We have all become familiar of late with the term dubium (plural dubia). It literally means doubt, but it is really a question seeking clarification on a point of doctrine or practice, and usually addressed to the competent ecclesiastical authority in Rome.
I have a dubium, which I may well send to the correct dicastery in Rome, in hope of an answer. It is this.
If a couple, who are living in a second union – that is to say, one of the parties has been sacramentally married before, divorced, and then married again civilly, with no canonical annulment of the ‘first’ marriage – if this couple, having approached a priest for the necessary accompaniment (as laid down in Amoris Laetitia chapter 8, and as interpreted, for example by the Maltese Bishops’ conference), and having decided that they may in conscience approach the sacrament of Holy Communion, if this couple then ask to have their civil marriage convalidated by their parish priest, what is the parish priest to do?
