It seems as though that my marriage is going to end in divorce.Believe me, not my doing, I don’t want it, and I was absolutely blindsided. Anyway, It will probably be a couple of months, he’s in C-school so he won’t be able to take leave until it is over. Once the divorce is final, do I need to confess it, even if I don’t want it?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
2383 The *separation *of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law.177 If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense.
2384 *Divorce *is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:
If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another’s husband to herself.178
2385 Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.
2386 It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage.179
177 Cf. CIC, cann. 1151-1155.
178 St. Basil,
Moralia 73,1
G 31,849-852.
179 Cf.
FC 84.
Canon Law (CIC) Art. 2.
SEPARATION WITH THE BOND REMAINING
Can. 1151 Spouses have the duty and right to preserve conjugal living unless a legitimate cause excuses them.
Can. 1152 §1. Although it is earnestly recommended that a spouse, moved by Christian charity and concerned for the good of the family, not refuse forgiveness to an adulterous partner and not disrupt conjugal life, nevertheless, if the spouse did not condone the fault of the other expressly or tacitly, the spouse has the right to sever conjugal living unless the spouse consented to the adultery, gave cause for it, or also committed adultery.
§2. Tacit condonation exists if the innocent spouse has had marital relations voluntarily with the other spouse after having become certain of the adultery. It is presumed, moreover, if the spouse observed conjugal living for six months and did not make recourse to the ecclesiastical or civil authority.
§3. If the innocent spouse has severed conjugal living voluntarily, the spouse is to introduce a cause for separation within six months to the competent ecclesiastical authority which, after having investigated all the circumstances, is to consider carefully whether the innocent spouse can be moved to forgive the fault and not to prolong the separation permanently.
Can. 1153 §1. If either of the spouses causes grave mental or physical danger to the other spouse or to the offspring or otherwise renders common life too difficult, that spouse gives the other a legitimate cause for leaving, either by decree of the local ordinary or even on his or her own authority if there is danger in delay.
§2. In all cases, when the cause for the separation ceases, conjugal living must be restored unless ecclesiastical authority has established otherwise.
Can. 1154 After the separation of the spouses has taken place, the adequate support and education of the children must always be suitably provided.
Can. 1155 The innocent spouse laudably can readmit the other spouse to conjugal life; in this case the innocent spouse renounces the right to separate.
Military life can seriously s*ck sometimes… and part of that is the culture of divorce. I don’t know how many times I found myself crying and on my knees for a friend. And more than once for my husband and I. (Although, miracle of miracles, we’ll be celebrating 25 years in June.)