Divorce

[1ke]

Like I said before, he is guilty of nothing but gets punished for it. Regardless of how you try to justify it, the guy did nothing wrong.

Up until he remarried, you are correct he did nothing wrong. The innocent victim of a bad spouse. But a spouse nonetheless.

He chose to remarry and so now, yes he is committing adultery.

 

[muffindell]

Tantum, what you say about the Canon Law with regard to divorce. However you fail to hear what I say, this is law made by man, not God. It’s man’s (The Church) interpretation of the law which I question. Jesus held the the last supper for all, he died so that sins would be forgiven. It’s man that will not forgive, not God.
The requirements for anallment laid down by Canon law are flimsy to say the least. How can a marriage not be legal if you’ve been together for 12 years and had 2 children? It’s all a play on words. I don’t know what my ex-wife said about me in her interview, but I guess it wouldn’t make any difference to the outcome, neither of us are insane, we did know what we were doing when we got married.
Yes the RC church as turned its back on me, I’m not good enough to be a member in it’s club anymore through no fault of my own. I was brought up Catholic, served the church in many ways including a Popes visit to the UK, I was thrilled to see the current pope visit the church of Rome a week after he was made pope and received Holy communion from him. The church had become an important part of my life.
The UK seems to has a less liberal view than the U.S.A. when it comes to anullment, however the Bishop still took my money after reading pages of summited supporting evidence and said that I had a good case. My local priest is very supportive and was shocked to hear the outcome. I remember him saying that the church may of turned it’s back on me, but God will not.
I still live in hope that one day a pope (probably not the current one) will review the huge problems that the RC church faces in todays world and bring some up to date thinking, plus a strong sense of leadership and progression to the fore, something that I feel as been lacking within the RC church for some time.

 

[Rascalking]

Up until he remarried, you are correct he did nothing wrong. The innocent victim of a bad spouse. But a spouse nonetheless.

He chose to remarry and so now, yes he is committing adultery.

He sure is. I think he should have been regulated to either spend his life with an unfaithful spouse, hopefully get a horrible STD or something while he was at it, or lived in lonliness and chastity for the rest of his life. Oh? He’s only 23? Good. Even better. A longer life and hopefully a miserable one.

Yeah, we disagree 1ke.

 

[1ke]

I prefer my option to be as cruel as possible to him. Let’s be legalistic, and not show any compassion at all. It’s fun!

No one is being “legalistic”.

God’s law is God’s law. It cannot be changed. You may wish God chose to create things differently and establish his laws differently, but he didn’t. The Church can only teach what is, not what people would like it to be.

And no one here, and least of all the Church, is being *cruel *to the OP. His wife’s behavior was cruel. But she is still his wife.

 

[Rascalking]

And no one here, and least of all the Church, is being *cruel *to the OP. .

The Church could pour sugar in his gas tank, kick his puppy on his birthday, and then crash his hard drive and you’d still think they weren’t being cruel.



(and yes everyone! I know the church wouldn’t do that!)

 

[Luvtosew]

The Church could pour sugar in his gas tank, kick his puppy on his birthday, and then crash his hard drive and you’d still think they weren’t being cruel.



(and yes everyone! I know the church wouldn’t do that!)

unfortunately probably true.

 

[ValPal]

He is not being punished for anything. He freely and of his own accord made a vow when he married. So did she. She behaved badly during their marriage and made disappointing and hurtful choices.

That in NO WAY changes the vow. Bad behavior and sin on the part of spouses does change the fact of the marriage. It requires patience, forebearance, forgiveness, and work on the part of the spouses. When one spouse refuses to reconcile and change, that doesn’t change the fact that they are still married.

Marriage is permanent. Indissoluable. This is God’s law. The Church looked for evidence that no valid marriage occurred and did not find any.

The only thing punishing him is his own expectation that he should be able to “dissolve” the marriage and contract another one. He knows this is not possible, yet he wants to do so therefore he leaves the Church, remarries (thereby committing adultery) and comes here to tell everyone how “unfair” it is.

He made the choice.

A big underlying issue with all this is that most people don’t understand what a “vow” is. Nobody objects to “for better or for worse.” Ask the couple if the “vow” includes sticking together if their spouse cheats on them, and 99.99% will say no. The vow that couples actually make and the vow that the Church expects seems to be two different things.

 

[twoangels]

After 12 years of marriage and my ex-wifes second affair my local priest said that things could not continue, he suggested that I only had one option which was divorce.
Five years past after the divorce and I met what is now my wife. I went down the path of dissolving my marriage, being told that there shouldn’t be a problem and also relieving me of several hundred pounds in the process. The verdict came back that the marriage could not be desoulved, despite my ex-wife being guilty. Because of the outcome I remarried in a Cof E church to my lovely wife, have had a child and my children from my previous marriage live with us.

Marriage is indissoluble. Did the priest merely tell you this or did you actually go through the marriage tribunal to try to get an annullment?

I was always under the impression that God forgives all, that Jesus said those without sin can cast the first stone, that Matthew said ‘But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery’.

The gospel does not say marital unfaithfulness. It is translated multiple ways because it uses the vague word of pornia. The way I tend to think of it is that in Christ’s time, if say a raider invaded a city, killed a woman’s husband, raped her and started a family with her, it’d be called “taking her as his wife” even though there was no marriage contract. I’ve seen progressives try to rationalize cohabitation during engagement because they liken engagement to betrothal even though there is no marriage contract. When a couple is betrothed, they are lawfully married, but they have not yet moved intogether or consumated their marriage. Once they consumate their marriage, their marriage becomes indisoluble in the Catholic view. As such, while it’d be frowned upon to have sex before the appointed time but while you were betrothed, you would not be sinning. Whereas because you are not lawfully married when you are engaged, sexual activity does not consumate a marriage.

As such if anything I think the teaching is there to emphasis that if you “take someone as your wife” without actually lawfully marrying her, you are still free to actually marry someone else. You’re not suck married to the first person you fornicated with.

So I speak for many in this situation, why can the rules of mortal man overturn what God and others have taught us. This is another case of doctrum fitting the agenda to what is written. You could call it a misinterpretation for no reason.

You have to ask, aside from affirming what Christ taught, why on earth would the Church want to bar you from validly marrying a woman you have already formed a family with?

I cannot receive Holy Communion, I cannot have my marriage blessed in the Catholic church,

The sacrament of matrimony is not administered through a blessing by the priest. The ministers of the sacrament are the bride and groom. They publically exchange their matrimonial consent. The Church requires them to do this in the Church with two of their own witnesses and the witness of the priest who all legally acknowledge that they witnessed a valid exchange of consent. Their signitures thus indicate that because you were validly married, you are no longer eligible to marry another.

As such, when you submit your case to the marriage tribunal to gain an annullment, you are trying to refute what the priest and your two witnessed legally signed within Church law as “I hold that these two individuals validly married each other.”

It has nothing to do with what sins occurred in the marriage.

I am obviously a sinner, I’m obvously the guilty party, the Catholic church doesn’t want me; but I do know in my own heart that I have not done anything wrong, I know that God knows this and forgives me for what I have done. However the Catholic church seems to think that it is higher than God and does not forgive me.

You’ve done nothing wrong and yet God forgives you for what you’ve done? Honestly if anything the Church is rigidly following Christ’s teaching “Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

The Church does a lot to accomodiate people within what Christ taught. Do you think Christ invented marriage tribunals? You think priests and marriage tribunals are never trying to just accomodate people’s wishes by finding some legal loophole to declare a marriage invalid?

Priests do what they can and often I find them to be much more pastoral than I seem capable of being, but there is a limit of what they can do because of God’s law. So all I can advise you to do is talk to another priest and see if you can get an annullment.

 

[Luvtosew]

Christ said due to unfaithfulness one can divorce.

 

[1ke]

Christ said due to unfaithfulness one can divorce.

He did not say one could remarry.

Separating from the unfaithful spouse and marrying someone else are two different things.

 

[SummerSmiles]

Christ said due to unfaithfulness one can divorce.

Where did he ever say this? The only recollection that I have heard regarding this is when someone is asking Christ about the Old Covenant, because under the Law of Moses, this was allowed. And Christ replies that it was only allowed because of the hardness of man’s heart, but that a valid marriage that God has formed together could never be lawfully abolished.

 

[1ke]

Where did he ever say this? The only recollection that I have heard regarding this is when someone is asking Christ about the Old Covenant, because under the Law of Moses, this was allowed. And Christ replies that it was only allowed because of the hardness of man’s heart, but that a valid marriage that God has formed together could never be lawfully abolished.

Summer, The problem is not in separating. This may be necessary in extreme situations to protect the spouse, children, etc.

What does not logically follow from physcial separation of the spouses is that either are free to contract new marriages. They are not.

 

[SummerSmiles]

Summer, The problem is not in separating. This may be necessary in extreme situations to protect the spouse, children, etc.

What does not logically follow from physcial separation of the spouses is that either are free to contract new marriages. They are not.

Ah, yes. Good distinction which I forgot to mention. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Luvtosew]

Yep thats why he tried for an annullment.

 

[Luvtosew]

Where did he ever say this? The only recollection that I have heard regarding this is when someone is asking Christ about the Old Covenant, because under the Law of Moses, this was allowed. And Christ replies that it was only allowed because of the hardness of man’s heart, but that a valid marriage that God has formed together could never be lawfully abolished.

Matthew
But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

 

[Winter_Warlock]

Muffindell,

I feel your pain, my wife after 15 years also carried on an affair for a year and a half. Telling the other guy that she loved him and wanted to marry him, he was also married so marriage vows have no meaning for her. I will also be filing for an annulment, which I hope will be granted.

But for some of the posts here as I read them, the one from 1ke is one I disregard with completely. They obviously have never been in this situation. For if they were, they would understand that the cheating spouse destroyed the sacred vows; they rejected the marriage and even worse - God by going against his commandments.

I also have read that passage in the Bible “that if a man divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another he commits adultery”. You wife, just as mine dissolved the marriage (just as a husband who cheats on his wife dissolves his marriage) when they cheated.

I know I will forgive her, and the other guy who was also married, but it is up to them to repent and return to God. I for one will not let them make me turn away from God as they have, regardless of the outcome of the annulment.

Have faith in God, not people.

Winter

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Why aren’t people listening to Truth here?
Why are they more concerned with feeling, as though only that mattered? Feelings matter but they must be subordinate to Truth. ALL must be subordinate to Truth. We are all subordinate to Christ who is Truth.

Suppose you were going in to see your doctor.

Suppose you were terrified of dying and illness.

Now, the doctor had examined you and found that you had a terminal illness.

I would like to hear from all the people who are lambasting Ike and me. . .

What should the doctor tell you?

Should he tell you the truth, as is his responsibility as a medical authority, something which he takes an oath to do. . .

or should he spare your feelings and lie?

I’m curious.

You see, the Church is an authority and has taken an oath to uphold the Truth and the teachings of Almighty God . . .

but many people seem to think that when it does so, it somehow completely disregards the ‘feelings’ of people. They separate ‘truth’ and ‘feeling’ and try to say that ‘feeling’ is more important.

They don’t want truth. They want the comforting lies instead of truth.

And if they don’t get it, first they’ll start whining about hurtfulness and meanness.
Then they’ll start saying that the truth is not the truth.
Finally, they’ll demand that we recognize lies as truth.

I’m not accusing any person here. I’ll let you sit back and think for a bit–and I **mean ‘think’ and not just blindly react with the countercharges of ‘you hateful judgemental troll’. **

Since so many seem to think that the truth of Catholic teaching is hateful and hurtful, let me ask you:

Is it really the Truth of a particular teaching which you find hateful and hurtful, or is it that living according to the Truth would be ‘hard’, lonely, and would even ‘appear’, in the eyes of the world, to be silly, stupid, and wrong?

Who are we trying to follow?

If we are following God, then His rules ‘trump’ those of men, don’t they?
If the Church isn’t following God’s rules and the precepts on marriage etc are ‘only men’s’. . .then why would you follow such a Church? It couldn’t be the right one, so why would it MATTER that its rules were wrong? Instead of grousing that you couldn’t belong, why wouldn’t you be pointing to the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of ‘somewhere else’ that HAD the Truth, and decrying and denying the Catholic Church?

But if the Church is telling the truth, and you don’t LIKE the truth, then it DOES matter and it would indeed be very important to try to get the Church to ‘change’, because you WOULD know the Church was the One True Church and it WOULD be important to you to get the Church saying what you wanted it to say. . .because then instead of being ‘against’ the Truth you could claim to be following the truth.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

He did not say one could remarry.

Separating from the unfaithful spouse and marrying someone else are two different things.

Plus according to many authorities, he didn’t say ‘unfaithful’ spouse. What He said was an ‘unlawful spouse.’

In fact, what Christ meant was a decree of nullity. Remember, in His time there were many divorced and remarried Jewish people. All those who had divorced a lawful spouse and remarried were married to UNLAWFUL SPOUSES and in fact, they SHOULD separate from those to whom they were married unlawfully. Nothing to do with ‘faithfulness’.

It’s been a while but I believe the marriage vows say things like ‘in sickness and in health’, and not a word about, "unless you are unfaithful’. . .

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Finally, before people go around and tell me off assuming that I’m living some happy perfect life and trying to keep **other people from being happy out of sheer meanness, **let’s just say that I doubt that any of you would want to have gone through the hell I’ve gone through and am still going through.

Yet that doesn’t mean I want people to be unhappy, either. Goodness no. I’m not asking more of people than I ask of myself, and I’m not asking of --or anybody else–any more than what Christ asks. I totally rejoice in the good fortune of those who are rejoicing, and I totally sympathize with the sadness of those who are mourning or suffering. But I will not lie and say that something ‘wrong’ is right just because it makes another person ‘feel’ better.

 

[Winter_Warlock]

Ergo,

No feelings here just logic:

The "It’s been a while but I believe the marriage vows say things like ‘in sickness and in health’, and not a word about, "unless you are unfaithful’.” comment is interesting. So according to that logic, in my case if my then wife did divorce me, and the guy she was having the affair with divorce his wife and they both married. I would have to remain single and lonely for the rest of my life? But those ones who also pledged to follow and accept God and his teachings turn around and reject Him and the vows and marriage also is acceptable. I totally disagree with you, I am happy that YOUR annulment was granted, but it makes me wonder if it was not how would your opinion be now? I am not trying to cause an argument, but when one refuses to be married and they turn away from the their spouse and even worse turn away from God, they forfeit the blessings of the Church, unless THEY repent and return to God. The faithful should not have to be made to suffer for the actions of those who reject God.

The “meant was a decree of nullity” passage has been translated many times over, so that in itself is also in question as to “nullity” verses “adultery” or “fornication”.

I maybe wrong, and if I am I pray that God forgives me, as I will forgive those who transgressed against me. But that does not mean that I have to accept the actions of a woman who refuses to be married to me, or wants me only until someone else comes along for a few years of fornication. And I whole heartily refuse to be with anyone who rejects God.

Winter