Is Pauline's privelage a divorce?

[Shepard]

Paul says that if your unbelieving spouse wants to leave you, let them. Is this then grounds for a divorce or do you still have to get an annulment? Also, my RSV Bible said in Matthew… Jesus said… that divorce is not acceptable accept for unchastity. Is the Church CERTAIN that this does not mean adultery? Are they sure that it means if you later find out that you married to close in your family bloodline? Thanks everyone for your thoughts in advance!

 

[Salmon]

Shepard:

Is the Church CERTAIN that this does not mean adultery? Thanks everyone for your thoughts in advance!

If adultery was all that was necessary to “rend asunder” any Christian marriage, we would all have in our selves the ability to render our own marriage null and void.

I believe Paul used the Greek “pornea”, which does not mean simply infidelity/adultery, but a much more hedonistic act.

Help?

Peace in Christ…Salmon

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

Shepard:

Paul says that if your unbelieving spouse wants to leave you, let them. Is this then grounds for a divorce or do you still have to get an annulment? Also, my RSV Bible said in Matthew… Jesus said… that divorce is not acceptable accept for unchastity. Is the Church CERTAIN that this does not mean adultery? Are they sure that it means if you later find out that you married to close in your family bloodline? Thanks everyone for your thoughts in advance!

Paul’s teaching is applied when two un-Baptized people entered into a natural union. Then when one receives Bpatism and the un-Baptized partner will not live in peace with the newly Baptized and the newly Baptized wishes to enter into a Sacramental Marriage with another Baptized person. The Natural union is disolved in favor of the Faith of the newly Baptized and the Sacramental Marriage.

 

[Shepard]

Thank you. The word is “pornea”. A priest told me that it meant marrying to close in your blood line. Does this mean that it also means a more “hedonistic sexual act”, or do we really know?

 

[Verbum]

Hi Shepard,

The Pauline privilege applies only to spouses that were both unbaptized when they married. Their marriage therefore was not sacramental. (As we know a valid consumated marriage can never be dissolved.)

If one of the spouses receives baptism and the other does not and refuses to leave peaceably with the baptized party, then the marriage can be dissolved.

This has nothing to do with adultery.

This practice results from the following passage of St. Paul:

1 Cor 7:12

“To the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. For God has called us to peace.”
Verbum

 

[Salmon]

Result of search for “porneia”:

4202 porneia por-ni’-ah from 4203; harlotry (including adultery and incest); figuratively, idolatry:–fornication.

That was from
: Strong’s Concordance

Peace in Christ…Salmon

 

[Catholic2003]

An annulment is a declaration that a marriage was never valid. The Pauline privilege is not an annulment; the marriage being disolved by the Pauline privilege is still (presumed to be) valid.

Note that a person seeking the Pauline privilege still needs to go to the diocesan tribunal (the same tribunal that handles annulments) so that the required conditions can be validated.

 

[Catholic2003]

Shepard:

Also, my RSV Bible said in Matthew… Jesus said… that divorce is not acceptable accept for unchastity. Is the Church CERTAIN that this does not mean adultery?

This is a relatively recent (within the last half century or so) development in Catholic biblical exegesis. For the prior approach taken by the Catholic Church, check out the article on divorce in New Advent, section A.3(a):

The complete exclusion of absolute divorce (divortium perfectum) in Christian marriage is expressed in the words quoted above (Mark, x; Luke, xvi; I Cor., vii). The words in St. Matthew’s Gospel (xix, 9), “except it be for fornication”, have, however, given rise to the question whether the putting-away of the wife and the dissolution of the marriage bond were not allowed on account of adultery. The Catholic Church and Catholic theology have always maintained that by such an explanation St. Matthew would be made to contradict Sts. Mark, Luke, and Paul, and the converts instructed by these latter would have been brought into error in regard to the real doctrine in Christ. As this is inconsistent both with the infallibility of the Apostolic teaching and the innerancy of Sacred Scripture, the clause in Matthew must be explained as the mere dismissal of the unfaithful wife without the dissolution of the marriage bond. Such a dismissal is not excluded by the parallel texts in mark and Luke, while Paul (I Cor., vii, 11) clearly indicates the possibility of such a dismissal: “And if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband”.

 

[chevalier]

Divorce is possible because it isn’t sacramental.

But a sacramental marriage can be dissolved if it hasn’t been consummated. By consummation is understood a full and humane act, which means you can even have children from an unconsummated marriage in the most extreme cases. This is called a ratum tantum or ratum et non consummatum marriage and can be dissolved by the Roman Pontiff alone. I fail to find any scriptural reason for this one. I only know about the competing Roman and Germanic concepts of marriage, in which marriage was made by the oath (Roman) or by consummation of engagement (Germanic), which a certain Pope whose name I can’t recall was trying to reconcile. It’s called special grace and privilege not a right, but I have no idea why this is allowed if the marriage is already valid and sacramental.