occurred in another Christian church, why is it nessasary to redo it? I understand that it is a sacrament, but so is baptism, but the Church recognizes baptisms of other churches... so why not marriage? And, if the Catholic church only recognized the blessing but not the original marriage, doesn't that make the children illigitimate and isn't that wrong if they were conceived and born within a Christian marriage?

It just seems that if it's wrong to re-baptize, it should be wrong to re-marry (even if it is the same ol' husband )

Am I misunderstanding something?

[Adeodatus]

Dear homeschoolmom,

If two unbaptised people who are married decide to become Catholics, and get baptised, they automatically receive the sacrament of matrimony when they are baptised. They didn't have the sacrament of matrimony before their baptism, but have it after. There is no need to "re-marry" them.

If two baptised and non-Catholic people are married, they already have the sacrament of matrimony. Becoming Catholic doesn't alter the existence of their pre-existing sacrament of matrimony.

The situation with a baptised person marrying an unbaptised person is like the first scenario. It is a marriage, but not a sacrament. The baptism of the unbaptised party makes their marriage into a sacrament.

[Adeodatus]

There is a situation I overlooked. A Catholic marries someone (Catholic, non-Catholic, non-baptised) in a civil wedding.

From the Church's point of view this is not a valid marriage for a Catholic unless they have received dispensation. So they have to go through what we call "convalidation"---their marriage is made valid (and if both are baptised, then the marriage also becomes sacramental). The convalidation is basically a marriage ceremony. The legitimacy of any children is not in doubt, because the couple had a putative marriage at least, before it was convalidated.

Maybe this is the "re-marriage" homeschoolmom had in mind? I hope I've answered your question.