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Why do people get ‘remarried’ in a new ceremony when they join the Catholic Church?
When one or both married individuals enter the Catholic Church, sometimes it is necessary for the couple to have their marriage “convalidated” — or, “blessed” — in order to be recognized as a marriage by the church.
In the Catholic Church there are two types of classification that determine whether or not a marriage needs to be convalidated when one or both individuals enter the church. First, a marriage can either be valid or invalid, and second, marriages can either be natural or sacramental.
What makes a valid marriage?
The validity of a marriage is based on whether or not there are impediments to the marriage in question — essentially, whether the right “ingredients” were used to “make” the marriage valid. The ingredients for a valid marriage are:
- Both parties entering into the marriage freely and unconditionally
- Consenting to, as promised in the Catholic vows of marriage, fidelity, permanence (literally “til death do us part”), and openness to children
- Not having impediments to getting married, such as being married already, coercion, being too young, being related to one another, being under a vow of chastity, or physically being unable to engage in sexual intercourse
- Following the sacrament correctly
If any of these are deemed to have not been met, then the marriage would likely be marked as invalid. If all are met, then we have a valid marriage.
Typically, marriages between non-Catholics are thought valid until proven otherwise.
What makes a sacramental marriage?
The difference between a natural and a sacramental marriage has to do directly with whether or not the couple is validly baptized according to the Christian tradition, which includes non-Catholic Christian denominations.
In the Catholic Church, marriage is considered one of its seven sacraments. From the Latin word sacramentum, a sacrament literally means “a sign of the sacred.” So, marriage is deemed to be a sacrament because, by the self-gift of the husband and wife to each other they mirror the love that God has for his people on earth.
A marriage can only be sacramental in nature if the couple are both validly baptized as Christians. Otherwise, as would be the case with unbaptized couples (or a marriage with one baptized and one unbaptized person), the marriage would simply be referred to as a natural marriage, indicating that the couple, by virtue of their identity and complementarity as man and woman, at least meet the biological requirements for valid marriage, even though they aren’t Christian.
When is a convalidation, or “blessing,” by the church needed?
A convalidation is only needed if a marriage is deemed valid but only exists in the natural state. So, most non-Catholic Christians who enter the church while already married actually wouldn’t need a convalidation of their marriage.
One of the most common instances for a convalidation occurs when a baptized Catholic becomes civilly married and doesn’t marry in a Catholic Church or in another church with a dispensation from their bishop.
Another common need for convalidation would be when a divorced Catholic becomes civilly married to another person without receiving an annulment (formally referred to as a “decree of nullity”) first from the Church. In this situation, an annulment would need to be obtained, then a convalidation would follow.
But, to answer the question more directly, convalidations of a marriage when a couple enters the Catholic Church almost always only need to occur when two people (or one of the two people) who were formerly non-Christians are entering the church.
The reason for this, and any convalidation, is to elevate the marriage to the status of sacrament, to lift the marital union to a covenantal relationship between man and woman, and to establish it as “an efficacious sign of Christ’s presence” as the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines it to be (1613).
A sacramental marriage is so very important in the eyes of the church. To quote the Catechism again:
“The consent by which the spouses mutually give and receive one another is sealed by God himself. From their covenant arises ‘an institution, confirmed by the divine law.’ The covenant between the spouses is integrated into God’s covenant with man: ‘Authentic married love is caught up into divine love.’ This bond, which results from the free human act of the spouses and their consummation of the marriage, is a reality, henceforth irrevocable, and gives rise to a covenant guaranteed by God’s fidelity.” (1639-1640)
