Divorce And Catholicism Essay Research Paper Page

Divorce And Catholicism Essay, Research Paper

Page 1

Theology 2100

Final Paper

Divorce and Catholicism

It’s hard to believe that there are over six million divorced Catholics in the United

States alone. Recent statistics show that one out of two marriages now end in divorce.

The national average is a failure rate of about one out of two marriages. Most Catholics

are taught that marriage is sacred and that it means “forever”. It means that you give up

your single life and prepare to be with one man or woman for the rest of your life. But

today, with divorce at an all time high, this is not always reality. Marriage is effected by

consent. A couple knowingly says “yes” to everything that a marriage involves. The

“yes” is the real issue.

Divorce is the termination of a marriage in civil law by court decree or

judgment. The Church denies that civil divorce can break the bond of a valid marriage,

whether the marriage involves two Catholics, one Catholic and a non-catholic, or non-

Catholics with each other. It feels that the termination of a marriage, in most

circumstances, is impossible because it is against the dominical command found in

Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9, …“what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

This teaching does not say that the faithful cannot get a civil divorce or live apart from a

spouse, especially if staying married would bring harm to either one of them, or their

children.

The church is to provide justice for anyone whose marriage has failed, but, they

can only do this when it can be proven that from the very beginning, the marriage was

missing an important part for a true sacramental bond. Sacramental marriage is still a

Page 2

central Catholic teaching and Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II strongly believe that a

sacramental marriage bond is lifelong and cannot be broken by civil or Church authority.

The Church does not look for someone to blame for marriage breakup. They only

look to find out why the marriage failed and whether either or both people in the

relationship lacked the proper consent or the ability to carry out consent. It also does not

affect the legitimacy of any children born during the marriage.

According to the Rev. Michael Dogali’s article, Is Marriage Still Permanent.,

“church law affirms the personal relationship, the intimate partnership between the

spouses, as a crucial and basic dimension of marriage”… “marriage is a union of persons,

not simply a union of bodies. The purpose of marriage is to give life, but equally, to

share it.”

We can see that the Church opposes divorce and, at times, may not even

recognize it. The word “divorce” is seen eleven times in eleven verses of the bible.

For example, in Leviticus 21:14, it is said, “A widow, or a divorced woman, or

profane, or a harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to

wife.” This said that a man who was going to serve God as a priest in the Tabernacle

could not marry a divorced woman.

Other places where the word “divorce” shows up is in Leviticus 22:13, Numbers

30:9, in the Mosaic law seen in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, in Isaiah 50:1, and Jeremiah 3:8.

The New Testament has the last four, including Matthew 5:31-32, Matthew 19:7, where

Pharisees tempts Jesus Christ with the question, “Why did Moses then command to give

a writing of divorcement, and to put her away.”, and finally, the word “divorce” is found

Page 3

in Mark 10:4.

It is important to mention that the bible often uses another phrase for the word

divorce, which is “put away”. This phrase is defined in Genesis 35:2 where Jacob tells

his children to “put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change

your garments.” Therefore, it means to “get rid of something”. The words “put away”

occur in Leviticus 21:7, Ezra 10:3, 19, Isaiah 50:1, Jeremiah 3:1, Ezek. 44:22, Hos. 2:2,

Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3, 8-9, Mark 10:2, 11-12, Luke 16:18, and 1 Cor. 7:11.

It was never God’s intention that a husband and wife divorce (Matthew 19:7),

but, God made provision for problems when they came about that might be “out of

the norm”. He said that divorce should be occasional and not habitual or routine.

Malachi 2:16 states, “the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting

away”. In other words, God hates divorce. But, the truth is that God does not hate

divorced people. Also, divorce is not always the wrong thing to do. What if, especially

in today’s society, a marriage involves strong emotional and/or physical abuse. Should a

person stay in that marriage because it is against God’s will to have a divorce. Should

that person keep themselves and their children in a situation where they can be harmed

because the bible tells them to do it. Well, fortunately for these such people, there are, in

fact, biblical grounds for divorce. Thankfully, it is recogniz

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать