Does the Church annul the marriages of Protestants and unbaptized individuals?
Yes. The Catholic Church recognizes Protestant, interfaith and civil marriages as valid in Catholic Church law. Once the Catholic Church recognizes a marriage as a valid in its law, then any question of invalidity must come before a church tribunal. These types of annulment requests normally occur when a divorced non-Catholic wishes to marry a Catholic. So, for example, when two Lutherans marry in the Lutheran Church, the Catholic Church views that as a valid marriage in its own law. Suppose the Lutheran couple divorces, and the divorced man now wishes to marry a Catholic woman. He is not free to do so in the Catholic Church until the Catholic Church annuls his prior marriage. The same illustration also applies to unbaptized individuals. Some national estimates suggest that close to 20 % of the Catholic annulments granted in the United States are of non-Catholic marriages.
Related Questions
- Do previous marriages of non-Catholics and unbaptized persons need to be annulled before these persons can be married in the Catholic Church?
- How do Protestants feel about Apocrypha...knowing the Catholic church defined the current Bible books?
- Do Protestants believe the Episcopal church is Christian?
