A cousin of mine belongs to the Church of Christ, second only to Baptists in numbers of adherents in the greater Nashville area. Every time I visit relatives he reminds me that his church forbids him to continue to function as a trustee of the church if he follows through with a wedding after a divorce with his previous wife. The churches vary with their discipline following their reading of the teaching of Jesus on marriage, divorce and remarriage. Let’s review the discipline of our own Catholic Church.

The church stands for the permanence of marriage and the integrity of family life. There is nothing wrong with two-parent families in this questioning age of ours. The teaching of Jesus (Mark 10) is clear. All Christian churches consider divorce an evil. Along with biblically based belief, we all recognize the social consequences of broken marriages and families spelled out in daily life and behavior are profoundly disturbing.

The Catholic Church disallows divorce in principle. Revelation through the Sacred Writ presents inspiration that Christian marriage should copy God’s endurance with us. In these times we struggle with the evil of divorce, trying to approach the situation with mercy and level-headedness. And we must beware of subscribing to the spirit connected with our civil freedoms that says divorce is routine and a credible option for Christians. Instead, we offer our faith and best energies toward making our marriages and families symbols of the fidelity and permanence of God.

We believe that our choice to marry cannot be removed from our baptismal relationship with Christ; that this personal choice and commitment is called to image the God we worship. Therefore, our faith requires that we celebrate our weddings in church. Civil weddings or other contexts are not approved by our religion. The church is serious about this matter to the extent that marriage outside the church removes one from the Communion table until the church is allowed to embrace that union and record it in the church registers. We believe baptism joins us to Christ in a graced bond carrying profound impact on our life choices, e.g., taking up faith in adulthood with confirmation, one’s choice of a marriage partner, sacred ordination and vows of religion.

To be qualified for marriage in the Catholic Church, whether one is Catholic, Protestant or unbaptized, one must be free to marry, that is, have no lawful previous marriage the church would recognize. Consequently, any and all previous attempts at marriage, in or outside the church, have to be documented and examined by a qualified church tribunal with an affirmative outcome before remarriage can be permitted.

A marriage that is annulled or dissolved or declared invalid by the church means a decree of freedom is issued to be surrendered to a parish priest who will be preparing one for lawful marriage in the Catholic Church. The precise issues of this examination involve determining: whether full and unqualified consent was rendered the union by both spouses, whether the qualifications and proper motivation were there at the start, whether the ceremonial formalities of law were observed intact, and a study of the Christian depth and quality of the marriage.

Should someone be divorced and remarried, the church is anxious to regularize the person’s good standing in the church. Successive marriages without the church’s intervention pose definite conundrums relative to one’s movement and participation in church life. That is why you hear the qualification, “good standing in the church,” when it is time to consider elections for various church councils or being a sponsor for someone in baptism or confirmation or being a candidate for some important ministry in the church.

Our abiding beliefs and laws, of course, do not stop us from ministering to those grieving in the wake of separation and divorce or eagerly assisting those who desire the church to embrace a current unlawful attempt at marriage once previous attempts, civil and otherwise, have been clarified. As the sacrament of matrimony is called to image the fidelity of God, certainly, those who have suffered marital breakdown have experienced something of Good Friday in their lives. Many of those who are divorced and attending church did not want nor did they arrange for this broken experience. Divorced Christians image the virtue of long suffering for us.

If marriage appears riveted with rules and regulations, the perception is true enough. But the rules and regulations are not so much red tape as the church community’s jealous guarding of a sacred thing that belongs to God. This is what sacrament means, a reality infused by God’s graced presence over which we do not have entire control. Civil marriage is just that, a personal experience controlled by the spouses from beginning to end.

The sacrament of marriage begs more personal qualification on the part of the spouses who are wrapped up in Jesus Christ and who live lives governed by his teachings. For this reason, in accordance with our discipline, lawful marriage for a Catholic means getting married before a priest or a deacon and two witnesses.

Marriage for us is an experience of faith. That faith lived and shared between the spouses supports their mutual love and commitment and assists them with their efforts beyond what human strength can accomplish. That faith buttressed by the grace of the sacrament helps the spouses to raise their marriage on a higher level so that they can be a sign to the rest of us that God remains permanent and enduring with us.

Sincerely yours in Christ,
Bishop Joseph N. Perry