Previously Married Nicole Kidman Weds Keith Urban in Catholic Ceremony
Celebrity Catholic wedding news:
Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman who is 39, married country music singer Keith Urban. A traditional Catholic ceremony at a cliff-top chapel in Sydney marked the occasion. The wedding took place on Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 5.30p.m. (9.30a.m. local time).My Comments:
Reuters reported that Kidman wore an elegant ivory-colored dress, designed by French fashion house Balenciaga, and sheer veil and carried a simple posy of white roses. Kidman arrived at the church in a cream Rolls-Royce.
Australian television reported that Kidman's friends, Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman, were among the guests.
Kidman had a very public divorce from actor Tom Cruise in 2001, ending a 10-year marriage. They have remained friends, sharing custody of their two adopted children.
(emphasis added)
This highlights one of the absurdities in how the Church determines validity/invalidity of previous marriages.
Nicole Kidman, raised Catholic and, presumably, with full knowledge of the Church's teachings on marriage, marries Tom Cruise, also raised a Catholic. However, because they were married outside the Church, their marriage is automatically void ab initio.
Now, you take Joe Protestant who married Jane Evangelical in a Baptist ceremony. Neither Joe nor Jane grew up with the benefit of Catholic teaching on the dissolubility and sacramental nature of marriage (i.e. without the same view toward marriage as Nicole or Tom). In fact, both Joe's and Jane's parents were divorced and subsequently remarried (thus, 4 sets of parents were seated in the front rows of their wedding ceremony). Joe and Jane were divorced 7 years later when Jane decided she wasn't being "fulfilled" by their marriage and left.
A couple of years after Joe and Jane's divorce, Joe marries Eunie Tarian. After 3 years of marriage, Joe and Eunie come to have a belief in the Real Presence and decide that they want to enter full communion with the Catholic Church. However, Joe and Jane's prior marriage is presumed valid by the Church.
So, Nicole and Keith can marry in the Church despite Catholic Nicole's previous marriage, but wannabe-converts Joe and Eunie (at least without the option of annulment) are stuck on the outside of the Church looking in.
I'm sorry, but that's just screwy.
UPDATE (27 June 2006)
From BBC News:
How did Nicole Kidman re-marry in a Catholic church?
How did Nicole Kidman, one-time spouse of Tom Cruise, get re-married in a Catholic church if she didn't have an annulment? Clue: she wasn't actually married before.
Nicole Kidman's wedding to country singer Keith Urban in Sydney at the weekend drew plenty of media attention.
But some Catholics will have looked on perplexed at how the former bride of actor Tom Cruise managed to tie the knot for a second time, in a Catholic church.
It was widely reported in the run up to the weekend wedding that Ms Kidman had received an annulment for her previous marriage - the Catholic Church's procedure for allowing a follower to wed again.
Father Paul Coleman, who conducted the latest nuptials, was said to have advised the Oscar-winning actress on the dissolution.
In fact, Kidman didn't need an annulment for one simple reason: in the eyes of the Catholic Church her 10-year union with Tom Cruise, a renowned Scientologist, never happened.
The original wedding was performed in the Church of Scientology and wasn't recognised by the Catholic faith.
The divorce granted to the couple in 2001 was a legal rather than religious procedure for Kidman.
So Kidman would only have had to have obtained a licence from the Catholic Church saying that she was legally free to marry and that the Church had not recognised her first marriage.
Not recognised
"The Catholic Church sets down requirements to have a valid Catholic marriage. In the case of Nicole's first marriage, those requirements were not fulfilled," said Father Coleman, who married Kidman and Urban.
Kidman had dabbled with Scientology and Father Coleman talked of her Catholic wedding in terms of a spiritual homecoming.
Annulment is, nevertheless, controversial in some Catholic circles. How can the Church rule a marriage never really happened, especially if it's been a long one and generated children?
The Catholic Church began to make annulments easier to get in the 1970s, adding a category of "psychological grounds", which includes "lack of due discretion" - in other words, an applicant might claim they'd not fully appreciated the responsibilities of marriage.
Today, this category - which also takes in "psychological incapacity assuming the obligations" - is the main grounds upon which annulments are granted.
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posted by Pro Ecclesia 5:52 PM
16 comments
16 Comments:
Jay: I see your point that it just doesn't seem "fair" but look at the facts from another perspective.
Nicole Kidman did not marry inside the Church despite her upbringing and access to the sacraments. She failed to create a bond of marriage. It should also be noted that she did indeed seek an annulment from the Church to declare that her first marriage, as was yours, was null. Given the bizarre twist to Tom Cruise's spiritual life, it doesn't surprise me that he failed to enact a marriage contract.
Now, lets take Joe and Jane. Reading the bible, and given their upbringing they read the same words that Catholics read - "What God has joined let no man put asunder". They enter into this marriage contract reading the same words that the rest of us Christians read. While the Church does recognize that this marriage isn't sacrament, they accept it as a true marriage contract with the intention of both parties to create an indissoluble bond. Now, had they made the marriage vow to something of the tune "as long as love endures" or some other crazy thing, then I doubt that the Church would declare this marriage valid.
When I was younger my parents used to tell some crazy stories about when they were younger. When we as children were shocked that they could be so bad, they would respond, "that was before we were Christian." As I grew older I realized that my parents were always Christian, and that this trite response was really just an excuse that allowed them to say "that was before we knew better."
Your stance on annulments is pretty much my parents saying "that was before we were Christian". I think we as humans DO know better than to leave our spouses and abandon our children. While I appreciate the fact that you as a Catholic now better understand the marriage bond, and God's grace in that bond, I still have a hard time understanding why people should not be held accountable for their actions and their decisions in this regard.
Marriage wasn't invented by Catholics or Protestants. There is not one culture that I can think of that doesn't have marriage as the center of its society. If you read Aristotle's politics, he says that the household is the very basic cell of a society and if this is unhealthy, then the whole society is sick. If the pagan Aristotle can understand that, then shouldn't we be holding our fellow Christian brothers and sisters to that same standard?
Further, I think that the sacrifice required by those divorced whether or not by their own fault can actually be beneficial both to their souls and in reparation of the horrors of divorce and other sins against marriage. The Church has a tradition of suffering that is redemptive, and that tradition should be embraced, not shrugged off.
"Nicole Kidman did not marry inside the Church despite her upbringing and access to the sacraments. She failed to create a bond of marriage."
So, Protestants are to be held to their agreements - they will be considered valid, but if Catholics marry outside they Church, they are not? That's the problem I have with this - Protestant converts are held to a higher standard than Catholics. That's crazy.
Let's ignore for a moment that Nicole married a certifiable nut the first time around. Let's assume she married a devout evangelical in a Southern Baptist ceremony with the same formula that Joe and Jane were married with in the same church on the same day by the same preacher.
It's crazy that Joe's and Jane's marriage would "count" but Nicole's wouldn't.
The Church may not have invented marriage, but the Church does have authority to say what is and what is not, in the eyes of Christ and His Church, a marriage.
I partially see your point about the Kidman-Urban wedding, but if you hold this belief about their previous marriages, why post another story about someone else who is divorced/annulled and looking for a new husband as being just fine? It doesn't seem very consistent to me. If it is OK for Carolina Cannonball to be annulled why don't you extend the same charity to Kidman?
You people are missing the point! I don't begrudge Nicole anything. The point I'm trying to make is that the person who is "divorced/annulled and looking for a new husband" was held to a higher standard in proving her marriage invalid because she's a convert.
Is it that hard to understand? Are you even paying attention? Or are you just trying to score polemical points?
Jay:
Its not as if marrying outside of the Church gives any Catholic a "free pass". Think of it, they are living in mortal sin. They can die at any moment and get a first class ticket to a very hot place. They cannot receive any of the sacraments, and cannot baptize their children. This is a terrible state indeed. They have abandoned the love of Christ.
I don't understand what you mean by saying that the Church holds Protestants to a higher standard. The Church holds people to the standards that they themselves profess at the time of their marriage. In Nicole's fictional marriage to the Evangelical, she KNEW better. She could have been married in the Church, she didn't have to abandon the True Faith and she KNEW that. Yeah - it doesn't seem that she is in a state to confer a valid marriage contract with her husband.
I imagine after entering into a farce marriage, the recovery for one's soul is long indeed, not to mention the harm that it does to one's children.
By the way, I'm simply discussing a matter of doctrine, and not meaning to make any judgment on anyone's soul or life by this discussion. I hope that there isn't some unknown hurt that I'm inflicing by discussing this with you.
Ooohhh, I see. I thought that this was a new discussion about a Church doctrine on marriage that grew naturally out of a particular situation. I didn't realize that we were still discussing whether or not a divorced person should state their freedom to marriage in the Church when talking about remarriage.
In that case, I think that any person who enters into a invalid marriage contract whether inside or outside of the Church, who then seeks to contract a Catholic marriage should state, for the sake of avoiding scandal that they are free to marry in the Church.
Further, I think that we should not equivocate divorce with a statement of nullity, again, for the sake of avoiding scandal.
Should we seek to clarify and better educate our fellow Catholics on the marriage laws of the Church - definitely. I think we all agree that we as a Church are sadly lacking in catechesis.
"I hope that there isn't some unknown hurt that I'm inflicing by discussing this with you."
Not at all. I mean, there's still the pain of failure in knowing that I entered a doomed marriage. But most of the scars have healed from that past experience. Thank you for your concern. Sincerely.
I see your point about Nicole not being in a state to enter a valid marriage with loony boy. And I agree with it.
But by the same token, I believe that Protestants have been conditioned to believe that there's an "out" if things don't go well. They also believe remarriage to be an option in the event of divorce. Can one really be said to be in a state to confer a valid marriage when such options are on the table? This is one reason I insisted that Sarah and I have our union convalidated by a Catholic priest after we entered the Church.
Catholics, on the other hand, enter marriage KNOWING what the Church teaches about the indisolubility of marriage. Which is why I believe it should be damn near impossible for a marriage within the Church to end in divorce and annulment.
No, Saxum1, this is a separate discussion. Anonymous just dragged the other discussion into this one as a polemical device.
"Anonymous just dragged the other discussion into this one as a polemical device."
uh...no... I thought all of the blog posts were supposed to be somehow related and was trying to see the connection between them. You seemed to be changing your postion from post-to-post.
I disagree that Protestants are held to a higher standard. They have read the Bible and have read what the New Testament says about marriage/divorce/etc. I assume that on their wedding day people do intend to marry the person for life (in fact, many civil ceremonies have the words "till death do us part", mine did). Why would someone enter into a contract that they have no intention of fulfilling? It doesn't make sense. For example, if I agreed to lease a car for 5 years, that's my intention. If I say "I do" to my marriage vows, then I intend to be married to that one person.
That fact that later on people can decide to divorce does not change the marriage act itself. The same is true for Catholic marriages-- the annulment is only about the marriage itself, not circumstances that arise after that. One of the podcasts on EWTN discussed this last month -- a woman's husband became abusive about 5 years after the marriage, but this did NOT make the marriage invalid. Instead, the abuse was grounds for a separation and civil divorce (to settle financial arrangements) but the two individuals remained married and were not free to date or remarry.
"You seemed to be changing your postion from post-to-post."
No I was't. What you read into my comments may have seemed inconsistent. But I haven't changed anything.
My position on this issue has been firm since the day I began my own annulment process several years ago, so I doubt that I've been changing from post to post today.
I will clarify:
(1) Divorce is abhorrent. God hates divorce.
(2) Divorce and remarriage = adultery.
(3) The Church recognizes that some marriages are void ab initio.
(4) The Church has authority conferred by Christ to determine which marriages are void and which are valid.
(5) Marriages entered into within the Church (or convalidated by the Church) should be damn near impossible to have annuled.
(6) Converts seeking to enter the Church should have a lower bar (but still have a bar) for proving a prior marriage bond to be invalid.
(7) Once a Church tribunal has declared a marriage null and void, and all appeals have been exhausted, no Catholic should question the validity of that decision.
(8) No one should ASSUME that just because someone is divorced and seeking remarriage that that person has an intention to commit adultery. Charity demands that you assume that person has done what the Church requires. If there is some doubt, the proper thing to do is admonish that person privately, NOT publicly accuse that person of being "still married" and having an intention to commit adultery.
I'm with you until you reached #8. For the sake of my soul, I hope that people rush to let me know if I'm putting my soul in danger.
Imagine this scenario. I'm running towards the edge of a cliff. Someone jumps out from behind a bush and tackles me to the ground, saying 'don't jump, life IS worth living for.' What they didn't realize, is that I was bungy jumping.
I would appreciate the tackle despite the broken ribs and embarrasment that I might suffer.
So please, if I'm rushing towards the cliff and the bungy jumping cord isn't apparent, please please please tackle me.
And you don't need to apologize for the hurt feelings and broken ribs.
Surely there is a distinction between the situation I describe in (8) and the one you describe in your comment.
I mean, my fact pattern lacks the immediacy of the situation you describe. Furthermore, Scripture specifically requires that the type of admonishment described in (8) first take place personally and in private, not publicly.
Jay - I guess one of my issues from the very beginning of this issue is that this isn't a small, tight knit community of people who all know and each other and know each others backgrounds and experiences. This is the internet, and the speed at which information both good and bad travels does carry along with it an immediacey that can be very damaging.
I missed an opportunity once to counsel a young woman who was entering an engagement with a man who was divorced, not unmarried, had three children already. I gave her the benefit of the doubt as you would call it, and assumed that she knew better. Afterall, she was on a Catholic website, she's a convert, surely she knows the dangers here.
I was wrong. She got sucked into this situation, got pregnant, got a civil marriage is now living away from the sacraments. She's now waiting for an annulment so that she can get married in the Church. I'm sure we both agree that waiting for an annulment is not the spirit of the law.
Surely you see the opportunity I missed here. Beyond this missed opportunity for this soul, the scandal of a new convert living with a man who is still married to someone else is damaging indeed.
While you may think that I'm puritanical, and quick to judge, I've learned my lesson with the above mentioned case, and I will not let another opportunity go by to do the same.
Yours in Christ and Mary.
Petrus, I certainly appreciate your position on the issue, and know that, despite whatever disagreements we may have on the matter, you're coming at it from the right perspective.
Thank you for your contribution to yesterday's discussion, and I apologize for any instances where my overzealousness in defense of a friend (either here at this blog or elsewhere) may have crossed the line.
God bless.
I have read the comments posted about this subject with interest. My husband was raised Catholic, married his first wife in a Cathlic ceremony. She became mentally ill and divorced him and has since died. He married a second time in a civil ceremony and was divorced. I was not raised anything but attended a Protestant church occasionally and I was married to my ex by a judge. My husband and I were married 20 years ago by a Protestant minister. Lately he has decided he would like to return to the Catholic Church so we have been attending mass and he has talked to a priest about how to go about being able to receive the Eucharist. The priest explained that he needed an annulment. Then the priest asked to talk to me, but had said nothing to my husband about me needing an annulment.
I went to the meeting and the first thing he said was that the Church had no jurisdiction over me, and then he handed me an annulment application. I was totally blindsided - most of my friends growing up were Catholic and they all said if you weren't married in the Catholic Church it wasn't a valid marriage. Anyway I talked to the priest and reluctantly agreed to proceed. Then I received a 6 page questionnaire asking the most personal probing questions and many that I felt were totally no one's business. Things like what kind of birth control did we use and for how long? Why is that their business -we weren't Catholic and were under directive not to use birth control. I told the priest that I was withdrawing my application because no way would I write down the answers to all these intimate questions. My husband told me I must do what I believe.
The priest then said sometimes non-Catholics object to the questionnaire so another way is thru an interview. I have an appointment to talk to a deacon at the Tribunal. I haven't yet agreed to go forward with an annulment, only to listen to what he has to say. But this whole thing doesn't seem right to me.
The dilemma of course is that if I do not go forward with an annulment, then I can not marry my husband in the Catholic Church and he is not free to receive the Eucharist which he wants very much to do. So do I let guilt make me do something that feels totally wrong to me so he can receive the Eucharist, or do I follow my conscience there by denying him.
Following all this to it's logical conclusion, it seems that if the Church sees us both committing adultery, then if my husband would divorce me and not marry again, then maybe he would be free to receive the Eucharist. Is that what God would want, for us to disolve a wonderful 20 year marriage?
It seems to me that if he goes through an annulment and does everything he is to do, and if I won't cooperate with my part, then why should he be punished for what I will or will not do? There must be some other way for him to be allowed to receive the Eucharist, besides either divorcing me or blackmailing me into doing something I do not want to do (and he will do neither of these things, because he is a good man and he loves me.
But because Nicole Kidman was Catholic and married outside her faith, she doesn't need an annulment.
The whole thing looks totally arbitrary to me - depending on how famous you are, how much money you have and which priest you talk to.
Confused.
I've been a Catholic all of my life and I love my church, but it needs to "grow up". It's rediculous that a person who remarries after a divorce is living in sin. Jesus died for our sins and she is forgiven if she truly asks to be. My friend was married in the church, divorced and remarried outside of the church. She is very active in the Catholic Church and now has married (after divorcing #2) in the Methodist church. She is having her marriage convalidated and all is well. It all depends on the priest in charge. Shame on our church!
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