Divorce and the marriage sacrament

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Le_Crouton

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Let’s say when a couple gets married one party believes that they would divorce their spouse if there was any physical abuse or infidelity. Let’s also say that for the sake of the argument the abusive or cheating spouse would not be remorseful and would not seek therapy or do anything to try to remedy the marriage. In such an instance, would there have been a marriage in the first place if the spouse that considered divorcing his spouse should such an event ever transpire get married validly in the Catholic Church? Would holding on to the possibility of divorce in such circumstances be wrong?
 
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I believe that the church recognizes that civil divorce may be an appropriate if regrettable step in certain situations. But one must approach marriage understanding it to be a permanent union.
 
Yes, going into the marriage with the intent to leave if problems happen is a deficit of intent. In such a case that could be grounds for an annulment. Note that an annulment is not a divorce. An annulment is a finding that the marriage never existed in the first place.

Also note, intentionally going into the marriage with a deficit of intent is a terrible thing to do. If you have a deficit of intent you should not be getting married until you resolve it.
 
Presumably the sacrament would still be valid, even if a spouse acknowledges the possibility for civil divorce or separation in cases allowed by the Church. As civil divorce or separation are allowed in some cases, intending to do as the Church teaches is not a deficit of intent.
 
Le_Crouton said:
In such an instance, would there have been a marriage in the first place if the spouse that considered divorcing his spouse should such an event ever transpire get married validly in the Catholic Church?
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It is possible such a person could not form valid intent— this would be error regarding the indissolubility of marriage, Canon 1099.

Please note, the Church allows for physical separation with the bond remaining. So it depends on what the person believes about the indissolubility of marriage, not what they believe about maintaining bed and board in extreme situations.
 
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I didnt say divorce is always a sin. Its not intrinsically evil. But it is a sin, for instance in a no fault divorce. Also, the Bishop needs to approve any civil divorce.

CCC on Divorce:

Divorce

**[2382]The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble.174 He abrogates the accommodations that had slipped into the old Law.175

Between the baptized, "a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death."176

**[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
 
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I pulled this from a poster on my above link:

"According to statistics the number of annulments granted annually in the United States soared from 338 in 1968, to 28,918 in 1974, to a peak of 63,933 in 1991."

So either we started to get so poorly catechized after 1968 in marriage preparation, OR the evil of No Fault Divorce not only hurt the family and state but it also put pressure on the Church to issue many, many more annulments.

I believe its the latter.
 
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LittleFlower378 said:
but it also put pressure on the Church to issue many, many more annulments.
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No.

It did create circumstances in which more people petitioned, because more people had a legal way to end their marriage. Lots of people in the past, women particularly, stayed in bad situations because they literally had no other option not because they believed their marriage to be valid.

My friend’s great-aunt was given to a man in marriage as a poker debt in depression era Texas. Yeah, not a valid marriage. [yes a Catholic, Czech immigrant. She was actually able to get away from him after some years, by entering a convent.]
 
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While that may be true for a few, but with radical feminism on the rise, it also gave way to more women who wanted to work and be free of family life. Men as well, with No Fault Divorce could commit adultery and get away with it from the state, where as in fault based divorce they could not. At one time . . . according to Servant of God Father John Hardon SJ, . . . who died in December 2000 . . . there are Dioceses where getting an Annulment was easier than getting the civil Divorce. He comments that in one Diocese, whoever petitioned for an annulment, gots one.
 
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