divorce?

[dulcissima]

Oh, I do trust the Church’s authority to bind and loose, and I am glad to be a Catholic now. I just wish that I had grown up with the Church’s guidance. It would have saved me a lot of heartache. I think maybe you are right and that this is the difference between Catholics and other Christians. I am not going to rush off and get remarried since I am obedient to my faith. A lot of other women in my situation do just that though, and frequently end up in even deeper trouble. The success rates for “remarriages” is I believe even more dismal than for first marriages. Women who have married one abuser tend to move from one abusive marriage to the next. Not something I want to do, and I do believe that by sticking to my faith I can avoid following that familiar pattern.

Maybe this is what you were talking about?

 

[IanBoyd57]

I would say that marrying a fellow christian and praying together would help, but alas, divorce rates are lower among atheists and agnostics then among christians, even conservative christians.

The divorce rates are:

Jews 30%
Born again christians 7%
Other christians 24%
Atheists and Agnostics 21%

Woah, just caught that. Heh, whoops, it’s actually:

Jews 30%
Born again christians 27%
Other christians 24%
Atheists and Agnostics 21%

Hope I didn’t give anyone a falsely high opinion of born again christian marriage and again I apologize.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Maybe this is what you were talking about?

I believe something like you describe could certainly happen.

This movie was teaching that christian divorce, the destruction of a valid marriage, was an acceptable choice for a “good” christian. This seemed to be the lesson of the moviie and I think it was a satanic attack against protestant and cafeteria Catholic marriages to get them to ignore Christ’s words regarding the indissolubility of marriage and the permanence of the state of marriage.

The movie never dealt with the issues of annulment or long term chaste separation. The moral was a “good christian should follow their romantic heart following western Arthurian tradition” I geuss. I’m not sure how to describe the heroine more accurately.

peace

 

[littleone]

Michael,

By “leaving” I mean physical separation. Civil divorce may also be necessary to protect people from abuse of one form or another.

Not only is it not permissible, it is not possible. The husband and wife are still sacramentally married, and that is simply that.

Well, that’s just plain sinful. Whether or not the abusive spouse repents, the spouse who leaves is not permitted to marry anybody else as long as the spouse she left is still alive. The only way to end a marriage is through the death of one of the parties.

• Liberian

I am almost at the point of saying to most of you “Isn’t it about time most of you leant that God IS A MERCIFUL God. You say that the Catholic way is perfect, well I haven’t seen mercy here as yet (in most of you).
Come on, read your bible from the spirit NOT the heart of catholic or from the head or speaking from the book you found some other place.

Do you know what “spiritual fornication is”?
Do you know what “spiritual adultery is”?

Have you forgotten tha Jesus tells us every day that He came NOT to change the Old Testement but to fulfill it. In other words to take the old to a new state of Spiritualness.

Those are two place where a marriage can and will be annulled.
I lived through the abuse the pretence, the deception, the covert abusive actions, Having a daughter murdered through she not being able to come home because of the filthy abuse mentally and physically to me the husband.
To be told you are a useless husband, lover, father, your children hate you.
I’ve been there.
And yet the children gave me a father’s day card stating that I had always been there, thanks for teaching art, music, christianity, snorgalling etc.

Not saying I am perfect,

And you say I am stuck there, in saying that, you seem to be saying YOUR God says you made your bed now live in it!!

CHANGE YOUR THOUGHT PATTERNS YOUR READING OF THE BIBLE, IF YO DO.
(This is NOT a put down but a truth check).
Have you already forgotten that Jesus said “My ways are not your ways?”
Jesus also said “I don’t want your offerings (verbally or physically) what I want says Jesus in the Bible is MERCY. God loves all at all times all are GODS creation.
Rest my case.

God bless
Little one

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

I am sorry for your pain. It was not my intention to poke at anyone’s authentic pain or distress. Jesus wants us to be merciful, yes, and also to be perfect. It’s a tall order and impossible without God.

I do not want to judge you and I do not think the other posters do either. We do not know you and ultimately only God can judge accurately.

I do have a responsibility to try to discern the best way to behave, because I love Jesus and I want to act in accordance with His Father’s will.

To do that, I came here seeking the truth about marriage because as Christians we have a duty to inform our consciences and those we love to God’s loving guidance given to us through Scripture and Tradition, prayer and contemplation and our own God given reason and experience.

In marriage Jesus spoke very explicitly and it caused me great concern that a movie, well written, had come out in favor of a christian divorce when the master, Jesus, had explicitly denied divorce in the gospel of Mark (see above)

Peace and God bless you.

mike

 

[littleone]

I am sorry for your pain. It was not my intention to poke at anyone’s authentic pain or distress. Jesus wants us to be merciful, yes, and also to be perfect. It’s a tall order and impossible without God.

I do not want to judge you and I do not think the other posters do either.
I do have a responsibility to try to discern the best way to behave, because
In marriage Jesus spoke very explicitly and it caused me great concern that a movie, well written, had come out in favor of a christian divorce when the master, Jesus, had explicitly denied divorce in the gospel of Mark (see above)

I take no pain from yesterday I have forgiven myself and forgiven ALL others my past wife also.
When I wrote SPIRITUAL fornication I ment just that. Jesus said that in the fast it was taught that if a person acted against the commandments of God then he had done just that. Remember that Jesus said that with His coming it now has been fulfilled and if a person thinks OF FORNICATING, ROBBERY, MURDER, ADULTRY ETC THEN THEY have DONE JUST THAT.

When my wife left our church and joined another and said to me “I refuse to be under your guidance” she committed spiritual adultery.
When she was told my me, that 5 women in our church prayer group were about to leave the church and that they needed me to leave also, it was because of the work I was doing in our church and asked to help other churches.

To make the situation right in their minds they needed me to leave, I warned my wife because Jesus told me to but she still listened to them. She left the church and had to make me look wrong to make those women look right. They set me up on many occasions but still I would not leave because I knew that I was right in staying.

Every thing I did my carving was deemed as satanic, my teaching music was the same and to have me agree to allow her to do a nursing course that would help her feel empowered she said “for me to pass this course something has to give and it will have to be the family”. She went to a neighboring town to study and every weekend I would make sure the house was spotless but instead of thanks I was told I was a useless father lover and husband, that the children hated me. Bit by bit I started having migraines that in the end lasted 2 to 3 days and I realized that it was the thought of her coming back.

I was told by Jesus on Good Friday as the service in our church to nail my former marriage to the cross. I never realized what that meant since I know that as Catholics waling away from a marriage was not permitted. So I stayed and the situation got worse migraines getting longer and when she came home to find me under the blankets but as though the sun was shining through all she would say was “I love nursing the sick” When I wasn’t sick she would never come near me. I brought much money in through the carving and never once did she come to see what I was doing.

I was told by her that she wanted to have a garden in a particular a spot there was silence but it never came so I dug it she never came near still silent so I said that I would make the garden what did she want there, still silent. I would help in the house and be told to leave she wanted to do it, so I asked if she wanted the children to help she said no so I took them out to work in the gardens and lawns. She followed and when I asked what she was doing she said there’s no reason in why I can’t do some. So I left her to work outside with the children and I started on the inside but she started arguing.
And in the end I left I told her I could not stay seeing the hurt in the children. When I told her this I heard the most beautiful sound of Angels singing they were saying “he has become a man”.
I remember this not for any reason but to tell the story of GODS MERCY. Remember it and ask why I might be wrong in leaving that “place of evil”

AGod bless you (God’s mercy is what He wants us to dicern with NOT judging by saying this is what the bible says when Jesus tells us that HIS ways are NOT our ways
God bless
Littleone

 

[boppaid]

Hi. I think someone asked this earlier in the thread, but I didn’t see an answer to it. (If someone did answer it, and I didn’t see it, I’m sorry. )

In Matthew 19:9 it says “9I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

So, it appears that if the reason was infidelity, it is permissible.(?)

 

[CRW]

Michael,Not only is it not permissible, it is not possible. The husband and wife are still sacramentally married, and that is simply that.liberian

Yes they remain, in the eyes of the Church, as still married - if the Church considered their marriage valid. It is not a sin for a Catholic to divorce; however before dating or getting married again, annulment process must be completed. There are many factors that the Church considers to determine if a marriage was truely valid. Marriage outside the Catholic Church is not considered a valid marriage; unless the marriage received the blessing of the Church first.

 

[Liberian]

Little One,

I understand a little of your situation (having had to deal with some abuse from my wife before she left). Please understand that the Church is not saying that you are stuck with having to live with an abusive spouse; she is simply saying that you should not go looking for another one. Certainly God is a merciful God, but saying that sin is perfectly alright is no mercy.

• Liberian

 

[littleone]

Little One,

I understand a little of your situation (having had to deal with some abuse from my wife before she left). Please understand that the Church is not saying that you are stuck with having to live with an abusive spouse; she is simply saying that you should not go looking for another one. Certainly God is a merciful God, but saying that sin is perfectly alright is no mercy.

• Liberian

Now I agree with your statement brother.
Firstly the statement 3 or 4 above that it is not possible, with it is not acceptable are both incorrect. Jesus said Himself that EVERYTHING is possible for the Father.
I agree that a person would be so wrong going looking for another partner and that is the reason why so many 2nd marrages go wrong. The reading they quote “It is not good for a man to be alone” is taken soooo out of context that it throws the rest of the bible into a confused issue if one should accept that quote as it reads.

What I omitted to say is that when I left my wife I said that I was leaving only to find myself, to get myself back together, no more, no less. After the allotted time I thought I had gained my stability and composure I wrote a letter to my wife telling her that I had gained health and wellbeing. I said that if she wanted there was a place for her in my life. This response for marrage I got from the old testement ( one of the prophets who married a harlett).

That was not to be and for the next 13 years I never went further than telling Jesus that if there was a woman for me, I would like her to be Catholic I didn’t mind if she had up to 4 children and I hoped that she would be a musician and liked doing youth work in the church. I got it all. Jesus sent a catholic woman to me. We were together for 5 years and married last 16th of Dec.2006. Under the blessing of our church, after divorce, and annulment we live only that Jesus may live through us in the Power of the Holy Spirit.

God bless you
littleone