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Dear Father Angelo,

I’m in another situation that gives me doubt and anguish.

I got married in church in 2006. I later divorced because my ex-wife went with another man. I have my own share of fault for the breakdown of the marriage, but I did not want to separate.

My parish priest at the time said that I was not at fault and could continue to partake of communion as long as I did not live with another woman nor have sexual relations with her.

Now, I have had a girlfriend for 2 years and we each live in our own homes. However, we have intimate relations.

I told her that since we are not married it is fornication, which is a mortal sin and excludes us from communion. That comes from the magisterium of the Catholic Church.

She says that we are on our path and, since we also have a vague intention of getting married, we can be at ease, because we love each other.

Where is the truth? Can we consider such intimate relationships, undoubtedly driven by mutual love between two people close to 50 years old, as a path towards marriage? In fact, you say that our situation is different than that of two young betrothed virgins.

Please, give me an answer. Thank you.

Kind regards and may God bless you.

Answer from the priest

Dear Son,

 Only today I managed to read your email of February 22, 2022. I am very sorry and I apologize.

1. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that “carnal union is morally legitimate only when a definitive community of life between a man and woman has been established. Human love does not tolerate ‘trial marriages.’ It demands a total and definitive gift of persons to one another” (CCC 2391).

2. Why so? Because sexual intimacy means that one gives oneself completely to the other one.

Now, it is not the sexual act in itself that establishes such mutual and permanent donation, but the conjugal consent which is expressed on the wedding day.

Until this mutual expropriation of one to the other occurs, the two do not yet belong to each other, they are not yet one flesh.

Furthermore, this totality would not be true if one did not also want to give one’s own ability to become a father and mother.

3. This is the reason why so-called premarital relations represent a use of sexuality outside of God’s sanctifying plan; they separate from God, from He who is the beginning and the end of sexuality and its expressions.

They lead one to travel on a path that is completely opposite to that of mutual sanctification which is essential for a pure and holy love.

For this reason, according to the teaching of the Church, they represent a serious sin (see CCC 2353 and 2396).

4. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that “those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time of testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love. They will help each other grow in chastity” (CCC 2350).

And that “fornication is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children” (CCC 2353).

5. Since premarital relations represent a serious sin, they prevent one from receiving Holy Communion without prior sacramental confession.

6. Your fiancée says that if there is a “vague intention of getting married” you can be at ease.

This is not the thought of the Church, which on the contrary states: “However firm the purpose of those who engage in premature sexual relations may be, the fact is that such liaisons can scarcely ensure mutual sincerity and fidelity in a relationship between a man and a woman, nor, especially, can they protect it from inconstancy of desires or whim” (CCC 2391).

7. But for you there is an additional problem because you are married before God.

Divorce creates the termination of marriage before the state, but not before God.

Jesus said: “what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Mk 10:9).

Therefore your relationship is not simply one of fornication, but of adultery.

8. The viable path for you is to verify whether the marriage contracted with your wife is canonically null.

If the nullity of your marriage is acknowledged, you can begin an engagement that in any case must be chaste.

Only chaste love preserves the faithfulness and purity of love.

I wish you well, I bless you, and I remember you in prayer.