For a Catholic to marry a divorced person whose spouse is still living is, of course, problematic. One Catholic explanation goes as follows:
[I]f your spouse was previously married and has not received an Decree of Invalidity from a Tribunal, there is a problem. In such circumstances, you may not partake of the sacraments, including the reception of Holy Communion. We respect all marriages, even those which have ended in a civil divorce. Every prior marriage must be examined, since each is presumed to be valid with a lasting and lifelong commitment. Until it is shown otherwise through the ministry of the Tribunal, no person is free to enter into another marriage without the appearance or occasion of serious sin.It seems highly unlikely that Vaughan and his wife applied to have her previous marriages declared invalid, since the process normally takes at least two years, and one would assume that it could take at least that long or longer if two marriages were involved. But they married within eighteen months of meeting. In addition, tribunals do in fact examine the circumstances of prior marriages carefully, and the decrees are by no means a sure thing. One might expect the process to be riskier if two marriages were involved.
This must be another of the several unspecified reservations Vaughan had about Catholic doctrine while he was in seminary and in the priesthood. Er, where did the reservations stop? After he became an Episcopalian, which many former Catholics do following divorces and remarriages, we might think his wife's marital history would be less of a problem, although simply as a matter of good judgment, I would still question marrying a two-time divorcee -- I married late in life, I dated some of those ladies myself, and I can tell you, they have issues. That's why they got two divorces. The Catholic Church here is looking out for its faithful.
The question also arises: what is Vaughan's actual view of marriage -- indeed, what is his view of the sacraments? Holy orders are a sacrament as well, equivalent in the Catholic Church to marriage. Did Vaughan take his orders seriously? Well, he had reservations. By his account, he had them all along. The priesthood got him to the US, of course. It got him to the Archdiocese of Miami, an anything-goes sort of place by all accounts. Was Vaughan using holy orders for his own purposes, quitting the priesthood as soon as it suited him to do so?
By the same token, it's interesting that in the minimal information Brian Marsh provided at Vaughan's consecration, the ACA saw fit to mention, "He is a resident of Titusville, Florida and has one son." This of course is a tacit way of saying that Vaughan, by the time of his consecration, was divorced, although the marriage had been blessed with issue. And that, too, is a tacit way of reassuring anyone who might be uncertain about it that Vaughan is not, no way, can't happen, that bugbear of conservative Anglicans, a gay bishop.
Florida real estate records show that the house at 3295 Timucua Circle, Hunters Creek, FL 32837 was sold by John Vaughan on January 6, 2006, to Rebecca Vaughan, and sold again on September 22, 2006 by Rebecca Vaughan to Rebecca Vaughan and Amr Darwish. Rebecca Vaughan had had a career since 1980 as a speech therapist; Amr Darwish is a physical therapist whose business is located at that address. They were presumably colleagues prior to their marriage. The former Mrs Vaughan now styles herself Becky Vaughan-Darwish.
The marriage to John Vaughan was just one of four. What does that say about Rebecca's view of marriage? What does that say about the marriage overall? What does that say about Vaughan's view of marriage as a sacrament? If it seems possible that he used the sacrament of holy orders for his own purposes, could he have used the sacrament of marriage for the same, perhaps as a beard of respectability?
I ask this as a Catholic, of course, where that marriage seems to have involved serious sin. But even as a sorta-kinda Episcopal or Anglican priest, people would be going to Vaughan for marriage counseling. What kind of counseling would he be equipped to provide?
I note, too, that Vaughan's ACA home parish now calls itself St Patrick's Anglican Catholic Church. Catholic indeed.
