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
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6. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1994.
7. Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Almanac. Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1999.
8. Vespie, Pastor Stan. Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage. Wartburg, TN: 1995
9. Dogali, Rev. Michael. Is Marriage Still Permanent? ….www.spirituality.org
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11. Bockle, Franz. The Future of Marriage as Institution. NY: Herder and Herder, 1970.
of marriage that permits a person to have more than one husband or wife (Encyclopedia
Statistically, in our world today, half of all marriages will end in divorce. About fifty-percent of our population will also live in a stepfamily environment. In other words, more than half of the American families today, are now or eventually will be in involved in one or more stepfamily situations during their life according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1990. The “U.S. Bureau decided to discontinue providing estimates of marriage, divorce, and remarriage, except for those that are available from our current census. Thus many of our current estimates were derived from the 1990 census and earlier sources” (Step Family Fact Sheet, 1). Therefore the exact statistics in regards to stepfamilies today may be more or less from the estimated fifty- percent.
How common is divorce in America? Statistically a great amount of married couples in the United Sates are choosing divorce. In 2003 in America, approximately 45 percent of couples in their first marriages ended in divorce. The divorce rate for couples in second marriages was 58 percent (smartmarraiges.com). Then there are those couples who have thought about divorce, but for different reasons decided to stay married. A Gallup Poll in the United States found that 40 percent of married individuals had considered leaving their partners, and 20 percent said they were dissatisfied with their marriage about half the time (Olson and Defrain 1994, p. 6). According to the U.S. Census, the total numbers of U.S. divorces reported finalized annually were 957,200 in 2000 and 944,317 in 1998. If Americans keep this rate up, we will proudly be reporting years from now, an annual divorce rate of higher numbers than we would like to think of (www.census...
Marriage is a commitment that seems to be getting harder to keep. The social standards placed on an individual by society and influenced by the media inevitably lead some to consider divorce as a “quick-fix” option. “Have it your way” has become a motto in the United States. It has become a country without any consideration of the psychological effects of marriage and divorce. The overwhelmingly high divorce rate is caused by a lack of moral beliefs and marital expectations.
First of all, America has the highest divorce rate among western nations. Divorce rate increased after every major war, and decreased during the Post-World War II economic boom. The divorce rate has more than doubled since 1940, when there were two divorces for every 1,000 persons. Now for the same number of people, there are over five divorces. Studies indicate that there is more divorce among persons with low incomes and limited education and those who marry at a very young age. Teenage marriages are much more likely to end in divorce than are all other marriages. And women who marry when they are over age 30 are the least likely to become divorced. There has been a decline in divorce in the number of couples who have children under 18. Almost 45 p...
Stephanie Coontz, author of The Evolution of Matrimony: The Changing Social Context of Marriage, writes that there has been more changes in marriage in the past 30 years then there was in the 3,000 years earlier. With these changes there are no religious or cultural exclusions. Coontz claims, “Right here is America’s Bible belt exist some of the highest rates of divorce and unwed motherhood in the country, and born again Christians d...
According to the Council on Families In America, “for the average American, the probability that a marriage taking place today will end in divorce or permanent separation is calculated to be a staggering 60% and more than half of divorcing couples have children under the age of 18. The odds that a child today will witness the divorce of their parents, is twice as great as a generation ago, with as many as half of all children likely to experience a parental divorce before they leave home.”
Every year approximately 2.4 million marriages occur.Out of those,2.1 millionwill file for divorce in the United States. These marriage and divorce rates have significantly increased since the years past(Coltrane and Adams, 364).According to Schoen, in the 1950’s, 15 out of 1,000 marriages ended in divorce.In the 1970’s, the rates of divorcedoubled,increasing to 40 per 1,000 marriages. Currently, the rate of marriages resulting in divorce remains the same. Most marriages are ending within seven years ofthemarriage for multiple different reasons. Sociologists haveestablisheddivorce as a social problem from the rise in divorcerates due to the early year of marriages (2006).
Fundamentally the main factors facing a Justice in their decision is the matter of public safety and the harmony of the marriage. Compelling a spouse to testify against their partner is in direct conflict with that ideology. Therefore divorced or legally separated couples do not fall under this category. In R. v. Bailey it was determined that spousal incompetence does not survive divorce. Justice Morden observed that: “The modern policy justification for the rule in question is that is supports marital harmony.
Ritual and Vows of Christian Marrage and Their Influence on the Differing Ways that Couples Approach Marraige and Marital Breakdown
Throughout the last half of the century, our society has watched the divorce rate of married couples skyrocket to numbers previously not seen. Although their has been a slight decline in divorce rates, “half of first marriages still were expected to dissolve before death.” (Stacy, 15, 1991) Whatever happened to that meaningful exchange of words, “until death do us part,” uttered by the bride and groom to each other on their wedding day? What could have been the cause of such inflated divorce rates? Perhaps young married couples are not mature enough to be engaged in such a trremendous responsibility, or, maybe, the couples really do not know each other as well as they thought. Possibly, they have been blinded by infatuation rather than by true love, or, quite simply, the couples mistakenly have different relational expectations.
A key problem with the current divorce law is that if a couple has simply fallen o...
marriage, divorce and the use of pre-nuptial agreements. We have used the principles of game
Sex out of wedlock, divorces, childbirth out of wedlock, etc. are all seen as normal circumstances currently. Marriage is an indissoluble bond which means it cannot be broken for the rest of the life after the bond is made. The Church wants to stress the importance of marriage to a relationship and the significance of marriage in reference to Jesus’ loving sacrifice to all. Marriage is a symbol of the sacrifice Jesus made of himself out of love for mankind. Through marriage, the Lord allows us to experience that love with one another as Jesus loves us. Conjugal love can reach that extent of love which all married people are called
Marriage is an inevitable stage of our life. Some people choose to get married in