A reader writes:
Hi Jimmy I could not find this exact permutation on your blog, although I’m sure it has come up. I hope you can take a moment to help me out.
No prob! Let’s work our way through it . . .
Sally and Bill, both catholics get married according to form in a church with a priest. This marriage ends in divorce.
Without anything else affecting the situation, the Church will presume that Sally is married to Bill. Obtaining a civil divorce does nothing to affect the status of their marriage before God. As far as the Church is concerned, Sally and Bill are hitched unless and until they obtain an annulment.
Sally then marries Tom, not a catholic, in a civil wedding outside the church. This also ends in divorce.
Okay, this marriage will be invalid since (a) Sally is presumed to be married to Bill and (b) Sally–the Catholic party to this marriage–failed to observe the Catholic form of marriage (without a dispensation) this time. Thus the impediments of ligamen (prior bond) and the impediment of defect of form will both block the new marriage from coming into existence.
Sally then marries Joe, a catholic, in a civil ceremony outside the church.
This also will be invalid since (a) Sally is still presumed to be married to Bill (from the first marriage) and (b) Sally and Joe both failed to observe the Catholic form of marriage (without a dispensation). As a result, ligamen and defect of form once again block the marriage from coming into existence.
Am I correct in thinking this last marriage of Sally’s is both illicit and invalid?
Yes.
My absence at this last wedding has caused a great deal of grief and I am having difficulty explaining to Sally and Joe why there is a problem with this wedding between two very loving people who are clearly devoted to each other.
You’ll want to explain it to them in as gentle and loving a way as possible, of course, but the basic fact of the matter is that Sally is presumably married to Bill and thus not free to marry Joe. Further, Sally and Joe failed to fulfill their responsibility as Catholics to observe the Catholic form of marriage or to obtain a dispensation from this requirement (something analogous to getting married without a wedding license, which is enough to invalidate a marriage in different states).
For you to have shown up at the wedding would have sent the message to Sally and Joe that what they were doing was okay, when it is not (Jesus was very firm on this point; see Mark 10). It thus would have been an offense against the truth for you to show up at the wedding.
That being said, you can offer to do everything you can to assist them if they wish to see about rectifying their marital situation. The first step in this process would be to begin pursuing an annulment on Sally’s prior marriages.
HERE’S THE BEST BOOK THERE IS ON THAT SUBJECT, TO HELP THEM OUT.
Aw, shucks Jimmy. You shouldn’t had oughtta. BTW: I tell people to SKIP Amazon’s “buy both Ed Peters books and save” jazz. They are essentially the same book, with ANNULMENTS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH being the one in print.
I have a hard enough time understanding how the hypothetical Sally and Joe can reconcile their behavior with their consciences, but even assuming that they manage to do so, I really have a hard time understanding where they get off demanding that other people violate their consciences, and make the willingness to commit that violation a test of friendship. Would these people insist that a Mennonite friend or relative attend their graduation from Parris Island?
I understand that Mark 10:11 is on the mark (no pun intended), but some insist that Matthew 5:32 does allow for divorce in some circumstances. I understand that it probably stems from a translation issue and that the Church got it right, but how can the case be made? Was it really a translation problem?
God bless.
Jimmy,
You say “The first step in this process would be to begin pursuing an annulment on Sally’s prior marriages.”
With emphasis on the plurality of Sally’s marriages, am I not correct that, given the information in the scenario, the only annulment necessary for Sally and Joe to pursue would be the marriage between Sally and Bill? I base my understanding on c. 1085, sections 1 and 2, which, in effect, declare that all subsequent marriages are invalidly attempted on the basis of prior bond, given that the previous marriage was valid and that it still exists by law (neither dissoved by death, ecclesial authority, or declared null by said authority).
It is further my underestanding that in such cases the question of form would not be considered in subsequent marriages due to the inability of the parties to give consent on account of the invalidity arising due to prior bond. Of couse this is notwithstanding that failure to receive dispensation from form invalidates marriages where diriment impediments are not present.
Although the last of Sally’s marriages, from the standpoint of canon law, is “illicit and invalid” this marriage may be made licit by simple convalidation if her original marriage to Bill can be proven to be invalid. Such would require that a formal annulment case be presented to the tribunal. Formal cases are known to take anywhere from a few months to a number of years, depending on the diocese and what is involved in the case. Given all that, there is always the possibility that an affirmitive decision will not be returned.
On the question of whether or not the faithful may attend marriage ceremonies such as that of Sally to Joe, I feel that above all else it is a matter of personal conscience. An individual is obligated to follow the dictates of his or her conscience, but I know of nothing in Church law or discipline that would actually prevent one from attending the civil ceremony of divorced persons.
Just as a related item only, I think that it’s worthwhile for all the faithful to spend some time reflecting on John Paul’s 1981 apostolic exhortation on “the Christian Family in the Modern World.”
Augustine,
Note also that the Matthew’s account differs from the Luke 16:18 account. The translation issue that you refer to centers on the Greek word “porneia,” rendered in some translations as adultery and as fornication or unchastity in others. While “porneia” might include adultery (moicheia) it is not exactly the same thing. Benedict T. Viviano, O.P. says that Matthew’s clause is not actually an exception to the prohibition of divorce due to the fact that “porneia” is a rendering of the Hebrew “zenut” or prostitution in the sense of incest within forbidden degrees of kinship. Viviano says, “Such a union would not be a true marriage at all and would not require a divorce but a decree of nullity or an annulment.”
Dan,
I understand that that is what the Magisterium teaches. Perhaps the Catholic case can be made if one looks at the context, when Jesus explicitly states that divorce only existed because of the hardness of men’s heart, but at the beginning that was not how God had intended it. And then there’s the subsequent development on marriage being a model for the bonding love with God in Paradise…
Mark puts it bluntly and is the least common denominator of the other versions in Matthew and in Luke. Is it customary to interpret the Gospels in this way?
God bless.
Mark puts it bluntly and is the least common denominator of the other versions in Matthew and in Luke. Is it customary to interpret the Gospels in this way?
Yes, I think I understand your question. Mark’s gospel is the earliest of the synoptics and is much shorter than the other two. Mark also shows less literary development than Matthew or Luke. There are several theories on the synoptic problem. However, if you will do a parallel reading of synoptic pericopes bearing in mind Marcan priority, it is fairly easy to see that Mark’s material is contained in both Matthew and Luke. The problem gets somewhat complicated in that Matthew and Luke contain similar non-Marcan material, which gives rise to the generally accepted Q source theory (assuming they were not working interdependently). To get into the issues deeply would require a study that covers well over 100 years work. What I suggest is that you read the introductory material that is placed before each book in your NAB and pay close attention to the footnotes, which are helpful in sorting out interpretive difficulties. The Catholic Study Bible (NAB) has some excellent articles that are worth looking at.
Hope this helps.