Annulment Nation | Jeff Ziegler | Special for Catholic World Report
The United States, with 6 percent of the world’s Catholics, accounts for 60 percent of the Church’s annulments.
Apart from the papacy, few doctrines divide the Catholic Church from non-Catholic ecclesial communities as does the doctrine of the indissolubility of a consummated Christian marriage. Eastern Orthodox Christians are permitted three marriages; King Henry VIII’s desire to remarry helped lead to the formation of the Anglican Communion. Martin Luther permitted divorce in the cases of adultery, desertion, failure to fulfill conjugal duties, and “where husband and wife cannot get along together.”
The Catholic Church holds that the teaching of Jesus Christ is clear: husband and wife “are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.… Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:8-12).
Thus, in 1563, the Council of Trent decreed that
if anyone shall say that the Church has erred in having taught, and in teaching that, according to the teaching of the Gospel and the Apostles, the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved, and that neither party—not even the innocent, who has given no cause by adultery—can contract another marriage while the other lives, and that he, or she, commits adultery who puts away an adulterous wife, or husband, and marries another; let him be anathema.
In our own time, Pope John Paul II taught that “it is a fundamental duty of the Church to reaffirm strongly…the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage” (Familiaris Consortio, 1981). He affirmed the discipline of “not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried,” adding that
reconciliation in the sacrament of penance, which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children’s upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.
Declarations of nullity
While most New Testament passages on marriage make no exception for divorce, our Lord says in St. Matthew’s Gospel that “whoever divorces his wife, except for porneia (unchastity), and marries another, commits adultery.” Catholic exegetes have debated the meaning of porneia for centuries, with the Navarre Bible explaining that “it is almost certain that the phrase refers to unions accepted as marriage among some pagan peoples, but prohibited as incestuous in the Mosaic Law and in rabbinical tradition. The reference, then, is to unions radically invalid because of some impediment.… They had never in fact been joined in true marriage.”
This explanation speaks to the development of the annulment, the declaration by Church authorities that a putative marriage never truly existed because of reasons such as consanguinity or lack of consent. In the West, popes and bishops were declaring marriages invalid in the early Middle Ages, with Pope St. Gregory VII beginning to systematize ecclesiastical court procedures in the 11th century.
Marriage is so watered down at this point. When is the last or only time it ever occurred to us that heroes of the Christian or sociopolitical right are/were in adulterous non-marriages: do we ever look at Ronald and Nancy Reagan, for example, through the gospel lens?
Posted by: Brad | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 09:46 AM
Yawn.
American Catholics have a higher regard for the letter of law than others. Some people get divorces, remarry, and continue in sacramental life.
Speaking of the Orthodox, there is only one sacramental marriage. A second marriage may be blessed by a priest, but it isn't considered sacramental.
The reality is that the average marriage today still lasts twice as long as the average marriage of 200 years ago. People can wring hands about declarations of nullity, or they can work to support marriages in trouble, to better form engaged couples, and develop communication skills for all married people. The second way is a better way to go.
Posted by: Todd | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 11:38 AM
"The reality is that the average marriage today still lasts twice as long as the average marriage of 200 years ago."
Ho-hum. People didn't live as long 200 years ago, perhaps that influenced the marriage stats.
But then, if we go back further we come to King Henry who wanted to get rid of a wife and named himself Pope of the English Church to do it.
I suppose if we think about it, Moses had the same issues with the Israelites, so what's the big deal?
Human nature hasn't changed so why attempt to live up to the standard Christ gave us?
Posted by: LJ | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 01:17 PM
"Human nature hasn't changed so why attempt to live up to the standard Christ gave us?"
Because it's a good thing to do. But living up to standards isn't just about giving a couple a list of rules on their wedding day and crossing one's fingers hoping they follow it.
What you're attempting to do is to apply a rational judgment to matters decidedly ir- or unrational. Is divorce a serious-enough issue to turn a Church or even a parish upside-down to help people get it right? Or is the Catholic Right satisfied to sit on its rulebook and stick out its tongue?
Posted by: Todd | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 02:26 PM
Hey, everyone, Todd is back! Brace yourselves for a steady diet of caricature, ad hominem, and misdirection. Fun, fun!
Posted by: Carl E. Olson | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 02:42 PM
Todd seems to believe that those he terms as "Catholic Right" are completely inactive as Catholics. This doesn't square with the many enthusiastic and theologically orthodox laymen and clergy I've encountered who are very active, including in marriage preparation and support for those already married.
Pointing out a problem and working to remedy said problem are not mutually exclusive options.
Posted by: John Herreid | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 03:17 PM
Because it's a good thing to do.
It is a good thing to do, but it is much more than that. It is Christ's commandment. Consequences, Todd, consequences, both here and now which are part of Christ's authority given to bind and loose, but more importantly, which those immediate consequences point to and are designed to help with, there are eternal consequences.
Oh well, it was a good thing to try to do, but we didn't make it. Whatever.
But living up to standards isn't just about giving a couple a list of rules on their wedding day and crossing one's fingers hoping they follow it.
Precisely, I agree with you totally here. If that is when the couple gets their marriage instruction, they are already in deep trouble.
Do you know when marriage instruction starts? When those two are still little children, watching their own parents' marriage, and/or the marriages of other couples in the Church. It starts with their own conversion of heart. It starts with their own catechesis long before they even think about the opposite sex. It starts with their learning about the imitation of Christ, about how to treat people they love and people who they don't like. It starts when they learn about commitment, to Christ first and to his Church.
By the time they reach the sacrament of marriage, about the only thing they should not have experienced about two people living together in harmonious holy matrimony is the marital embrace.
These days, all of that is reversed, and the only thing they do know from experience about marriage is having sex. Small wonder they are in trouble.
I don't know if there is such a thing as the "Catholic Right" on this issue, so I'll take the liberty of defining it. Let us say that "Catholic Right" believes in the entire package in that "rule book" and when they stick out their tongue most often it is to receive communion.
We must remember, the Lord did not give us any commandment for which he did not give us the available grace to live it. It is a matter of humbling ourselves to seek that grace, something else we should learn long before we reach the sacrament of marriage.
Posted by: LJ | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 09:49 PM
"Marriage is so watered down at this point. When is the last or only time it ever occurred to us that heroes of the Christian or sociopolitical right are/were in adulterous non-marriages: do we ever look at Ronald and Nancy Reagan, for example, through the gospel lens?"
Brad, how is this relevent? How is my understanding and commitment to sacramental marriage "watered down" or otherwise undermined by the choices made by Ronald Reagan or any other "hero of the Christian or sociopolitical right?" Did the article somehow posit "heroes of the Christian or sociopolitical right" as the saviors of sacramental marriage? Somehow I missed that.
Posted by: David K. Monroe | Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 08:28 AM
David, while your personal understanding and commitment to sacramental marriage may be ship-shape, our society's is not. Even closer to home, within the Church (forget about society at large!), it's not in great shape.
Recently I saw a reference to the adulterous marriage of the Reagans and I realized, wow! I had never even thought of that! I had always been impressed by them as individuals and by their long marriage and by its, shall we say, culturally accepted and even lauded status. I knew he was previously divorced, apparently over the mundane strain of career issues. But I have to admit, as seen through the gospel lens of Matthew 5 and 19, his second marriage itself was a sham. According to our Lord's words.
Point being that the people we hold up as paragons of virtue are not always necessarily so. We are all sinners, Joe Average and Mr. Beloved President, and what we reap is this nation has become the annulment nation.
How is that not relevant in a comment field?
Posted by: Brad | Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 02:06 PM
I'm not arguing that our society is "ship shape." The obvious point of the article is that it's not. My point is, who ever looked to Reagan as a "paragon of virtue?" I never did. It just seems arbitrary to insert Reagan into commentary about an article that points out the massive numbers of annulments in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world. It has nothing to do with the example of public figures and everything to do with priests and bishops who are obviously more ready to call "annulment" that which should not be called "annulment." They hold the keys, not the Reagans.
Posted by: David K. Monroe | Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 09:08 PM
David, I don't know your age, but if you never and in no way looked at Reagan as virtuous and you are at least center-right generally, I suspect you are in a distinct minority!
I agree with you on priests and bishops.
I do not agree with you in telling me that my points are irrelevant, arbitrary, and have NOTHING to do with this article.
Why are you so bothered by my comments? It's my comment. I don't think it's particularly outrageous. Does anyone else?
I mention Reagan as an example of our nation's hard-heartedness toward marriage. I don't give him any keys. He's a sheep among many sheep, and not a shepherd.
That's all I'll write about this. I don't like the feeling that I am squabbling in public.
Posted by: Brad | Friday, March 25, 2011 at 04:05 PM
No, I'm what you would probably call "hard right" but I do not look to politicians of any kind as examples of "virtue." They are either effective and honest public servants and statesmen or they are not. I don't believe that their personal lives are entirely irrelevent but being a atatesmen does not equal being an example of moral virtue, especially in personal areas that are not directly related to their office. I am not unusual in this regard. I think people on the left have a very distorted view of what people on the right side of the aisle think about politics and politicians. They seem to think that we believe that the politicians we support are infallible and sinless, and that's just not the case.
It is clearly arbitrary to, in response to an article about the failures of priests and bishops in regard to annulments, try to posit the personal life of a deceased non-Catholic president as an example of the breakdown in marriage. I doubt that any Catholic came to his priest and said, "I want to get an annulment and it's OK because Reagan was divorced and remarried."
What bothers me about your comments is that I think you are injecting Reagan into the discussion because you are trying to make a political point about a subject that transcends politics. As far as the dignity of sacramental marriage goes, who do you think did more damaage to it, Ronald Reagan or Joseph Kennedy?
Posted by: David K. Monroe | Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 07:46 AM