Expats with a 'second family' risk church's ire

Manila: Filipinos in Kuwait who keep a "second family" risk being denied Holy Communion, a Catholic church official based in the Gulf state said.

Kuwait Apostolic Vicar Bishop Camilo Ballin said many Filipinos in Kuwait fall into having a second family while working abroad.

"There are cases, I just cannot say how many, when a man is supposed to send money to his family back home in the Philippines but he has to keep some money for his other family in Kuwait," Ballin, who visited Manila recently, said.

One family allowed

Catholics are allowed to maintain only one family unless their partner dies.

There are an estimated 130,000 Filipinos in Kuwait and Ballin said some of them had taken another partner aside from the one they had been married to in the Philippines.

Ballin, an Italian missionary, said for married Catholics it is prohibited to get into a marital union with another person, "unless the marriage had been annulled by the church."

Thus, he said, Filipino Catholics who marry another person outside the existing union "cannot receive the Holy Communion."

"I don't want them to feel I sent them away from the church so they are allowed to come to pray and attend the mass," he said

"I understand Filipinos come to Kuwait to provide a better future for their family in the Philippines but please, if possible, for couples, don't separate because the risks include the possibility of having another family," he added.