'Till Death do Us Part?

This past Sunday, my wife and I were listening to Father Joe’s Country Road with Father Joe. I find his counseling abilities quite astounding to say the least. But that is not why I’m writing this post as you might have guessed by now.

To my shock, I heard Father Joe,(a catholic priest) say that sometimes divorce is necessary, (as in the case of physical or mental abuse). He has further went on to say tht even though a good arguement from scripture exists to prohibit divorce, that he feels that God would not want someone in a bad relationship to stay married. He went on to give an example of a woman who suffered from migraines for many years and after her divorce, the migranes disapeared.

I do empathize with someone going through physical abuse, and I do agree that drastic measures need to be taken to protect the wounded spouse and children, however the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1650-51, 2382-86 speaks clearly in no uncertain terms to the indivisibility of a marriage. The only exceptions mentioned are in the CCC 2383 which states

If civil divorce remains the only possible way of insuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritances, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense”.

You will notice the line “it can be tolerated” implies that divorce is not permitted, but that in certain very limited instances it will consider it. This was put into place because in certian cultures a woman loses her inheritance if she is seperated and does not recieve a divorce. This is not permitted so much as excused due to the extreme circumstances. In fact church teaching is quite clear on the issue. I found this at Catholic Answers which shows the the church's stand on the issue.

When Jesus came he elevated matrimony to the status of a sacrament. Any valid marriage between two baptized people is a sacramental marriage and, once consummated, cannot be dissolved. Jesus taught that if anyone so married divorces and remarries, that person is living in perpetual adultery, a state of grave sin.

He said, "Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery" (Luke 16:18; cf. Mark 10:11-12).

Paul was equally insistent on this fact, declaring, "Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. . . . Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive (Rom. 7:2-3).

In the midst of the Greco-Roman culture, which allowed for easy divorce and remarriage, the Church Fathers proclaimed Christ's teaching on the indissolubility of marriage-just as the Catholic Church does today in our secular, easy-divorce culture (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1614-1615). Other denominations have modified their teachings to accommodate the ethos of modern culture, but the Catholic Church preserves the teaching of Jesus and the early Christians.

While their ex-spouses are alive, the only time that a baptized couple can remarry after divorce is when a valid, consummated sacramental marriage never existed in the first place. For example, for a marriage to be contracted, the two parties must exchange valid matrimonial consent. If they do not, the marriage is null. If the competent authority (a diocesan marriage tribunal) establishes this fact, a decree of nullity (commonly called an annulment) can be granted, establishing that the parties are free to remarry (CCC 1629). In this case there is no divorce followed by remarriage in God's eyes because there was no marriage before God in the first place, merely a marriage in the eyes of men.

If, however, the parties are genuinely and sacramentally married, then, while in some cases there may be good reasons for them to live apart and even to obtain a legal separation, in God's eyes they are not free to remarry (CCC 1649).

This is not a commandment of men, but one that comes directly from Jesus Christ. As Paul said, "To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)-and that the husband should not divorce his wife" (1 Cor. 7:10).

So you can see Fr. Joe is plain wrong on this and the Arch Diocese of Baltimore is complicit in this as well. This would not go on without the knowledge and consent of our William Cardinal Keeler.