Before the rise of Citizen Donald Trump, it was hard to name a more complex and even bizarre character on the modern GOP stage than the thrice-married and pugnacious former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

Where to start? How about the popular political myth that, long ago, he asked his first wife to sign divorce papers on her deathbed.

You've head that one? Here is how the gang at FactCheck.org parses that:

No. Jackie Battley is still alive, and the couple was already in divorce proceedings at the time of the 1980 hospital visit. But she was recovering from surgery to remove a tumor, and the former House speaker admits that they “got into an argument.”

Actually, the fine details of that first marriage are, sort of, in the news -- linked to the reports that this third wife, Callista Gingrich, is set to be nominated by Trump (if he has a few spare minutes) as the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican.

In case you haven't heard, divorce -- specifically the issue of divorced Catholics receiving Holy Communion -- is a hot topic in Catholic circles right now. The Gingrich situation, to be blunt, could be complex. Here is how the conservative Catholic News Agency states the basics:

Newt and Callista married in 2000, after having a six-year affair while Newt was married to his previous wife. Newt converted to Catholicism in 2009 and explained, in an interview that year with Deal Hudson at InsideCatholic.com, how Callista’s witness as a Catholic brought him towards the faith.

He noted that he had attended Masses at the National Shrine [note: the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.] where Callista sang in the choir, and she “created an environment where I could gradually think and evolve on the issue of faith.”

At the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in 2011, he also cited Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 visit to the U.S. as a “moment of confirmation” for him. At vespers with the Pope, where Callista sang in the Shrine choir, Newt recalled thinking that “here is where I belong.” 

The key question here: What is the status, in the eye of Catholic officials, of Newt Gingrich's first marriage, long ago in Georgia?