Divorce

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Fogwalker said:
I read it front to back once and am on round two. I know it’s supposed to be better if you don’t read it exactly in canonical order but I would lose my place if I read it any other way :o)

Since you brought up scripture and my couple chapters for tonight happen to be from Exodus…how much do these stories remind you of Moses? While Moses was being faithful to the promise he made to God up on the mountain, the people he was giving up everything for were selling out and worshiping a golden calf. Yet Moses had to wander in the desert for 40 years like the rest of them…AND he never even got to set foot in the Promised Land. But we know through the Transfiguration that Moses was taken up to Heaven to be with God, even though he didn’t acheive the one thing he set out to do on Earth - get to the promised land.
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I never thought of it that way :). However, out or respect of this post and the OP. I will try not to comment any more on our posts so we do not get too far off the original topic about divorce and the Church. With that said, I may have to re-read that again from a different set of eyes.
 
ricofall said:
I do not think you get it. Let me explain it to you. Let me break it down for you.

Yes you did. That my not have been your intent, but you did. Here is the link to the entire article that you quoted so readers know where your are quoting from.

I am not sure why you quoted an opinion article from USAToday. I am not sure what you are trying to say. I know that the Church is friendly to immigration, they always have been. The church does more humanitarian efforts than all other churches combined. This does not change what you said or the fact that you are trying to defend or change topics. I will pray for you and have already.
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rico- Let me assure you , you took it wrong. If God didn’t want different nationalities he wouldn’t of made them. Acutally in my work I’ve worked with many nationalities and find other cultures interesting, it would be a boring world if we were all the same. I think you can determine from my Posts I like all Christians too, baptists, lutherans, etc. I don’t feel anyone is less than anyone else, God made us all.
My point is the CC needs to learn why people leave the Church, it may look on paper like the CC population is not going down, but the fact is more people (Catholics) are coming into America and joining the Church, its distressing that 80% of divorced people leave the Church. Cnn is not the only area I read about the CC population.

The point remains, getting a divorce is awful enough, but that don’t mean all divourced people are bad and not worthy of the CC sacrements. Withholding the sacrements from people in my mind is not a good thing to do, now I know someone is going to say, the people did it to themselves, well unfortuantely many times divorce is a necessity for some people and some divorced people are actually the victims. There are many good Catholics on this message board that are in the mist or have been divorced to prove that. So God Bless you and peace.
 
Fogwalker said:
I am getting married this summer so the OP on this thread immediately caught my attention when I saw it tonight. I read through all four hundred and sixty whatever posts.

WHEW.

To muff and the others who have been through spouses who these terrible experiences in your relationships, I know that this is a miniscule consolation, but know that your willingness to share your painful experiences here have made at least one groom-to-be consider these kinds of possibilities before I get married. I pray that God will bless me with a long and faithful marriage. I accept that it might be God’s plan that my wife leaves me and my annulment doesn’t go through, and I am left a lonely, sad person forever. I want all of you to know that I can only have this kind of clarity and determination about my risks because people like you have been brave enough to share your experiences with me and force me to consider it when I don’t have the burden of the difficult circumstances that you are going through. I certainly can’t promise that I would do any differently than you if I were in your respective situations, but I pray that you will all do what you need to do to come back - fully - to the Catholic Church.
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I pray that you have a lifelong happy marriage. Its good you read these posts, I think more people need to know this stuff, and more people need to take the words till death do we part more seriously. I think your wife is a lucky woman. God Bless your future family.
 
Luvtosew said:
The point remains, getting a divorce is awful enough, but that don’t mean all divourced people are bad and not worthy of the CC sacrements. Withholding the sacrements from people in my mind is not a good thing to do, now I know someone is going to say, the people did it to themselves, well unfortuantely many times divorce is a necessity for some people and some divorced people are actually the victims. There are many good Catholics on this message board that are in the mist or have been divorced to prove that. So God Bless you and peace.
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However divorce does not prevent someone from receiving the sacraments…
 
ricofall said:
That thought never occurred to me. I believe that you are right. Can anyone find documentation to support this?
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You don’t need documentation…why would you? The state of being divorced is not a sinful state. (While there may have been some serious sins involved at the time – harsh words, hurting, bad decision making), those can be taken care of in confession. Once that is done though, there is nothing “sinful” about living alone, and not with the person you are married to in the church.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
However divorce does not prevent someone from receiving the sacraments…
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Yes, Father I do realize that, I just hope all who apply for an annulment get one, as they have a big decision to make if not.

Some will leave the Church due to anger or not being able to fully participate in the Church they belong to, if they choose to begin dating and remarry.

I also feel that cheating spouses and physical abusers probably don’t care either way if they are able to receive the Eucharists, which makes it bad for their spouses who do care.
 
agapewolf said:
You don’t need documentation…why would you?
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Documentation is how the Church operates. When it comes to something complex like marriage, they have laws for it. That is how we all stay on the same page as a faith.
 
From CCC:
2383 The separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law.177
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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.
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If it does not constitute a moral offense no need to refrain from Sacraments.

Says it again here:
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.
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(Highlighted for my emphasis)

OF course the caveat:
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:
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Code: 
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
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I haven’t read all of this, it’s so long. I guess I was lucky since my hubby’s first marriage was out of the church and not a Catholic wedding. His annulment was fairly easy to get.

I am reminded though of a woman who said the church has it’s own sins to ask forgiveness for as well. She was an ex-nun so this is where she was coming from but she related a story of a man on his death bed. He had re-married after his divorce and did not have it reconciled in the church. The priest was trying to get him to renounce his wife and his “marriage” in order to be forgiven.

So does it come down to dying and confessing our sin of remarrying if we are not reconciled within the church? Renouncing our current spouse with our children in the room or at least knowing what the couple needs to do?

What would Jesus do?
 
I won’t recount my situation from earlier. But I’ll just offer a few thoughts and something from this morning that ties into the whole situation being discussed…

First, I think a large part of the answer to the problems here lies in people really understanding BEFORE they get married or divorced what God’s plan is for marriage and the way it changes us permanently. Not truly understanding that, divorce is taken lightly and then we think the Church is punishing us, while the reality is the Church is trying to save us from something far worse… And not realizing the reality of the sacrament, post-divorce we get ourselves into all sorts of near occasions of sin without realizing it. And if we’re not aware and careful we get wrapped up into quite a mess of emotions, promises, and sin. Then it becomes extremely difficult to accept the Truth.

We really get tied up in our worldly desires and fail to recognize what it is that we really need and what we are truly longing for. This is where my morning comes in…

This morning I woke up feeling pretty miserable and hopeless about my situation. Yet again I woke up in an empty bed. Yet again, there was no prospect that I’d be able to share my day with my wife. I’d have to get through another day without feeling the love of my wife which I had grown so accustomed to having every day for so many years. And I was wrapped up in the thought that this could be the situation for years to come, if not permanently.

I was up early, so I grabbed my rosary and turned to our Blessed Mother… about halfway into my contemplation of the crown of thorns I heard some footsteps behind me and felt a small set of arms wrap around my shoulders as my 11 year-old daughter squeezed me and said, “I love you, Daddy!”

Wham!

It’s not my wife’s love I long for. It’s not her companionship I desire. It’s not even my daughter’s love.

What I long for is to feel God’s love and to share God’s love. I’m an instrument that longs to share God’s love. My wife has been one of God’s instruments for showing me His love. If she isn’t doing the job, He’ll find a way to fill that longing. I have to keep sight of what it is I actually want and need.

Today, when I prayed for help in a moment of despair, God sent my daughter so he could share His love through her. Some days he’ll use my other daughter, some days my son, some days my parents, my best friend, my siblings or others in my life. Some days it won’t be so obvious what He is doing.

If our marriage is true, maybe one day my wife will respond again to God’s call, if not, maybe the woman God originally intended for me will find her way into my life. If that’s not possible He’ll just keep filling my need for His love and companionship with other means at His disposal. Hopefully, I can keep my eyes open and recognize when He is coming to me, but if I lose my focus…even St. Peter suffered the problem I suffer… and hopefully I will do better than the Pharisees and Sadducees and not completely miss when He is standing right there in front of me…

I long for love, I long to love, I long for companionship. I tend to feel these as a desire for my wife or for other earthly loves or pleasures. But it’s all desire for God. That’s what the Blessed Virgin showed me this morning.

Sadly, I’m human. This is likely to fade into my memory as I deal with the day-to-day events of life. And the evil spirit will pick away at me, looking for an opportunity to distract me. And God will allow me to be tested to strengthen my faith…

But somehow, in these types of situations we have to remember these things: 1) God has told us how marriage is intended to be. That instruction is no less significant than what we know, through the Church, to be true about murder, abortion, the Eucharist, the Trinity, or Everlasting Life. Truth is truth, hard as it may be to accept in our concupiscence. 2) What we need, God will provide, we just have to Trust in Him and be open to His gifts in whatever manner He chooses to provide them.
 
TryingtoLearn,
excellent.

God has love all around us. In searching to love the whole person, I think we learn to love the whole person in all those around us. One person cannot ever fill the void. Because we are made for community and you just described why.

marriage has it’s purpose and it is important, but I think therapy gets this right…if your spouse doesn’t get what you are interested in…find others who are interested in the same and be affirmed in that. This would make anyone who loves you happy to see you become more you.

Your spouse cannot be there for you for whatever reason she has right now, and the real need is getting met by others in a different way. And you know what…you are helping to meet theirs as well.

Awesome reflection…
 
TryingToLearn said:
I won’t recount my situation from earlier. But I’ll just offer a few thoughts and something from this morning that ties into the whole situation being discussed…

First, I think a large part of the answer to the problems here lies in people really understanding BEFORE they get married or divorced what God’s plan is for marriage and the way it changes us permanently. Not truly understanding that, divorce is taken lightly and then we think the Church is punishing us, while the reality is the Church is trying to save us from something far worse… And not realizing the reality of the sacrament, post-divorce we get ourselves into all sorts of near occasions of sin without realizing it. And if we’re not aware and careful we get wrapped up into quite a mess of emotions, promises, and sin. Then it becomes extremely difficult to accept the Truth.

We really get tied up in our worldly desires and fail to recognize what it is that we really need and what we are truly longing for. This is where my morning comes in…

This morning I woke up feeling pretty miserable and hopeless about my situation. Yet again I woke up in an empty bed. Yet again, there was no prospect that I’d be able to share my day with my wife. I’d have to get through another day without feeling the love of my wife which I had grown so accustomed to having every day for so many years. And I was wrapped up in the thought that this could be the situation for years to come, if not permanently.

I was up early, so I grabbed my rosary and turned to our Blessed Mother… about halfway into my contemplation of the crown of thorns I heard some footsteps behind me and felt a small set of arms wrap around my shoulders as my 11 year-old daughter squeezed me and said, “I love you, Daddy!”

Wham!

It’s not my wife’s love I long for. It’s not her companionship I desire. It’s not even my daughter’s love.

What I long for is to feel God’s love and to share God’s love. I’m an instrument that longs to share God’s love. My wife has been one of God’s instruments for showing me His love. If she isn’t doing the job, He’ll find a way to fill that longing. I have to keep sight of what it is I actually want and need.

Today, when I prayed for help in a moment of despair, God sent my daughter so he could share His love through her. Some days he’ll use my other daughter, some days my son, some days my parents, my best friend, my siblings or others in my life. Some days it won’t be so obvious what He is doing.

If our marriage is true, maybe one day my wife will respond again to God’s call, if not, maybe the woman God originally intended for me will find her way into my life. If that’s not possible He’ll just keep filling my need for His love and companionship with other means at His disposal. Hopefully, I can keep my eyes open and recognize when He is coming to me, but if I lose my focus…even St. Peter suffered the problem I suffer… and hopefully I will do better than the Pharisees and Sadducees and not completely miss when He is standing right there in front of me…

I long for love, I long to love, I long for companionship. I tend to feel these as a desire for my wife or for other earthly loves or pleasures. But it’s all desire for God. That’s what the Blessed Virgin showed me this morning.

Sadly, I’m human. This is likely to fade into my memory as I deal with the day-to-day events of life. And the evil spirit will pick away at me, looking for an opportunity to distract me. And God will allow me to be tested to strengthen my faith…

But somehow, in these types of situations we have to remember these things: 1) God has told us how marriage is intended to be. That instruction is no less significant than what we know, through the Church, to be true about murder, abortion, the Eucharist, the Trinity, or Everlasting Life. Truth is truth, hard as it may be to accept in our concupiscence. 2) What we need, God will provide, we just have to Trust in Him and be open to His gifts in whatever manner He chooses to provide them.
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Gosh I hope you are writing a book…You could reach a lot of people. Your writing style is very immediate, very attracting - when I read your post, I am with you as you pray. If you are not, please consider doing so. Keep a daily journal with these sorts of entries. Turn it into a book. Please. I couldn’t even find a place to clip it for brevity. That’s how good it is.
 
oneofmany said:
I haven’t read all of this, it’s so long. I guess I was lucky since my hubby’s first marriage was out of the church and not a Catholic wedding. His annulment was fairly easy to get.

I am reminded though of a woman who said the church has it’s own sins to ask forgiveness for as well. She was an ex-nun so this is where she was coming from but she related a story of a man on his death bed. He had re-married after his divorce and did not have it reconciled in the church. The priest was trying to get him to renounce his wife and his “marriage” in order to be forgiven.

So does it come down to dying and confessing our sin of remarrying if we are not reconciled within the church? Renouncing our current spouse with our children in the room or at least knowing what the couple needs to do?

What would Jesus do?
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Oneofmany- I’m glad things worked out well with your husbands annulment. Its always good to hear positive outcomes.
 
I agree with the readers who say that he should follow the rules of the church. However, sometimes these rules are not always so clear, so in his case, he should definitely go to a different diocese with more documentation, good witnesses and try again.

Personally I know of three cases that make people at least “wonder” about church rules.
Case 1: A single, loyal, unmarried Catholic woman from the 1950 era, wanted to marry a Protestant divorced man who had been married to an unbaptised person. This man received a legal anulment due to Pauline/Petrine priviledge. Woman proceeded to get married in the Catholic church with legal anulment in hand and could find no Catholic churches in the city to marry her. She ended up marrying in another church, and fell away from the Catholic church.

Case 2: an unmarried, fallen away Catholic woman attempted to marry an unmarried Catholic man in a Catholic ceremony by a Catholic priest. Priest performed the ceremony. That week, that same priest left the priesthood and failed to file these people’s marriage, unknown to this couple. About a year later, the man beat the woman, and the woman was going to file a petition for nullity, when she discovered there was no marriage record. No marriage record, therefore, no legal marriage. Huh? Yep, that’s right. No marriage record, therefore, no legal marriage. The priest left the priesthood and did not file the marriage.

Case 3: A widowed Catholic man allowed to marry a previously vowed nun in the Catholic church. Nun was relieved of her vows, and he was allowed to marry.

Case 4: Other “Catholic” rites which do not have such a strict viewpoint on divorce and remarriage.
 
TryingToLearn said:
I won’t recount my situation from earlier. But I’ll just offer a few thoughts and something from this morning that ties into the whole situation being discussed…

First, I think a large part of the answer to the problems here lies in people really understanding BEFORE they get married or divorced what God’s plan is for marriage and the way it changes us permanently. Not truly understanding that, divorce is taken lightly and then we think the Church is punishing us, while the reality is the Church is trying to save us from something far worse… And not realizing the reality of the sacrament, post-divorce we get ourselves into all sorts of near occasions of sin without realizing it. And if we’re not aware and careful we get wrapped up into quite a mess of emotions, promises, and sin. Then it becomes extremely difficult to accept the Truth.

We really get tied up in our worldly desires and fail to recognize what it is that we really need and what we are truly longing for. This is where my morning comes in…

This morning I woke up feeling pretty miserable and hopeless about my situation. Yet again I woke up in an empty bed. Yet again, there was no prospect that I’d be able to share my day with my wife. I’d have to get through another day without feeling the love of my wife which I had grown so accustomed to having every day for so many years. And I was wrapped up in the thought that this could be the situation for years to come, if not permanently.

I was up early, so I grabbed my rosary and turned to our Blessed Mother… about halfway into my contemplation of the crown of thorns I heard some footsteps behind me and felt a small set of arms wrap around my shoulders as my 11 year-old daughter squeezed me and said, “I love you, Daddy!”

Wham!

It’s not my wife’s love I long for. It’s not her companionship I desire. It’s not even my daughter’s love.

What I long for is to feel God’s love and to share God’s love. I’m an instrument that longs to share God’s love. My wife has been one of God’s instruments for showing me His love. If she isn’t doing the job, He’ll find a way to fill that longing. I have to keep sight of what it is I actually want and need.

Today, when I prayed for help in a moment of despair, God sent my daughter so he could share His love through her. Some days he’ll use my other daughter, some days my son, some days my parents, my best friend, my siblings or others in my life. Some days it won’t be so obvious what He is doing.

If our marriage is true, maybe one day my wife will respond again to God’s call, if not, maybe the woman God originally intended for me will find her way into my life. If that’s not possible He’ll just keep filling my need for His love and companionship with other means at His disposal. Hopefully, I can keep my eyes open and recognize when He is coming to me, but if I lose my focus…even St. Peter suffered the problem I suffer… and hopefully I will do better than the Pharisees and Sadducees and not completely miss when He is standing right there in front of me…

I long for love, I long to love, I long for companionship. I tend to feel these as a desire for my wife or for other earthly loves or pleasures. But it’s all desire for God. That’s what the Blessed Virgin showed me this morning.

Sadly, I’m human. This is likely to fade into my memory as I deal with the day-to-day events of life. And the evil spirit will pick away at me, looking for an opportunity to distract me. And God will allow me to be tested to strengthen my faith…

But somehow, in these types of situations we have to remember these things: 1) God has told us how marriage is intended to be. That instruction is no less significant than what we know, through the Church, to be true about murder, abortion, the Eucharist, the Trinity, or Everlasting Life. Truth is truth, hard as it may be to accept in our concupiscence. 2) What we need, God will provide, we just have to Trust in Him and be open to His gifts in whatever manner He chooses to provide them.
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Stories like this are why it’s so easy for me to put the “risks” of getting hurt through marriage behind me. If I can keep half as much focus on God’s love as you have in this post, even a broken marriage will not keep me from feeling God’s love.
 
oneofmany said:
I haven’t read all of this, it’s so long. I guess I was lucky since my hubby’s first marriage was out of the church and not a Catholic wedding. His annulment was fairly easy to get.

I am reminded though of a woman who said the church has it’s own sins to ask forgiveness for as well. She was an ex-nun so this is where she was coming from but she related a story of a man on his death bed. He had re-married after his divorce and did not have it reconciled in the church. The priest was trying to get him to renounce his wife and his “marriage” in order to be forgiven.

So does it come down to dying and confessing our sin of remarrying if we are not reconciled within the church? Renouncing our current spouse with our children in the room or at least knowing what the couple needs to do?

What would Jesus do?
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The right thing.

You see, renouncing the wrong of marrying outside the Church is not ‘renouncing the spouse’ as though SHE (or he) is evil.

You could be marrying the most wonderful person in the world, but if you aren’t free to marry, and you know this, but you go ahead anyway, you’re saying, “God, marriage to this woman is more important to me than doing Your Will.”

And that disobedience to God is what needs to be renounced.

You could say, “God in my time with my wife I experienced great earthly joy and goodness, and I will always love her and my children. . .but we may never do wrong even if ‘good’ results, and therefore without in any way disparaging her, I can and do renounce my own sinful actions in not being free to marry this woman but doing so anyway and thus endangering my soul and hers as well, and in creating situations like this where my children are witnesses and may get the wrong idea about You, all because I did not do your Will. Who knows what greater good I, my wife, and the world would have seen and done had I followed your Will and not selfishly insisted I knew ‘better’. I regret my sin of disobedience and all the ills to my soul and any others who were affected by this. In this way I can perform as my last earthly act one of true good and true LOVE for my wife, in attempting to take responsibility for the ills I have done to her soul even though I did them in the name of ‘love’, and I ask you to forgive me the ills I have done her and to watch over her and my family and one day reunite us all in heaven.”
 
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