Unity

[Donna]

Wait a sec...anyone hear of the phrase "baptized Catholic"?

As in, "I cannot attend Mrs. so-and-so's wedding following her divorce; because she was baptized Catholic."

I, a baptized Lutheran, was not bound by Church law...until I became Catholic.

[Apotheoun]

"Wait a sec...anyone hear of the phrase 'baptized Catholic'? As in, 'I cannot attend Mrs. so-and-so's wedding following her divorce; because she was baptized Catholic.' I, a baptized Lutheran, was not bound by Church law...until I became Catholic."

Actually, because Protestantism broke away from the Catholic Church, Protestants are to varying degrees covered by the Latin Rite's [u]Code of Canon Law[/u]. This is particularly the case when the canons concern principles that are founded upon the natural moral law, but it can even be true in other cases, i.e., cases involving the validity of the sacraments and other theological issues. As an example, if two Protestants were married in a Protestant Church, and either one or the both of them deliberately excluded the requisite intention of remaining in a lifelong marriage, or if either of them lacked the proper intention as it concerns the procreation of children, such a marriage would be null. Later on, if one of them converted to Catholicism they could seek an annulment in the Catholic Church. Thus, various aspects of canon law do apply to Protestants: firstly, because they are baptized Christians and their baptism unites them to the Catholic Church, albeit imperfectly; and secondly, because all of the Protestant ecclesial communities descend in some way from the Catholic Church, and so their adherents are associated with the Catholic Church's Latin Rite canonical tradition, whether they know it or not.