Catholic Church, Divorce, and Annulment

Q: My mom and dad want to come into the Catholic Church, but the priest says they can’t until my mom gets her first marriage annulled. Is an annulment like a Catholic divorce?

A: The same situation happened with my parents. They explained to me that an annulment is when a marriage is reviewed by a Catholic tribunal to determine whether or not there was something existing when the couple got married that would make their marriage null (lacking characteristics that would make it a fully blessed marriage in the Catholic Church). Divorce is a civil action. The Catholic Church does not grant divorces. An annulment is not a Catholic divorce. In the eyes of God, you are married till death do you part. However, certain conditions could be present that would have made the marriage invalid in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Therefore an annulment could be granted, and you would be free to marry in the church again.

Ashley

How to Answer the Questions of Non-Catholics

Q: I have some non-Catholic friends who love to challenge my faith and ridicule and put me down when I cannot answer their questions. What's the best way to deal with them?

A: Don’t listen to their ridiculing; ignore it. If you can’t, that’s okay, because if you’re willing to do a little work you won’t have to for long.

First of all, if you can’t answer any of their questions then just use the three most commonly used words (in my case, at least) in apologetics: "I don’t know." Those words? Yes, those words. But what are the words I don’t know without its counterpart? Nothing. So what you need to do is follow them up with: "but I can find out."

Then comes the hard part. Do the research. You can go and ask someone to help you come up with an answer to a question, like your parents, or a priest, or anyone else you think could help. There are also a lot of books you can read that can give you more information. My personal favorite is the Catechism of the Catholic Church (second edition, mind you). This book has anything and everything there is to know on Catholicism in it, and it is big, too big sometimes. Of course it has an index and glossary (believe me you will need them). See the bibliography in the back of this book for some great apologetics books. A good website to check out is Catholic Answers. This will be enough to get you started.

You probably don’t need me telling you this, considering you used the word friends, but I’ll tell you anyway just in case. When answering a question don’t get aggressive, you should be assertive, but even a little aggressiveness can make matters worse. Share the Truth with love!

Christian

Dating and Atheism

Q: I just recently ended a relationship with an atheist. While we were dating, I totally felt like I could convince him that Catholicism is wonderful. Instead, I feel like I’ve offended God. Was I wrong for going out with my atheist boyfriend?

A: I’ve actually been there and tried it. The problem with a relationship like this is that the other person may be willing to listen to your ideas about Catholicism, but will not come to see the love of God the way he or she should, not to mention the “love” that they feel for you. He will instead have a worldly perspective on the whole thing, and this is very dangerous, especially at a young age. I know that it seems like a good idea at the time, and you feel like you will be able to bring a person to Catholicism through this, but I strongly recommend a different approach. As hard as it might be, keep the relationship strictly on a friendship level. Share your faith and beliefs with the other person, and allow him to know the true love of Christ and what love is really all about. The person after some time will hopefully have a true personal relationship with God, and then it would be much more appropriate to get into a romantic relationship.

Tom