Frank talk about Church divorce/sacraments

I want to provide some perspective and words of comfort to those who are confused and hurt by the strict teachings of the Catholic Church regarding divorce and premarital sex. First of all, it is not the Church’s job to “change with the times.” It is the Church’s job to tell people what God has instructed them is necessary in order to conduct their lives righteously and, with hope and grace, attain eternal life in God after death. It would be unthinkable if the Catholic Church knew what Jesus instructed and what God has revealed throughout the Old and New Testament, and then started fiddling with the truth in order to make people more “comfortable” and “up to date with society” and yet omit some of the essential instruction about salvation. So instead of hounding the Church to loosen up on its doctrine, believers should be thanking them for holding fast to what they know is true.

Having said this, God is not exactly unfamiliar with the state of the world today. When Jesus commented that from the beginning it was intended that a man and a woman should marry and not divorce, and that it was only due to the hardness of men’s hearts that Moses allowed divorce, it was a different society than it is now. I do not mean looser mores and increasing secularism justifying divorce and/or premarital sex. But I am saying that when Jesus lived people usually did not find themselves in marriages where one can be beaten and abused without risking the spouse’s family’s retaliation, marriages where a spouse is abusing drugs and/or alcohol, marriages where a spouse has homosexual or pedophilia tendencies, marriages where a spouse values a material life style over allowing a parent to stay at home with children, or marriages where a spouse refuses to be a mature bread earner and/or denies God. Many people find themselves in unbearable marital situations that no one would endure in the time that Jesus lived and preached. This does not mean that marriage should become as casual and optional as many press the Church to make it. The Church should continue to preach and believe the ideal, even if the ideal is very hard to find. When one gives up on the ideal, one gives up on all of it, and there become no standards at all and no chance to correct the downward slide of society. So Jesus correctly reminded people that while Moses allowed divorce because of the hardness of people’s hearts (for example, putting away a wife who could not bear a child and heir) God’s intention is that marriage be between a man and a woman and unless there is infidelity there should be no divorce.

Where the Church DOES need to change is to provide more timely and more understanding annulments. I am extremely unhappy with the current situation of annulments. The Church thinks it is upholding standards by making it a difficult and prolonged, painful process, but it is wrong. I've just listed up above unbearable marriage situations that apply to far too many people, and all of them, I feel, merit the granting of swift and understanding annulments. In the time of Jesus no man would abuse drugs, abuse his wife, hang out in gay bars, view porn on the computer, and duck out of bread winning without most likely being beaten within an inch of his life by her family (if those sins all existed in that time). Nowadays all too many marriages are touched by at least one of those blights and in my opinion annulments are merited to the injured party with no scandal or lack of dignity. That is the way to respond to “today’s society” that is still faithful to the teachings of God. Can you honestly tell me that, just as an example, a spouse who steadily uses drugs is upholding a true marriage? Especially if children are being raised in a household where a spouse is using drugs? Good grief, no. I do not think the Church should even question a request for an annulment if there is drug or alcohol abuse. That is different than loosening the definition and standards for a marriage; that is actually upholding the standards by liberally granting swift annulments when the situation of that marriage is so obviously impure and tainted by the substance abuse.

I think this is also, to be fair to the Church, where the loss of vocations and the rapidly changing culture has caught them flat footed regarding sheer human resources for the annulment process. Just as insufficient (and in many cases shameful and criminal) attention was given to the problem of sexual abuse in the Church, there has been inattention to updating the process of annulments and the communication of liberality and generosity of criterion toward those seeking them. I am quite outraged that people who have suffered through the break up of a marriage also have to suffer through an unsympathetic and prolonged process of annulment. I totally understand, to be honest, people who did not even try to seek an annulment for that very reason. While I have some sympathy for the parish priest who is under resourced and who tries to maintain the dignity of the sacraments, I cringe and am very sad when a person who has suffered through a divorce, and especially if they at last find happiness and remarries, are in any way separated from the sacraments because of the insufficiency of the Church to handle the burgeoning problem of marriages that turn out to be fatally flawed due to reasons such as I gave above. Rather than be the source of swift and charitable comfort with the granting of rapid and non judging annulments, the Church is adding oppression onto the suffering ex-spouse by manipulating denial of sacraments. And I include judgmental laity in this chastisement too. I have been on the receiving end of smart mouth judgment of what I’d endured in failed marriage from people who have no right to speak, judge, or preach.

So I hope this helps with those who struggle to understand why the Church holds so tightly to very conservative doctrine about marriage and premarital sex (as this is indeed God’s true intention that they are trying to protect) but also provides comfort to those who see that something is also very lacking in the Church’s response to the cold hard reality of the times. It does not take a genius to see that there are at least ten marriage killers that proliferate in society today that did not exist in the time of Moses or Jesus. Give me a freaking break. The Church ought to hire some consultants and get a process in place to swiftly recognize the marriage breaking and invalidating circumstances and grant swift compassionate annulments. I do not see why an annulment that is valid and merited should not take place at the same time as the legal divorce. How much intelligence and thought does it take to understand the circumstances of a divorce and grant an annulment? The Church is definitely lacking in charity and pastoral caring when it has not put in place a system to liberalize and streamline annulments for those situations where as I listed above, there is a profound invalidation of a marriage as it would have existed in the time of Christ.

Just to give some comfort to those who have suffered through a breakup of a marriage, I’ll tell you this experience of mine. I married very hastily, while young and still in college, in order to escape an abusive stalking situation (I was unsuccessful in that, by the way, as I've frequently mentioned on these pages). I soon discovered that the man I had married was latent homosexual, an alcoholic who would drive drunk (brought home once by police), and used our apartment as a crash pad for friends who came from their heroin shooting galleries. Was that a valid marriage? Give me a break. And to add insult to injury, the Catholic priest who married us was found to have had a child by a nun on the side. Was he able to conduct a valid marriage? Give me a break. He should not have been elevating the Holy Presence, say nothing of conducting marriages. I have never considered that a valid marriage by so many measures that I could donate some to other divorcing couples ha. Can you even imagine what Jesus would have said about the “sanctity” of this farce of a “marriage?” And I was going to seek an annulment from the Church that had the sexually marauding priest actually conduct the “marriage?” And I would listen to jibes about being “divorced” and yet still be of the Church? Guess again. Press me and you’ll find I have a more Islamic perspective about putting away a spouse that is so outrageously disrespectful, and what would I surely say about the Church being unjustly conservative about annulment but a blind eye toward unchaste priests? So I thought I would share my thoughts about how I can be so conservative doctrinally yet extremely pragmatic about the reality of the suffering and problems in current times and how the Church needs to get off the dime about it.