By Peter Murphy | For On Mission
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Questions around divorce, remarriage and Church teaching are prevalent today. Yet, often, our confusion around these topics emerges from our lack of understanding of what marriage is and what married life is meant to be. Once we know the truth about marriage, the Church’s teachings around divorce and remarriage make more sense.
So let’s start with marriage. And the best place to start talking about marriage is the very first chapter of the first book of the Bible.
Right in the book of Genesis, God shares his plan and purpose for sex and marriage. God creates us as male and female (Gn 1:27) and invites Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply (Gn 1:28). In the very next chapter, we learn more about marriage. “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body” (Gn 2:24). Our former families and lives are forsaken so that we can give ourselves completely to our spouse and become one flesh. This intimate union of two people becoming one flesh (marriage) has essential characteristics in order to be authentically lived out.
The Catechism on the Catholic Church (1601-1666) has a whole section on the Sacrament of Matrimony. Church teaching highlights that marriage is more than a civil contract, but a lifelong covenant between a baptized man and a baptized woman “ordered to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring” (CCC 1601).
From this definition, we can see four essential hallmarks of marriage.
First, a person must freely choose (without coercion or pressure) to marry the other person. Their free decision to marry the other must be to fully give their whole selves to the other person.
Second, in marriage the spouse holds nothing back from the other, just as Jesus Christ gave his whole self to us on the Cross. A spouse is not free to put conditions on the marriage or barriers to their newly formed union.
Third, when a couple gets married, their intention must be to be faithful to one another for the rest of their lives. Sometimes sexual addictions or not intending to be faithful to one’s spouse can prevent a sacramental marriage from taking place.
Finally, the couple’s relationship is intended to be fruitful and thus open to life. Marriage is naturally ordered to have children and raise a family, and the couple must preserve this openness to life whenever they renew their wedding vows with their bodies in marital intercourse.
Thus, a marriage is meant to be freely entered into, fully giving oneself to the other, in a faithful union that is open to children. Since we are not perfect and sin, we don’t always live this out perfectly, but we do always strive to live this out in our marriages.
Sometimes it happens that a marriage may break down. In light of these challenges, some couples separate. Depending on why a couple is separating may determine if it is sinful or not.
Grave situations may require a separation for the safety of the spouse or children. Sometimes a spouse moves out and abandons a spouse, one may be culpable and the other may not be. Separated couples are still married and should remain faithful to their vows. Ideally the couple may seek reconciliation (perhaps with counseling, spiritual direction, etc.). But in some cases, reconciliation is not possible. If this is the case, a separated person can still live in full communion with the Church as long as they remain faithful to their wedding vows.
All too often, we hear of couples getting divorced. While a sad reality, again, no one can judge the situation from the outside.
Sometimes it may be because of sinful behavior or a failure on the part of one or both spouses. Sometimes divorce is necessary for the protection of the spouse and children. It is important to remember that simply being divorced does not separate someone from full communion within the Church or from receiving Holy Communion. If a person has confessed all serious sin and not committed serious sin, they may receive communion and the sacraments.
The challenge becomes when a divorced person seeks to marry someone else when they have not received an annulment (also called a declaration of nullity) from the Church.
When someone is divorced without an annulment, they are still married to their former spouse in the eyes of God.
Divorce may end the civil aspects of the marriage, but it does not end the sacramental marriage. The person is still sacramentally married and thus not free to marry another. To marry another person would be to enter into an adulterous relationship. Thus, before any divorced person seeks to remarry, they must have received an annulment.
An annulment is not a Catholic divorce. Divorce says that a marriage happened and is now over. The Church conducts an annulment process that is a thorough examination of the couple before, during and after their wedding vows to ensure that the couple meant what they professed on their wedding day.
If a person did not intend to live a marriage that is faithful, forever, freely entered into and open to life then the person did not intend to live out the vows of the sacrament that they professed on their wedding day. Other impediments may also have prevented the sacramental marriage from being valid. The marriage is null, meaning it never really took place. The person may have said the words of the sacrament, but they never intended or could not live them out (see CCC 1628-1629).
Often, couples go into marriage with very different understandings of what they are saying “I do” to. It is important that when a couple marries that they both know what they are agreeing to and what their marriage is meant to be.
The Catholic Church offers wonderful and clear guidance on marriage that flows directly from Sacred Scripture and the teachings of Jesus.
In Matthew 19:1-12, Jesus clearly highlights that marriage joins a man and woman together in a bond that is forever. If one were to leave their spouse and marry another, they commit adultery. He acknowledges that married life is not always easy, but we know that, with God’s grace through the Sacrament of Marriage, it is possible to love like Jesus in a way that is free, faithful, fruitful and forever.
While divorce and remarriage are fairly common in our world, let us Catholics work with all our ability and in cooperation with the grace of the sacrament to live our marriage vows in such a way that we model Christ’s love for his Church (Eph 5:25) — a love that is self-sacrificing for the other.
Peter Murphy is special assistant to the bishop for the Diocese of Green Bay.