Divorce / Remarriage

    Morally acceptable in Christianity

    Some Catholics simply think that God absolutely forbids Divorce.
    They have been taught to believe this by the Catholic hierarchy.
    This is not God's real position at all! As Catholics we believe that God reveals
    himself in two ways, firstly through divine revelation in the Bible and, secondly,
    thorough the traditional teaching of the Church.

It is worth taking a closer look at what Scripture and Catholic tradition have to say about divorce.

IN THE BIBLE
Divorce is dealt with throughout the Bible. In the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament (Chapter 24, verses 1 to 4) we are told that a man who divorces his wife is not to remarry the same woman. Here the biblical author does not prohibit divorce. He merely prohibits remarrying someone from whom you have been previously divorced.

In verses 13 to 16 of the book of Malachi we are told that the Lord hates divorce. St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, says that if an unbelieving partner abandons a believing partner then the believing partner is 'free to act'. This scripture is used by the modern Catholic Church to dissolve the valid marriage of two non-baptised people, one of whom comes into the faith.

Canon 1143 states:
A marriage entered by two non-baptised persons is dissolved by means of the Pauline Privilege in favour of the faith of a party who has received baptism by the fact that a new marriage in contracted by the party who has been baptised, provided the non-baptised party departs.

The non-baptised party is considered to have departed if he or she does not wish to cohabit with the baptised party without insult to the Creator unless, after receiving baptism, the baptised party gave the other party a just cause for departure.

We see something strange here. The Catholic hierarchy will not allow a victim of unfaithfulness to remarry even though they were completely innocent victims of another's unfaithfulness. And yet, under the Pauline Privilege, the Catholic Church is prepared to split up a validly married non-Christian couple in order to gain a new member for the Catholic Church! They will then let their new member remarry.

Imagine the scene. Two Jewish partners marry in Jerusalem. After ten years the couple come to live in Belfast. The wife becomes friendly with the local parish priest. The priest talks to her about Catholicism and she eventually decides to become a Catholic. Her husband, a devout Jew as once was his wife, disagrees violently.

The wife becomes a Catholic against the wishes of her heart-broken husband, family, children and friends. Under the Pauline Privilege, the Catholic Church allows her to leave her husband who does not want to cohabit with a Catholic and to remarry a Belfast Catholic. This, says the Catholic Church, is in favour of the faith and to please the Creator!

The bottom line is this. The Catholic Church allows divorce to gain a new member but it will not allow divorce to victims of a genuinely irretrievable marriage breakdown. The Church's position is quite simply hypocritical and totally without credibility.

In the Gospel of Mark (10:2-12) we are told that man must not separate what God has joined together and that those who divorce and remarry are guilty of adultery. We are told the same in Luke's gospel (16:18). However in two places in the Gospel of Matthew we come across Jesus saying something very interesting:

But I now tell you, if a man divorces his wife for any cause, other that unfaithfulness, then he is guilty of making her commit adultery if she marries again and the man who marries her commits adultery also. (5:31)

I tell you then that any man who divorces his wife for any cause other than her unfaithfulness, commits adultery if he marries some other woman.(19:9)

From all of the above scriptural references a number of things become clear.

That the Christian ideal is that marriage should be permanent and life-long.
That there are exceptions.

JESUS makes an exception in the case of unfaithfulness.
PAUL makes an exception in the case where an unbeliever leaves a newly-Christian partner.

DIFFERENCES IN INTERPRETATION
Different scripture scholars form different churches and at different times have had different interpretations of St. Matthew's passages allowing divorce in the case of unfaithfulness. They argue about such things as:

Was Matthew trying to tone down the moral demands of Christ which the early Christians found hard to live up to?

Was Matthew affected by the Rabbi Shammi's school of thought which broadened the divorce exceptions out from unfaithfulness to cover the case of a man whose wife was a very bad cook?

What were the original words used? Was it porneia, meaning prostitution or was it moicheai meaning adultery? Was something lost in the translation? Some people say that Matthew was referring only to people already living together in concubinage.

I am not going to get involved in the details of these debates here, it is enough to point out that the Devil can cite scripture for his own purposes. The rows still continue. But those of us interested in people and their struggles and not into the niceties of Greek and Hebrew conclude that the ideal is life-long marriage but there are exceptions as mentioned by Jesus, St Paul and St Matthew.

Many of the Protestant churches interpret the scriptures on this point more liberally than does the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1990s are we still saying that the Catholic Church is absolutely right and the Protestant churches absolutely wrong? If we are, our ecumenism is rather empty.

DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION
In 1967 Monsignor Victor J Pospishill published his book: Divorce and Remarriage - Towards a New Catholic Teaching.
Monsignor Pospishill is a JCD (Doctor of Canon Law) a graduate of the Roman Gregorian University and the Vicar General of the Ukrainian Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In 1979 he prepared a short summary on divorce for the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion, Published by the Sisters of St. Joseph in Philadelphia:

All the Eastern Orthodox Churches without exception regard the praise of permanency in marriage expressed by Jesus (Matthew 19:3-10) as a moral ideal, but not as a legal prohibition of divorce. The Fathers, as Basil the Great, reluctantly recognised the need and the right of the Church to permit remarriage of divorced members. The original sole reason, adultery, was later extended to several other grounds on the presumption that they would anyway eventually lead to the termination of the marriage and to a relationship with another person. The only legal limitation in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the prohibition against a fourth marriage, which applies not only to divorced but also to widowed persons. The assertion of some Catholic historians that the Eastern Churches succumbed to the influence of the civil law, especially in the Byzantine Empire, is unwarranted. The early Church in the East and in the West, while always emphasising the ideal of permanency or relative indissolubility of Christian marriage, considered the legislation of Christian emperors permitting divorce as being a valid expression of the theological position of the Church.

The espousal of absolute indissolubility in the Western Church goes back to the Carolingian renaissance of theology, while the Christian East retained its original practice of permitting the remarriage of divorced Christians.

The Eastern Catholic Churches were obliged to accept the teaching and practice of the Roman Church at the time of their reunions. Archbishop Elias Zoghby, Patriarchal Vicar of Egypt, proposed at Vatican Council II (29 Oct 1965) that the Catholic Church re-examine its position with respect to prohibition of the remarriage of divorced Catholics. The other bishops of the Melkite Patriarchate, especially the late Patriarch Maximos IV, seconded him.

The Catholic hierarchy has always reminded us that the tradition of the Church is as much God's revelation as is the Bible. We see from Monsignor Pospishill that in the united early church of the East and West, divorce and remarriage were allowed. We see that some great Fathers of the Church, like Basil the Great who was the bishop of Caesarea, allowed divorce and remarriage.

SUMMARY
The Christian ideal is lifelong marriage
Divorce and Re-marriage are allowed on the grounds of compassion
Divorce and remarried people should be absolutely free to receive all the Sacraments
It is not necessary to confess your divorce and remarriage in confession, as these things are not sins.

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