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Can a man who has divorced a couple of times get married again in a Catholic Church in accordance with the conventions and teachings of the church?
I desire to ask primarily about the Catholic Church.
PS: This question refers to an ordinary man, not someone like a prime minister!
Both of the previous marriages of either a Prime Minister or an ordinary Catholic, would need to be found invalid by the Catholic Church.
The validity of marriage is determined by the following factors
Can. 1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.
Can. 1057 §1. The consent of the parties, legitimately manifested between persons quali-fied by law, makes marriage; no human power is able to supply this consent.
There must not be any impediments. Examples are inability to consent, a dispensation not being given, or the couple being too closely related.
The simplest scenario is a baptized Catholic who married outside of the Church without a dispensation. Catholics are required to follow canonical form when getting married and a marriage without a dispensation is not valid . If someone were to do this twice, and then revert to the faith, or wish to marry a practicing Catholic, they would very likely be able to get declarations of nullity for their previous marriages easily.
Note: They would have had to be received into the Catholic Church prior to the marriage they are seeking a decree of nullity for
Can. 1108 §1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. 144, 1112, §1, 1116, and 1127, §§1-2.
Also, less likely, but if their previous spouses died after the divorces the surviving spouse would be free to marry.
In the case of a twice-divorced man marrying within the Catholic Church, if that man and his previous wives were not Catholics, and neither ceremony was Catholic, then both marriages would not be recognised in the eyes of the Church.
If that man and his wife-to-be were both baptised Catholics, and their child was also baptised into the Catholic Church, and they were both parishoners of the parish in which they were married, then they would "have a right to the sacraments, and if they fulfil the requirements in law and properly enter into them, no one can stop them exercising those rights."
That quote came from a spokesman for Catholic Voices, as reported in the Daily Telegraph Monday 31 May 2021.
Yes: my brother was able to have a divorce recognized by the church, and subsequently re-marry. The trick was that the ex-wife did not want to have children, and that was grounds for the divorce.
It was irrelevant that neither did my brother, and that it was a conscious choice for both of them. The real reason for the divorce was entirely different but her stating officially that this marriage was going to remain barren was enough for the paperwork.
