SHE'S A PROTESTANT Ex-Bishop Weds Divorcee SANTE FE, N.M. (AP) - James P. Shannon, former Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul, is expected to teach his regular class today at St. John's College here. He said Sunday he would remain in the church despite his marriage, but a former colleague said the nuptials automatically excommunicated him. MARRIED 3 TIMES Shannon, 48, and his bride, the former Ruth Church Wilkinson, 50, a Protestant who was previously married three times, returned here Saturday night, according to Richard Weigle, president of the college. The couple was married Aug. 2 in Endicott, N.Y., by a Protestant minister, the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle reported Sunday. Shannon then issued a statement to the New York Times acknowledging the marriage. "I do not intend to leave the Catholic Church. It is my spiritual home. I love it dearly and have worked to the best of my ability as one of its priests for 23 years," he said. But the Most. Rev. Leonard P. Cowley, auxiliary archbishop of the Minneapolis-St. Paul diocese, said in Minneapolis: "By marrying, he incurred excommunication, there's no need for a declaration of it." CHURCH LAW EXPERTS In New York, experts in church law said Shannon's marriage violated Canon 2388 of the official code: "Clerics in major orders and all persons who presume to contract marriage with those clerics automatically incur excommunication." Bishop Cowley said Shannon could still issue sacraments JAMES P. SHANNON validly but that such action was against the law of the church. He said the marriage could have been legal within the church if Shannon had "received the dispensation to marry beforehand and married a person who was free to marry. Mrs. Shannon was divorced from her third husband, who has since died. Bishop Cowley said, "I wish he hadn't done what he did because of the shock in it, but I still regard him highly as a person. A lot of Catholics are terribly shocked because they know the personal commitment he made." SOURCE OF SADNESS Shannon, in his statement, said, "It is a source of sadness and regret for both of us now that because of our marriage it will no longer be possible for me to serve the people of God ag a priest or as a bishop." MRS. JAMES SHANNON He said he had written Pope Paul VI to assure him "that I have no intention of trying to function as an underground cleric .. I have no intention of leading or joining any movement which seeks to hurt the church." Shannon owns a brown stucco home near the college campus, but he was not there Sunday. Shannon resigned his Minnesota post earlier this year after an exchange of letters with the Pope in which he took exception to church opposition to birth control. He has been teaching a graduate course in education and is to become vice president of the small liberal arts college next month. The college is not affiliated with the Catholic Church. The Rochester newspaper said Shannon took out a marriage license in July in Auburn, N.Y., under the name "J. P. Shannon," listing his occupation as "salesman."