Woman Seeks Reform of US and Church Divorce Laws

[flameburns623]

Does anyone happne to know?

Was the “famous Catholic author” to whom Bai MacFarlane was married the author Bud MacFarlane? The one who wrote several Catholic novels including “Pierced by a Sword”? Thanks!

 

[fix]

flameburns623:

Does anyone happne to know?

Was the “famous Catholic author” to whom Bai MacFarlane was married the author Bud MacFarlane? The one who wrote several Catholic novels including “Pierced by a Sword”? Thanks!

godspy.com/reviews/Divorce-American-Style-Marriage-Catholic-Style-An-Interview-with-Bai-Macfarlane-By-Zoe-Romanowsky.cfm

Yes, that is the man.

 

[fix]

So you’re saying that diocesan marriage tribunals in this country are implicitly encouraging people to divorce?

Oh yes. I know because I’ve actually tried it. I asked my diocese to do an investigation of nullity so that they would conclude that we have a valid marriage, so that my husband would know he doesn’t have to divorce, if his reason for doing it is because we have an invalid marriage. That’s how I know.

Another example—a friend of mine attended a six or eight week local seminar in our Cleveland diocese. He was the only defendant; everyone else attending were plaintiffs who wanted to divorce, and none of them had reasons of abuse or addiction against their spouse. These were people in the process of divorcing, and they were supporting each other, talking about how their marriages were dead, and how they were dumping their husbands. And in this guy’s parish he also attended a one evening seminar; the guest speaker was a woman who was a professed Catholic, who is a divorce judge, who was teaching the attendees how to get a divorce. So…

Do you think these people were selfishly looking to abandon their spouses…?

I’m actually feeling more sympathetic to these people because they talk to their priest about how unhappy they are, and then the priest says “let me hear more about your story,” and then he hears how they only dated for six months before getting married, and the priest thinks, hmmm, you’re really unhappy, you only dated for six months, maybe you don’t have a valid marriage. This reminds me a lot of mercy killing and abortion, where people who are very unhappy, scared, and despairing are given the easy way out. Here, they are told by their church ministers: “Oh, I know the solution to your situation, your marriage is dead.” And that’s different than “I’m a selfish jerk and I want to abandon you.” It’s more like “I’m really hurting and I go to my church for help and this is what they tell me.”

godspy.com/reviews/Divorce-American-Style-Marriage-Catholic-Style-An-Interview-with-Bai-Macfarlane-By-Zoe-Romanowsky.cfm

 

[stanley123]

otm:

Above all, I am trying to say that there have been vast changes in society, and in civil law, which have had a hugh impact on the issue of intent.

If this is so, then how do you explain the fact that other Churches, such as the E. Orthodox Church still have hardly any marriages that are invalid or null and void. Why are the overwhelming majority of marriages in other Churches valid, whereas it is only the RCC Church that has been experiencing an enormous increase in the number of invalid and null and void marriages?
How come the changes in society have caused the RCC to experience an explosion in the number of annulments, but not so with other Churches?

 

[otm]

fix:

I am sorry to hear about your diagnosis and hope all is well.

Would the FDA allow a drug on the market based on the private experience of 2 or 3 people?

You seem to disregard the Pope’s position and others who are in a position to judge as this man is:

**

**

I am sorry if I seem to be disregarding the Pope’s comments. Would that there never would be a wrongly decided case, as such cases hurt the Body of Christ and do nothing to support the holiness of matrimony.

I consider JP@ to be brilliant. I do not consider him to be a fool. Neither do I consider him or B16 to be micromanagers. As such, they both paint with a broad brush; they are both European and neither praticularly knowledgeable about our culture (if one coud deign to call it that) other than as observers. And as such, I expect them to make strong statements when it appears needed. But I will go back to what I stated previously, and that is that the hugh number of annulments is due to lack of catechesis in basics, a society that is in the toilet over sexual morality, a great majority of Catholics (including those in the pews) contracepting (and thereby rebelling agains a constantly held moral position of the Church on a serious matter relating to marriage), and a change fro 60 to 70% attending Mass on a regular basis to about 30% attending.

A whole lot of Catholics are waking up, older but not necessarily a whole lot wizer, having turned their back on the Church for a large portion of their adult and teenage years, and now are coming back. They are now divorced, and tring to get right with God and the Church after the royal mess they have made. I am inclined to think that intent about marriage was right up there with their intent to keep other Church laws.

 

[otm]

stanley123:

If this is so, then how do you explain the fact that other Churches, such as the E. Orthodox Church still have hardly any marriages that are invalid or null and void. Why are the overwhelming majority of marriages in other Churches valid, whereas it is only the RCC Church that has been experiencing an enormous increase in the number of invalid and null and void marriages?
How come the changes in society have caused the RCC to experience an explosion in the number of annulments, but not so with other Churches?

I would suggest that there are several reasons.

The first I would relate to my experience with the Maronite rite. The people who attend are first or second generation citizens, and still have a very strong ethnic identity; that is, they tend to be at least somewhat insulated from the world around them as they have not abandoned the extended family for the nuclear family. As such, they have much more support than the average couple in marriage, and they are much less impacted by societal norms. They are, in effect, living with one foot in this country, and one in the old. I have also observed Orthodox believers, who alos exhibit a strong ethnic identity, and have the same tendencies. In other words, they have not boutght into society’s norms that the Church has no clue, that life is what you choose to make it, and they appear to me to be much more loyal to Church teachings.

Coupled with that fact is the fact that the majority of the faithful of the Eastern riste are not even livbing in this country; only a small immigrant group compared to the whole. That, in itself, puts them in a different culture.

The explosion in annulments has been, by and large, from the United States, Canada, and Wester Europe. Take a look at their general culture and the status of the Church compared to Eastern Europe, Africa, Central and South America. the same issues keep playing out, or not playing at all, depending on the country you are looking at. Attendance at Church, for example, in Western Europe is ranging in the 15% to 5% attendance range.

 

[stanley123]

otm:

The explosion in annulments has been, by and large, from the United States, Canada, and Wester Europe. .

AND in the RCC. Other Churches in the USA, Canada, and Western Europe have not experienced explosions in invalid and null and void marriages. Is that not true?

 

[otm]

stanley123:

AND in the RCC. Other Churches in the USA, Canada, and Western Europe have not experienced explosions in invalid and null and void marriages. Is that not true?

Given the fact that the other rites ( I assume we are talking about the Eastern rite Catholics) are very small in terms of members, it would be inte3resting to see if proportionally the statistics are the same. I would not want to bet that they aren’t. And to keep it in perspective, it would have to be a proportional showing. Pure numbers of cases would be meaningless.

However, I do not know where you would obtain sufficient information to make a showing.
For example, there are very few diocese in the United States for the Maronite rite; I do not know the number, but my impression is you can just about count them on one hand.

How many Catholics (Roman rite) are there in the United States? Of that, how many are of marrigeable age? How many are married? How many annulments are there to marriages? How many are divorced? And how many annulments are there to divorces? All of these are things that bring some perspective to the issue.

 

[stanley123]

otm:

IThe explosion in annulments has been, by and large, from the United States, Canada, and Wester Europe…

I was told that the E. Orthodox Church in the USA has not experienced the increase in annulments that that RCC has experienced, going from 9 in 1930 to 61,000 in 1989. In fact their annulment rate is quite low. They still have a large percentage of valid marriages.

 

[otm]

stanley123:

I was told that the E. Orthodox Church in the USA has not experienced the increase in annulments that that RCC has experienced, going from 9 in 1930 to 61,000 in 1989. In fact their annulment rate is quite low. They still have a large percentage of valid marriages.

I don’t know, but I would not be surprised, as they tend towards more extended families, are more insulated from the general impact of society, tend toward a first and second generation population from my observation (which would imply less “integration” - maybe a better word would be “corruption” with society). Again, I would expect their actual numbers to be quite low, simply because their population compared to Roman rite is exceedingly low. What would make a better comparison would be a statistical comparison. Short of that, we don’t have much meaningful information.

 

[stanley123]

otm:

What would make a better comparison would be a statistical comparison. Short of that, we don’t have much meaningful information.

I think we have the information which is given in various books written by the tribunal officials, such as those written by Father Wrenn, where we have***"* a careful study of his books shows that anything beyond burned toast is evidence for nullity."**
Or take the word of Father Doherty: Fr. Doherty quotes a Tribunal official as saying**:** There is no marriage which, given a little time for investigation, we cannot declare invalid.

 

[otm]

stanley123:

I think we have the information which is given in various books written by the tribunal officials, such as those written by Father Wrenn, where we have***"*** a careful study of his books shows that anything beyond burned toast is evidence for nullity."
Or take the word of Father Doherty: Fr. Doherty quotes a Tribunal official as saying**:** There is no marriage which, given a little time for investigation, we cannot declare invalid.

I am always wary of statements such as the “burned toast” statement. Further, keep in mind that evidence is just that; it is evidence. Somewhere a decision has to be made. It is not a matter of how much evidence is piled up, but what it shows. Can we tighten up the issue of psychological inablilty to form the necessary intent? Yes.

Is it the sole source of the current divorce rate? No, as there are cases which do not rely on intent, and there are cases where intent can be shown without needing to rely on indirect evidence; in other words, there is showing of lack of intent without getting into psychological inability. Only a part of the increase is due to pychological inability to form intent, and out of those, there is no basis to presume that they are all false, fictitious, made up, illegitimate, or otherwise open to suspicion.

Further, I don’t hang a condemnation of the whole process on the statement of one or two tribunal officials; that only results in a game of “pick and choose” your statements; as I have said, I have spoken with a number (that is, more than two) who have all taken a very serious approach to the matters they have been involved with, and have given me no indication of a casual or sloppy approach.

Is the process subject to criticism? There is no process in the Church that isn’t subject to some criticism, I would assume. I am personally more concerned as to how the Church has handled, and will handle in the near future, the issue of homosexuality and the priesthood, than I am of how the Church handles marriage annulment cases. It is not that I am unconcerned about the latter, only more concerned about the former.

Again, as to the Eastern rites, they statisticaly are a minute part of the Catholic Church in the U.S., so I would assume a minute number of annulments. Until we have more numbers, we are simply shooting the breeze. And the numbers are much more than just the number of annulments.

 

[stanley123]

otm:

I am always wary of statements such as the “burned toast” statement. .

Is it the sole source of the current divorce rate? .

Well, in my personal opinion you are ignoring the obvious. Here’s why:
Let’s compare the number of divorces with the number of annulments in the USA.
Divorces in the USA
1930: 195, 961
1979: 1,179,000
1998: 1,135,000
Annulments given out by the Catholic Church:
1930: 9
1989: 61, 416.
The divorces have increased by a factor of about 6 (5.9)
The annulments in the RCC have increased over the same period by a factor of 6824, or more than one thousand times as much as the divorces in the USA at large.
Now did you say that the increase in annulments is due to the surrounding culture??
If so, then why has the number of annulments in
the RCC gone up by more than one thousand times more than the number of
divorces in the surrounding culture?
As far as I can see, the underlying reason for this is that the RCC has eased up on its rules and requirements to get an annulment.
As it stands now, according to Father Doherty: There is no marriage which, given a little time for investigation, we cannot declare invalid.

 

[otm]

stanley123:

Well, in my personal opinion you are ignoring the obvious. Here’s why:
Let’s compare the number of divorces with the number of annulments in the USA.
Divorces in the USA
1930: 195, 961
1979: 1,179,000
1998: 1,135,000
Annulments given out by the Catholic Church:
1930: 9
1989: 61, 416.
The divorces have increased by a factor of about 6 (5.9)
The annulments in the RCC have increased over the same period by a factor of 6824, or more than one thousand times as much as the divorces in the USA at large.
Now did you say that the increase in annulments is due to the surrounding culture??
If so, then why has the number of annulments in
the RCC gone up by more than one thousand times more than the number of
divorces in the surrounding culture?
As far as I can see, the underlying reason for this is that the RCC has eased up on its rules and requirements to get an annulment.
As it stands now, according to Father Doherty: There is no marriage which, given a little time for investigation, we cannot declare invalid.

We are either going to let this die, or keep arguing till the law of thermodynamics is repealled…
I say that the greater impact is from the massive loss in catechesis, coupled with the rebellion against a serious Church teaching (Humanae Vitae), which, with the failure to catechize what the Church teaches, has left a hugh segment of the Catholic population with 1) tremendous lack of knowledge of what the Church teaches, coupled with a knee-jerk response of rejecting anything else the Church teaches which doesn’t comport with their world view, a world view that is mostly shaped by the secualr culture. Again, you are attempting to blame the increase on what your term “soft psychology” and are ignoring the fact that only a portion of the cases that are tried use those evidentiary rules; others can prove lack of intent without resorting to psychological proof, and others are not even decided on the issue of Intent, but rather, form.

Keep also in mind that it was not until the late 1800s and early 1900s that the Catholic population as a percentage of the entire population began to grow, and as it did, it was not integrated fully into society. It was insular and removed from general society both economically and socially. Without economic parity, the rate of divorce was exceedingly lower in the Catholic population at large if for no other reason than that divorce was not economically feasible. Coupled with that, is the fact that divorce did not become socially acceptable until Catholics got out of the ghettos and into society at large. There is a reason for all of the ethnic Catholic Churches on the eastern half of the US; that is where the immigrants landed (as they were mostly from Europe), that is where the great majority of them stayed. Where there is extended family and a cohesive social force, morality is much more quickly addressed and enforced. where the family unit breaks down, and where the high morals of an insular group are replaced by the low morals of the secular world, moral behavior will mimic the lowest common denominator.

Let me try to put it another way. I do not disagree with you that there have been massive changes in annulments since 1930. I think if you researched it further, you would find that you could use 1950 as a baseline and still see massive changes. I disagree that this is due to tribunals going out of their way to find some reason to make a finding of nullity.

I am not saying there are no bad decisions, I am saying that you are overestimating the number of bad decisions, as you are ignoring other sources for a finding of nullity other than psychological grounds, and you seem to be saying that psychological grounds cannot legitimately result in a finding of nullity.

 

[stanley123]

otm:

We are either going to let this die, or keep arguing till the law of thermodynamics is repealled.

I believe that you are being quite vague and in error here, and that you are throwing up a lot of irrelevant material, as you have been also in your discussions of why the annulments in the RCC have exploded. For example, I am not acquainted with the law of thermodynamics. I am acquainted with four separate laws of thermodynamics: there is the zeroth law, the first law, the second law, and the third law, all of which are macroscopic in nature, but each one expressing a different result. However, I don’t see where these laws are relevant to the discussion at hand.
The US tribunals themselves give the numbers and the reasons that the annulments were handed out.
According to the US tribunals, the number one reason why these annulments were given was invalid consent.
Here are the numbers for 1989:
invalid consent 40,879
impotence 16
other impediments 2537
defect of form 17984.
These are the reasons given out by the RC USA tribunals. If you disagree with them, you should argue with them and let them know that they are wrong and it really has to do with the “with a knee-jerk response of rejecting anything else the Church teaches which doesn’t comport with their world view.” However, I beleive that when you mention your knee jerk response theory, they will have the same reaction that I had when you mentioned the law of thermodynamics.

 

[otm]

stanley123:

I believe that you are being quite vague and in error here, and that you are throwing up a lot of irrelevant material, as you have been also in your discussions of why the annulments in the RCC have exploded. For example, I am not acquainted with the law of thermodynamics. I am acquainted with four separate laws of thermodynamics: there is the zeroth law, the first law, the second law, and the third law, all of which are macroscopic in nature, but each one expressing a different result.

OK, tongue in cheek humor didn’t get it. It is a polite way of saying “until hell freezes over.” Aparently you never heard the joke.

stanley123:

The US tribunals themselves give the numbers and the reasons that the annulments were handed out.
According to the US tribunals, the number one reason why these annulments were given was invalid consent.
Here are the numbers for 1989:
invalid consent 40,879
impotence 16
other impediments 2537
defect of form 17984.
These are the reasons given out by the RC USA tribunals. If you disagree with them, you should argue with them and let them know that they are wrong and it really has to do with the “with a knee-jerk response of rejecting anything else the Church teaches which doesn’t comport with their world view.” However, I beleive that when you mention your knee jerk response theory, they will have the same reaction that I had when you mentioned the law of thermodynamics.

Lighten up. They would probably get the reference. Most people I have said that to got it; a few of them took a couple of heart beats before the light came on…

Your numbers don’t surprise me at all.

approximately 2/3 of the cases were decided on invalid consent. I was a young adult by the time Humanae Vitae came out, and I am not sol old I cannot rmember the reaction of the indiviudals in the pews. They weren’t going around saying that Father so and so said this, or Theologian what’s his name said that. They were saying the Pope didn’t have a clue. They were already using the pill, and they weren’t about to go back.

If it had all stopped with only the issue of the pill, perhaps we might have somehow survived better, but the whole of the United States was entering into a period of upheaval stemming from several sources, Viet Nam being perhaps the largest. Authority was being challenged everywhere; in the South ove Jim Crow laws; in the federal government with growing draft resistance and loss of trust in its decisions, in the Church with its decision over birth control. Authorities essentially lost their authority, and with that, everything they said was supect.

It is not a far step from everything being suspect to a lot being rejected. At the same time, catechesis was taking a significant hit; instead of teaching about the doctrines and beliefs of the Church, we entered a period of social welfare (love one another, take care of one another) that had a patina of Christianity. That patina wore rather thin.

More and more children were educated outside the Catholic school system; The programs were dumbed down further and further to the point where they simply weren’t taught much of anything. And at the same time, society at large was spiraling downward. It is hard, with the constant daily assault of hyper-sexualized ads, to remember that at one time, none of that existed in the mainstream media.

I am not in the least surprised that intent is the leading issue in annulments. From what has occured over the last 35 or so years, I am surprised the numbers aren’t higher. But again, back when this started, 65 to 70% or Catholics attended Mass on a weekly basis; now we are at about 30% or less. If they can’t get the point that they need to attend Mass on a regular basis, why should I be surprised that they won’t stay married, and in fact had no real intnent of doing so? Why would I think that an act which is culturally based - a Catholic wedding - would have any more impact on their psyche than that other famous cultural act - going to Mass on Christmas and/or Easter?

You think Catholic tribunals went soft on psychology; I think Catholics went soft in the head - and in their morals.

 

[stanley123]

otm:

I think Catholics went soft in the head - and in their morals.

So, let me get this straight. Since Vatican II, Catholics went soft in the head, and that is the reason for the increase in annulments from 9 per year in 1930 to more than 61,000 per year in 1989? But how about other religions? How come the other religions have not experienced this explosion in either annulments or divorce, as has the RCC? Is it only Catholics that went soft in the head becasue of the Vietnam war, while people in other religions and other Churches did not go soft in the head? It just doesn’t make sense, really.
What makes sense is what Pope John Paul II said and what other Vatican officials have said. For example,
Pope John Paul II in his 29 January 2005 address to members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota declared:

“3. However, in the current circumstances there is also the threat of another risk. In the name of what they claim to be pastoral requirements, some voices have been raised proposing to declare marriages that have totally failed null and void. These persons propose that in order to obtain this result, recourse should be made to the expedient of retaining the substantial features of the proceedings, simulating the existence of an authentic judicial verdict. Such persons have been tempted to provide reasons for nullity and to prove them in comparison with the most elementary principles of the body of norms and of the Church’s Magisterium.”

I also agree with the testimony of Joaquin Llobel, a canon-law instructor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and a member of the tribunal for the Apostolic Signatura. According to CWNews of September 17, 2004, he was cited as giving testimony that: “Tribunals in some countries (notably the United States) are quick to provide annulments on uncertain grounds…”

And the news article says: “Marriage tribunals in some countries are abusing Church laws regarding annulments, a leading Vatican authority has charged.”
I notice that neither the tribunals, nor the Pope, nor the Vatican officials mention the Vietnam war as a gound for annulment, nor do they mention anything about “a knee-jerk response of rejecting anything else the Church teaches which doesn’t comport with their world view,” as a valid ground for annulling a marriage. Quite the contrary.
It looks very much like the Church theologians have figured out a way to get around the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage by introducing the idea of easy to obtain annulments. The reasons given for getting the annulment, such as the opposition to the Vietnam war, the knee-jerk response of rejecting anything else the Church teaches which doesn’t comport with your world view, everyone else is getting a divorce, why shouldn’t we be able to, practice of birth control, not going to Mass every Sunday, etc…, these are reasons which would not have been admitted in 1930. This indicates that the Church has changed its teaching on the indissolubility of marriage. However, the change in teaching is not overt, it is subtle. What is said is this: there has been no change in the teaching of the RCC on the indissolubility of marriage, BUT becasue we know more about psychology these days, we have to admit that because of certain factors such as the Vietnam war or the the knee-jerk response of rejecting much of what the Church teaches, that these people were not really married in the first place (but the children are legitimate), and so after twenty years of “marriage”, it is now time that they realise that there was never a real marriage. Oh, by the way, the wife is now free to marry her new boy friend that she just met before the filing of the annulment. It was only a coincidence that the filing of the annulment took place after the wife had been sleeping with her new boyfriend.

 

[stanley123]

otm:

Lighten up.

My personal opinion is that this is not a situation which calls for lightening up. I say that becasue families are being destroyed. More than one million families broken by the annulment process in the USA alone in the last 20 or 25 years. And this is not the way it ws in 1930, when there were only 9 annulments declared.
To see tha harm being done by divorce (or annulment) you might want to read the book by Judith Wallerstein, “The Unexpected legac of divorce.” Wallerstein’s life work is listening to children from broken families and she has reflected on the stories of more than one hundred children from broken families. And almost all of these stories are tragic.

 

[otm]

stanley123:

My personal opinion is that this is not a situation which calls for lightening up. I say that becasue families are being destroyed. More than one million families broken by the annulment process in the USA alone in the last 20 or 25 years. And this is not the way it ws in 1930, when there were only 9 annulments declared.
To see tha harm being done by divorce (or annulment) you might want to read the book by Judith Wallerstein, “The Unexpected legac of divorce.” Wallerstein’s life work is listening to children from broken families and she has reflected on the stories of more than one hundred children from broken families. And almost all of these stories are tragic.

I am all too familiar with Wallerstein. She was part and parcel of the move to “no fault” divorce in the states. After about 30 years of research she finally admitted that the original idea (hers and others) that children would be much better served by an amicable, no fault divorce ws just flat wrong.

Further, I was an attorney, and did divorce work for 12 years, unitl my client killed his wife and then himself. If you think I have no clue about divorces and the damage they do, you are sadly mistaken.

 

[stanley123]

otm:

After about 30 years of research she finally admitted that the original idea (hers and others) that children would be much better served by an amicable, no fault divorce ws just flat wrong.
.

Right. Well, then perhaps we can hope that the Church tribunals will change their minds about
the introduction of soft psychological factors as grounds for granting the annulment. After all, other people have changed their minds about family breakups.
Anyway, I noticed that you did not address the question I raised concerning as to why only Catholics have been affected by this Vietnam war and become soft in the head. Why is it that only Catholics have this knee jerk reaction and that peopleof other faiths have not been affected to the same extent?