Dear Amanda,

I sympathize with you and your situation. You obviously are being drawn to God and to your partner (whom you have apparently been intimate with), and you know you will have to make difficult choices.

Difficult choices in our lives always serve as a test of our love for God. As with any potential marriage, one fundamental question must be asked:

• Does my potential spouse love God more than me?

All other things in place:

• If the answer is Yes, the marriage has a good shot at being a happy, fulfilling one.
  
• If the answer is No, it has a good chance at being an empty, lonely one.

Although the natural purposes of marriage are union and procreation, the supernatural purpose is to get each other to Heaven.

• Will this person help me get there?

A very important pre-marital question.

You are probably saying that if you knew these things earlier in life you would have oriented your life in a different way. Fair enough.

Now what to do?

First, understand that if you do marry this partner without his conversion it will be a non-sacramental marriage. Both spouses must be baptized Christians for it to be a sacramental marriage.

You will have to ask for a dispensation for something called disparity of cult, which simply means requesting permission from the Church to contract a natural marriage with someone who is not baptized into Christ.

The Church permits these non-sacramental, natural marriages, and blesses them, giving them the presumption of validity, however, the non-Christian must promise to raise their potential children Catholic and never get in the way of them flourishing as Catholics. The potential Catholic spouse must take a sobering look at the future and realize that the most important part of life, and of marriage, will not be intimately shared with a non-Catholic (worship, prayer, sacraments, theological/spiritual discussions, etc.). This loss tends to magnify itself as the years go on and the newness of the natural excitement wears off.

You are correct in assessing the unreasonableness in continuing a lifestyle gravely contrary to Christ and His Church while seeking union with Him in Confirmation. In Confirmation you are making the choice to live a Christian life, pleasing to God.

• Could you receive Confirmation and even marry in the Church while cohabiting?

The ideal would be to move apart from each other during the remainder of the courtship and engagement but some pastors may grant leeway if this is unreasonably impractical and allow you to move forward with the promise to live as brother and sister in all respects before marriage.

Please make an appointment with your pastor to talk about these things.

Continue to pray, asking the Holy Spirit to make things clear to both of you and to give both of you strength.

May your love for each other be pure, whether or not you eventually choose to become spouses.

Peace,

Paul

Hi Amanda,

I would only correct one thing in Paul's reply.

He said:

The Church permits these non-sacramental, natural marriages, and blesses them, giving them the presumption of validity, however, the non-Christian must promise to raise their potential children Catholic and never get in the way of them flourishing as Catholics.

For Paul's answer to be canonically correct I would change this to:

The Church permits these non-sacramental, natural marriages, and blesses them, giving them the presumption of validity, however, the non-Christian must be informed at an appropriate time about the promises which the Catholic party is to make, in such a way that it is certain that he or she is truly aware of the promise and obligation of the Catholic party.

See number 2° below:

Canon 1125 The local ordinary can grant a permission of this kind if there is a just and reasonable cause. He is not to grant it unless the following conditions have been fulfilled:

1° the Catholic party is to declare that he or she is prepared to remove dangers of defecting from the faith and is to make a sincere promise to do all in his or her power so that all offspring are baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church;

2° the other party is to be informed at an appropriate time about the promises which the Catholic party is to make, in such a way that it is certain that he or she is truly aware of the promise and obligation of the Catholic party;

3° both parties are to be instructed about the purposes and essential properties of marriage which neither of the contracting parties is to exclude.

Note that the other party makes no promise but is only aware of the Catholic party's promises.

Fr. Jonathan