Pieces of Heaven to See

by Hannah Westwood, for Contemporary Catholicism and Revisionist Theology, THE 345

The topic of divorce and remarriage is a popular and often debated subject in the Church today. Marital breakdown, unfortunately, has become more and more common, leading to separation, annulments, divorce, remarriage, and so on. Rising numbers of couples seeking divorce in the Catholic Church have come to discover the indissolubility of their marriage, based on Church teaching. “They have been told that once two baptized Christians enter into a valid marriage and have intercourse a bond is created between them. According to Rome no power on earth can break that bond.”[1]

It has been an official teaching of the Church since the twelfth century that marriages are indissoluble.[2] A valid marriage is “between two baptized persons who have validly consented to and sexually consummated their marriage. These are considered sacramental marriages, and the absoluteness of their bond is sealed by sexual intercourse.” Instances in which a marriage is not valid, and therefore may be annulled so a person is free to marry again, include marriages never sexually consummated, where one or both were not baptized, and marriages without “full and mutual consent.” If a person civilly remarries, the Church does not recognize the new marriage and the two “divorced” people are not allowed to receive the sacraments. (Exceptions also apply here, for instance when there is a “serious reason” for living together, accompanied “with sexual abstinence”).[3]

Numerous popes and Church councils have written against divorce, explaining the teaching of the Church and how divorce simply is not allowed. The most recent official Church teaching on divorce began with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, Arcanum, in 1880, followed by Casti Connubi by Pope Pius XI in 1930. Both encyclicals “elaborated on the evils of divorce”[4] and upheld the indissolubility of the sacrament of marriage. Following was the instruction of the Second Vatican Council, shown in the encyclical Gaudium et Spes and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[5] Much of the current interest in the Church’s teaching on divorce focuses around the teaching promulgated in the encyclical Humanae Vitae by Pope John Paul II in 1968.

With all the recent firm teaching by the Church, why is there still confusion? Why are theologians today saying it is acceptable for married couples to obtain official divorces or annulments from the Church, and that the Church has the ability to grant them in the first place?

“Before 1967 U.S. scripture scholars generally understood the New Testament as being in basic agreement with the Catholic Church teaching on indissolubility of marriage.” However, in 1967, scholars began concluding that Christ’s words in the New Testament, regarding divorce, were a “later redaction” and not really His words at all In Mark, Jesus states, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her.”[6] There are similar teachings in Matthew, Luke, and St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. The problem is that scholars say “neither Paul nor any of the authors of the three Gospels actually heard Jesus teach. … all of our sources are based on traditions that they received from others. And they don’t agree.”[7] Also, “the synoptics did not address the issue of what to do when a marriage fails.” Paul does address this in Corinthians and he “does not oppose divorce” between a pagan and a Christian. He does not address divorce between two Christians because it probably was not an issue then. However, he probably “would have applied his principle, ‘it is better to marry than to burn.’”[8]

After the problems of redaction and tradition come the issues of translation. Numerous words can be misinterpreted, and taken out of context, causing “the wrong impression.” There is also the issue of the severity, or tolerance, of a command or exceptions implied by context. In addition, one “divorce clause” was in the “Sermon on the Mount context,” which means it belongs “to the radical teachings of Jesus that, as a whole have not been made into absolute norms.” Of a “series of six sayings on anger, lust, divorce, oath taking, resisting evil, and love of enemies, the Church has absolutized only the saying on divorce into a binding law. The other five sayings are considered ideals to be worked toward.”[9]

After these more basic scriptural interpretation difficulties, there come issues with the nature of marriage. Divorce and remarriage is permissible, according to some theologians, because there is not indissolubility in marriage in the first place. According to them, it was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that Church lawmakers created “the concept of an indissoluble juridical bond existing apart from marriage as a human relationship.” From this proven bond, Charles Curran says, “Catholic authorities used two dubious strategies to establish the indissolubility of marriage. They wrote into the prescriptive definition of marriage an indissoluble bond and then claimed to find a warrant for this twelfth-century approach in the New Testament itself.” The reason they provide is that marriage is a reflection of the union between the Church, as the bride of Christ, and Christ the divine bridegroom, exemplifying His unending and ever faithful “indestructible” commitment to His Church. “The imaged sacred reality of Christ’s relationship to the Church is indissoluble. Therefore the human reality imaging it…is indissoluble.” Theologians arguing in opposition say this bond is not automatically given once a marriage is sacramental.[10]

In 1967, a “Byzantine Rite Catholic priest and canonist,” Victor Popishil, published a book in which he “maintained that the hierarchy has the power of the keys to dissolve truly Christian marriages.” Although “there are many inadequacies in his approach,” it pushed the topic of divorce to the forefront in discussion after Vatican II.[11]

In 1967, another theologian, John Noonan, concluded that “for a substantial period of time many Christians viewed marriage as dissoluble, but this did not prove that the later developments toward indissolubility were wrong.” Noonan also points out that there is a problem “with regard to the historical development of the Catholic tradition.” There is the issue of “interpreting exactly what the fathers of the Church maintained regarding” divorce. There were also “exceptions at that time and…therefore there can be exceptions today.”

In 1969, Noonan also showed that any “insistence on a natural law condemnation of divorce” only started appearing “in papal documents in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to condemn civil divorce.”[12]

At this time, Charles Curran wrote “the first article by an American moral theologian to argue that the Catholic Church should change its teaching on the absolute indissolubility of marriage.” He gathered all the current thoughts of conflict and “touched on all [the different] aspects.” Curran would later be an important figure in pushing for reform in the moral theology of the Church, even to the extent of receiving instructions from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to stop teaching Catholic theology. Curran finds this question of divorce and remarriage within the Church as “similar to homosexuality in moral theology because it brings into play how one understands and uses the sources of our moral teaching and theology—scripture, tradition, the teaching of the Church, human reason, and human and Christian experience.” [13] His position states, “indissolubility remains a goal and ideal for Christian marriage; but Christians, sometimes without any personal fault, are not always able to live up to that ideal. Thus the Roman Catholic Church should change its teaching on divorce.”[14]

It is of interest to note, “not all revisionists called for a change in the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.” Richard McCormick did not approve of the “argument for indissolubility based on the indissoluble bond but proposed a moral argument instead. He thought that the problem of divorce and remarriage could be handled on the pastoral level while still upholding the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.”[15]

Many theologians, who still consider themselves faithful Catholics, are sympathetic toward changing the Church law on divorce and remarriage. In fact, Margaret A. Farley states that “Sympathy with the changes [in doctrine] is not unanimous among theologians, but it is widespread enough to be characterized fairly as a clear majority response.” However just because theologians have pushed for these revisions “so cautiously and relentlessly,” they “are often not reflected in the pronouncements and teachings of church officials.”[16]

Theologians are not the only voices seeking change. “Individual bishops,” seeing the need of their parishes, are also sympathetic,[17] saying they are ready to have their members fully participating again. “At the international Synod of Bishops on the Family in Rome in 1980 the problem of divorced and remarried Catholics was ‘the cause of the most thought and concern for bishops from every part of the Church universal.’” Studies in the 1980s showed that “26 percent of Catholics in this country have been divorced at least once,” and “73 percent of all divorced Americans remarry.” Other studies have shown that “a previous divorce is one of the most powerful reasons why Catholics leave the Church.”[18]

Along with the discussions on divorce come those on annulments. Annulments are the solution to “permit[ting] civil divorce, without simultaneously admitting to a Catholic divorce. … Instead of allowing a Catholic divorce, they deny that the couple was ever married.” “So prevalent has been the granting of annulments that they are often referred to as Catholic divorces.”[19]

Laying aside all uncertainty about the teaching of Jesus, past tradition, and current teaching on divorce, many feel the teaching needs to be revised for today’s society. “The perception of a need for change is fueled by western culture’s massive contemporary experience of the breakdown of marital relationship and by the gradual recognition of legitimate differences in cross-cultural interpretations of marriage and family.”[20] Many theologians also recognize that there are bigger issues at hand—how to “strengthen and support the commitment to permanent and faithful marriage in light of the many marital breakdowns in our society.”[21]

How are other theologians responding to this discussion? Pope Benedict XI himself responded to concerns from the members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota in 2007. He first notes: “This crisis of the meaning of marriage is also influencing the attitude of many of the faithful. The practical effects of what I have called ‘the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture’ with regard to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, is felt especially acutely in the sphere of marriage and the family.” After speaking on some traditional Church teaching and how these current revisions on divorce contradict the truth and teaching of the Church, Benedict writes on how to properly respond to some of these positions. “One must react to this tendency with courage and faith, constantly applying the hermeneutic of renewal in continuity and not allowing oneself to be seduced by forms of interpretation that involve a break with the Church’s tradition.” He warns that following these other “forms” we are “led away from the true essence of marriage.”[22]

When reflecting on revised teachings on divorce in the Catholic Church, it might be helpful to remember “the Church’s position on the indissolubility of sacramental and consummated marriage…was in fact defined at the Council of Trent and so belongs to the patrimony of the Faith.”[23]

[2]. Philip S. Kaufman, Why You Can Disagree, 104.

[3]. Margaret A. Farley, “Divorce, Remarriage and Pastoral Practice,” In Curran, Marriage: Readings in Moral Theology No. 15, 428.

[4]. Robert J Kendra, “American Annulment Mills,” In Curran, Marriage:

Readings in Moral Theology No. 15, 371.

[5]. Kendra, “American Annulment Mills,” 371.

[6]. Mk.10:11

[7]. Philip S. Kaufman, Why You Can Disagree, 109.

[8]. Pierre Hegy and Joseph Martos, Catholic Divorce: The Deception of Annulments, New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000, 15.

[9]. Philip S. Kaufman, Why You Can Disagree, 109-113.

[10]. Charles E. Curan, Catholic Moral Theology in the United States: A History, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008, 202.

[11]. Curan, Catholic Moral Theology in the United States: A History, 200.

[12]. Curan, Catholic Moral Theology, 200-201.

[13]. Curan, Catholic Moral Theology, 200.

[14]. Richard A. McCormick, “L’Affaire Curran,” In Charles E. Curran, and Richard A. McCormick. Readings in Moral Theology No. 6, New York: Paulist Press, 1998, 409.

[15]. Curan, Catholic Moral Theology, 203.

[16]. Farley, “Divorce, Remarriage and Pastoral Practice,” In Curran, 426.

[17]. Margaret A. Farley, “Divorce, Remarriage and Pastoral Practice,” In Curran, 427.

[18]. Philip S. Kaufman, Why You Can Disagree, 104-105.

[19]. Kendra, “American Annulment Mills,” 371.

[20]. Farley, “Divorce, Remarriage and Pastoral Practice,” In Curran, 427.

[21]. Curan, Catholic Moral Theology, 203.

[22]. Benedict, XVI. “Address to the Members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota.” Philippine Canonical Forum 9, (January 2007): 7-12. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 17, 2009).

[23]. Joseph Ratzinger, “Letters to Curran,” In Charles E. Curran, and Richard A. McCormick. Readings in Moral Theology No. 6, New York: Paulist Press, 1998, 361.

© Copyright Hannah Westwood, 2009