May a Happily Married Couple Divorce for Financial Reasons

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Randy_Carson

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If civil unions are not sacramental marriages, then is the converse also possible?

For example, if a happily married Catholic couple comes to the conclusion that there are tax and/other other benefits associated with being divorced, could they remain married in the eyes of the Church but divorced in the eyes of the State?

IOW, they would file for separation and divorce from their civil union with the state government, but continue to live together as a sacramentally married couple with ALL that entails (😉) and never seek an annulment because no annulment of the marriage is desired.

Is this legal under state law or canon law?
 
Short answer no.

Even if civil marriages are not sacramental they nonetheless can be real - and in some cases are considered to be an impediment to remarriage.
 
LilyM said:
Short answer no.

Even if civil marriages are not sacramental they nonetheless can be real - and in some cases are considered to be an impediment to remarriage.
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But this couple wouldn’t plan on remarrying…just benefitting from the financial benefits given out by the government these days.

They would want to remain married in the eyes of the Church.
 
Randy_Carson said:
For example, if a happily married Catholic couple comes to the conclusion that there are tax and/other other benefits associated with being divorced, could they remain married in the eyes of the Church but divorced in the eyes of the State?
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So they’re getting divorced purely to: either claim benefits only available to single people (single parents?); or to be taxed at a different rate (pay less tax?). If either of those is the reason, which is implied in your question, that seems inherently dishonest to me.
 
There may actually be tax penalties for all I know, but there is the bigger principle of mutual recognition of matrimony between Church and State.

Since “gay marriage” is legal according to the state but not considered valid by the Church, I am wondering if a Christian couple can be married in the Church but unmarried or divorced in the eyes of the state.
 
No.

CCC said:
2464 The eighth commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of the covenant.
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What is being proposed is a serious offense agaisnt truth.
 
Suppose an Catholic unhappily married couple divorced and an annullment was refused. Then after a few years they ran into each other and they’d grown up a bit and started getting to know one another again.

If they had sex, would it be sinful? Since they are still married in the eyes of the Church?
 
It may come down to the question of whether state law regards a church marriage as sufficient in itself to establish a civil marriage.

An related question is whether this union would count as a common-law marriage. If they are not officially in a civil marriage but living as husband and wife, they may be married nonetheless in a civil sense.

I am not an expert in marriage law or tax law. It’s just my :twocents:.
 
I suspect this will become more than just an academic issue, since Obamacare puts significant “marriage penalties” on some. Since it counts “household income” in determining subsidies, and therefore health insurance costs, and since non-subsidized costs are going to massively increase, a lot of people are facing a serious financial penalty.

Now, “household income” is the income of all persons living together, whether they’re married or not. So a teenager’s income would be counted, as would a divorced spouse living in the same house on a regular basis.

Still, there are really no checks on any of that. It would, however, be dishonest to claim the spouses were not living in the same household if, indeed, they really were.

But all kinds of things can be imagined; a duplex with a connecting door, one person (supposedly) living in a second home or a travel trailer in the back yard or whatever.

It’s easy to get into a high dudgeon about someone getting a civil divorce, but not really meaning it in the Church’s sense, in order to get a subsidy. But from what I have read, the higher rates due to Obamacare will put some people under, financially.

I don’t think this question admits of easy answers.

Interestingly, it’s possible that “household income” simply means the individual’s income plus that of all persons he lists for tax purposes on his return. So, if a person doesn’t list any dependents, and files a separate return, does he really need to get divorced to qualify for subsidies?

I’m no tax accountant, so I don’t know, but it might be a different definition than that used for, e.g., determination of welfare eligibility.
 
What about countries where you must marry civilly and sacramentally separately? My husband’s parents married in the church in 1963 and were very involved in the church. They renewed their vows twice at Mass over the years, but only married civilly a few years ago. They never saw the point in civilly marrying. It serves no purpose in Mexico except when a couple divorces. Civil marriage is much more like a prenuptial agreement where you decide who gets what if the marriage fails. They decided to marry civilly only because they needed to sell some property that belonged to my mother-in-law’s family. It’s complicated, but it’s kind of like the OP in reverse. Was this wrong of my in laws?
 
Ridgerunner said:
I suspect this will become more than just an academic issue, since Obamacare puts significant “marriage penalties” on some. Since it counts “household income” in determining subsidies, and therefore health insurance costs, and since non-subsidized costs are going to massively increase, a lot of people are facing a serious financial penalty.

Now, “household income” is the income of all persons living together, whether they’re married or not. So a teenager’s income would be counted, as would a divorced spouse living in the same house on a regular basis.

Still, there are really no checks on any of that. It would, however, be dishonest to claim the spouses were not living in the same household if, indeed, they really were.

But all kinds of things can be imagined; a duplex with a connecting door, one person (supposedly) living in a second home or a travel trailer in the back yard or whatever.

It’s easy to get into a high dudgeon about someone getting a civil divorce, but not really meaning it in the Church’s sense, in order to get a subsidy. But from what I have read, the higher rates due to Obamacare will put some people under, financially.

I don’t think this question admits of easy answers.
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Even before the Obama care debacle, there were always a few tragic stories such as a couple who divorced civilly so that the wife could obtain life-saving medical care that was not available if they remained married. Obamacare just makes things more complex.

Ridgerunner is right that there are no easy answers. Nor is there a single right answer. It is wrong to deceive and doing what the OP suggests would be an attempt to deceive. However, there are two Catholic moral principles that might apply in a given situation.
  1. The duty to resist an unjust law.
  2. The reduction of culpability due to circumstances. If civilly divorcing is the only way to get health care or to support the family, it is very similar to the classic example of someone who steals food to feed his starving family. Yes, stealing is wrong but the culpability is reduced or eliminated due to the dire need.
A couple facing such a decision needs the counsel of a good spiritual director.
 
Haven’t we recently had this conversation? :rolleyes: The answer is no - I am not familiar with any Catholic teaching that says it is OK to break a civil marriage simply for financial benefits.

In places where the the Church is not an agent for civil marriage, I suppose a couple could decide not to ever get civilly married, I am not at all familiar with the bishops direction in those places.

Of course we have all heard stories of one spouse needing medical treatments or nursing care that will bankrupt the couple. That is a truly tragic situation. If I were in that situation I would consult with my priest and even bishop before I took any action. Of course, meeting with a lawyer or tax consultant is necessary too so you do not take rash action that will not help the situation in the end.
 
The example in post #13 is the fascinating one. The couple was married in the eyes of the Church but not in the eyes of the State.

If Caesar asks for less money from people who are single, why should Christians continue to pay higher taxes by remaining in a civil union? All that really matters in the eyes of God is their sacramental marriage - which may not be recognized by the State anyway. We may end up distinguishing sacramentally married v. civilly married - or both.

As our nation’s laws move further away from recognition of sacramental marriage, when do we render unto Caesar and when do we render unto God?

FWIW, polygamy will not be far behind gay marriage.
 
In some countries, there’s no such thing as “civil marriage”. In some countries, Israel being one, only some marriages are registered by the state; marriage between Jews. If you’re Christian or Muslim, your marriage is within your faith community only.
 
There are many places where the Church is not an agent of the state as regards to witnessing marriages. A couple usually marries civilly first and then holds the sacramental wedding.

However, in Catholic weddings we do promise “to be true to her in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love her and honor her all the days of your life”. I find it difficult to understand how a civil divorce - and the separate households that would be required - in order to gain additional benefits is a way to " be true to her in good times and bad…"

I would argue that we need to work harder to change the laws of the land rather than spending our energy trying to figure out how to circumvent them through divorce.
 
I somewhat agree that civil marriage and sacramental marriage are independent of each other, which is a new phenomenon. However, as far as I am concerned, if civil marriage was abolished entirely, and all civil marriages invalidated in one fell swoop, I would still be married. My sacramental marriage trumps my civil marriage in every way. The civil marriage, being the lesser, is subsumed within the sacramental marriage.

So to address the question on a purely theoretical basis, I would say that the sacramental marriage persists in spite of all else, civil or otherwise. Second, the nature of marriage is that of a public proclamation of love, fidelity and permanence. So if a married man were to take a position with the state that is inconsistent with his marriage, i.e., by denying his marriage, he would do harm to the sacramental marriage. If one were to suggest to anyone, including the state, that one was not married, it would do harm to the sacramental marriage, which matters the most.
 
CallMeDad said:
I somewhat agree that civil marriage and sacramental marriage are independent of each other, which is a new phenomenon. However, as far as I am concerned, if civil marriage was abolished entirely, and all civil marriages invalidated in one fell swoop, I would still be married. My sacramental marriage trumps my civil marriage in every way. The civil marriage, being the lesser, is subsumed within the sacramental marriage.

So to address the question on a purely theoretical basis, I would say that the sacramental marriage persists in spite of all else, civil or otherwise. Second, the nature of marriage is that of a public proclamation of love, fidelity and permanence. So if a married man were to take a position with the state that is inconsistent with his marriage, i.e., by denying his marriage, he would do harm to the sacramental marriage. If one were to suggest to anyone, including the state, that one was not married, it would do harm to the sacramental marriage, which matters the most.
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The state could not care less whether you’re married or not.

Perhaps the real question is whether the Church ought to continue insisting that peoples’ marriages be registered with the state when the state’s view of marriage is increasingly simply “two people who want to say they’re married as the state understands that, and to have those benefits and disadvantages the state may impose on them from time to time as a consequence”.

In other words, from the state’s standpoint, it’s a purely voluntary, purely secular thing. Should the Church in the U.S. view a U.S. civil marriage with any greater respect than it does say, a Mexican civil marriage?
 
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