Originally posted by: boggsie
Originally posted by: sarotara
Ok... My question is whether the Roman Catholic church imposes a time limit on the amount of time that is allowed to pass between a non-religious, legal, state wedding, and a religious (in the church) wedding. So, for example, if you marry someone legally in the state that you live in but you don't have a wedding in the church (assuming the Roman Catholic faith) can you go back any time that you want to and have a church wedding? Or does the Roman Catholic church say something along the lines of "you need to marry in a church an X amount of days after your legal state wedding or we will not allow you to have a church wedding after that time passes."
This might vary from one particular state/locality to another ... but
I believe that a legal and binding
marriage must be recognized/sanctioned by the government. This is why you most often have to get a marriage license. You can have a Catholic priest officiate over your marriage and it will be legally binding and recognized by the Church.
If you are only married by a govenrment official, the event is recognized as legal and binding by the state/locality. At this point, you are already married according to the rule of law. If you choose to go further and have the Catholic Church recognize the marriage, I am certainly not an authority, but I am not aware of any restriction that would prevent the priest from recognizing the existance of the prior marriage event and further asking for God's blessing on the marriage.
As far as officiating over another
marriage, I'm not sure that would be technically feesible from a point of law perspective. You are already married...