Q: A coworker and friend needs help with a really tough question about canon law. This one has stumped some of the best canonists in our area.
My friend is an Anglican who wants to convert to Catholicism badly. He is married and was never married before. His wife was married before… she and her previous husband are both Fundamentalist Baptists (staunch anti-Catholics).
Obviously she needs an annulment for my Anglican friend to enter the Church. However, she doesn’t want him to become Catholic…. She is familiar enough with our canon law to understand that refusing to get an annulment is enough to keep him out of the Church. So she does this to try to force him to choose between the Church and her.
My friend is heartbroken over this. He knows the Catholic Church is the only true Church, and he wants in, but he is being kept out by his wife’s refusal to cooperate with the annulment process.
Is there any hope for him in canon law? Is there any way he can bring a case before the Church against her previous marriage, without involving her in the process? –Shane Continue reading →
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