When Jesus came, he elevated matrimony to the same status it had originally possessed between Adam and Eve—the status of a sacrament. Thus, any valid marriage between two baptized people is a sacramental marriage and, once consummated, cannot be dissolved. Jesus, therefore, taught that if anyone so married divorces and remarries, that person is living in perpetual adultery, a state of mortal sin.
He said, “Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery” (Luke 16:18; cf. Mark 10:11-12).
Paul was equally insistent on this fact, declaring, “Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives … Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive” (Rom. 7:2-3).
This applied, of course, only to sacramental marriages—those between baptized people. For marriages involving an unbaptized party, a different rule applied (1 Cor. 7:12-15).
In the midst of the Greco-Roman culture, which allowed for easy divorce and remarriage, the early Church Fathers proclaimed Christ’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage—just as the Catholic Church does today in our modern, secular, easy-divorce culture (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1614-1615). Other denominations have modified their teachings to accommodate the pro-divorce ethos that dominates modern culture, but the Catholic Church preserves the teaching of Jesus and the early Christians.
While their ex-spouses are alive, the only time that a baptized couple can remarry after divorce is when a valid sacramental marriage never existed in the first place. For example, for a marriage to be contracted, the two parties must exchange valid matrimonial consent. If they do not, the marriage is null. If the competent authority (a diocesan marriage tribunal) establishes this fact, a decree of nullity (commonly called an annulment) can be granted, and the parties are free to remarry (CCC 1629). In this case there is no divorce followed by remarriage in God’s eyes because there was no marriage before God in the first place, merely a marriage in the eyes of men.
If, however, the parties are genuinely and sacramentally married, then, while in some cases there may be good reasons for them to live apart and even to obtain a legal separation, in God’s eyes they are not free to remarry (CCC 1649).
This is not a commandment of men, but one that comes directly from Jesus Christ. As Paul said, “To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)—and that the husband should not divorce his wife.” (1 Cor. 7:10-11)
Fortunately, God will ensure that the sacramentally married have the grace necessary to live out their marriage vows and either stay married or live continently. The sacrament of matrimony itself gives this grace. Whenever we face a trial, God ensures that we will have the grace we need. As Paul elsewhere says, “Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human. And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able: but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
Any person who has entered a genuine marriage remains bound to that spouse. The spiritual bonds of marriage, if formed, cannot be ended by civil divorce. In the eyes of the Church, divorce ends the various civil, financial, and legal bonds previously contracted between spouses, but not the spiritual bonds.
For this reason, the Catholic Church investigates, through the annulment process, whether an actual marriage, as defined by the Church, came into being. In carrying out this investigation, the Church examines various facts presented to the marriage tribunal by those seeking the annulment and their witnesses. If the Church then determines that no genuine marriage came into being, these individuals are free to marry someone else if that person is also free to marry.
A Catholic annulment, also known as a declaration of nullity or invalidity, is a statement of fact by the Catholic Church. After carefully examining the couple’s broken relationship, the Church states that a valid marriage, as the Church defines marriage, never existed. It is not “Catholic divorce,” as some have called it, since divorce looks at the moment the relationship broke down and says, “A marriage existed, and now we are ending it.” The annulment process says, on the other hand, “From the very beginning, something was lacking that was necessary for this relationship to be called a marriage.”
Canon law speaks of natural marriage as: “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its very nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children” (Canon 1055, § 1). Quite often, what is lacking at the time of the civil contract is one of the essential elements or properties of marriage already noted. The mature consent of the spouses in undertaking the marriage covenant may also be lacking. Of course, the Church recognizes the couple’s initial love for one another. It also realizes that this love led to some form of relationship. In addition, the Church acknowledges that there was a valid civil contract and recognizes that the spouses were lawfully married in the eyes of the state. Therefore, all children born of this valid civil contract are legitimate, according to the Catholic Church. In keeping with Canon 1137, they are known as the legitimate children of a “putative marriage.”
All these civil and legal realities the Church recognizes. But the annulment process looks at an entirely different realm—the spiritual—which falls within the Catholic Church’s domain of competence to judge.
As the following quotations from the early Church Fathers illustrate, they also recognized the seriousness of Christ’s teaching regarding the indissolubility of marriage.
“What then shall the husband do, if the wife
continue in this disposition [adultery]? Let him divorce
her, and let the husband remain single. But if he divorce
his wife and marry another, he too commits
adultery.”
—The
Shepherd 4:1:6, A.D. 80
“In regard to chastity, [Jesus] has this to say:
‘If anyone look with lust at a woman, he has
already before God committed adultery in his
heart.’ And, ‘Whoever marries a woman who has
been divorced from another husband, commits
adultery.’ According to our Teacher, just as they
are sinners who contract a second marriage, even though
it be in accord with human law, so also are they sinners
who look with lustful desire at a woman. He repudiates
not only one who actually commits adultery, but even one
who wishes to do so; for not only our actions are
manifest to God, but even our thoughts.”
—First
Apology 15, A.D. 151
“That Scripture counsels marriage, however, and
never allows any release from the union, is expressly
contained in the law: ‘You shall not divorce a
wife, except for reason of immorality.’ And it
regards as adultery the marriage of a spouse, while the
one from whom a separation was made is still alive.
‘Whoever takes a divorced woman as wife commits
adultery,’ it says; for ‘if anyone divorce
his wife, he debauches her’; that is, he compels
her to commit adultery. And not only does he that
divorces her become the cause of this, but also he that
takes the woman and gives her the opportunity of sinning;
for if he did not take her, she would return to her
husband.”
—Miscellanies
2:23:145:3, A.D. 208
“Just as a woman is an adulteress, even though she
seem to be married to a man, while a former husband yet
lives, so also the man who seems to marry her who has
been divorced does not marry her, but, according to the
declaration of our Savior, he commits adultery with
her.”
—Commentaries
on Matthew 14:24, A.D. 248
“Likewise, women who have left their husbands for
no prior cause and have joined themselves with others,
may not even at death receive Communion.”
—Canon
8, A.D. 300
“Likewise, a woman of the faith [i.e., a
baptized person] who has left an adulterous husband of
the faith and marries another, her marrying in this
manner is prohibited. If she has so married, she may not
receive Communion—unless he that she
has left has since departed from this world.”
—Canon 9
“If she whom a catechumen [an unbaptized person
studying the faith] has left shall have married a
husband, she is able to be admitted to the fountain of
baptism. This shall also be observed in the instance
where it is the woman who is the catechumen. But if a
woman of the faithful is taken in marriage by a man who
left an innocent wife, and if she knew that he had a wife
whom he had left without cause, it is determined that
Communion is not to be given to her even at
death.”
—Canon 10
“A man who marries after another man’s wife
has been taken away from him will be charged with
adultery in the case of the first woman; but in the case
of the second he will be guiltless.”
—Second
Canonical Letter to Amphilochius 199:37, A.D.
375
“No one is permitted to know a woman other than his
wife. The marital right is given you for this reason:
lest you fall into the snare and sin with a strange
woman. ‘If you are bound to a wife do not seek a
divorce’; for you are not permitted, while your
wife lives, to marry another.”
—Abraham 1:7:59, A.D. 387
“You dismiss your wife, therefore, as if by right
and without being charged with wrongdoing; and you
suppose it is proper for you to do so because no human
law forbids it; but divine law forbids it. Anyone who
obeys men ought to stand in awe of God. Hear the law of
the Lord, which even they who propose our laws must obey:
‘What God has joined together let no man put
asunder.’”
—Commentary on Luke 8:5,
A.D. 389
“Do not tell me about the violence of the ravisher,
about the persuasiveness of a mother, about the authority
of a father, about the influence of relatives, about the
intrigues and insolence of servants, or about household
[financial] losses. So long as a husband lives, be he
adulterer, be he sodomite, be he addicted to every kind
of vice, if she left him on account of his crimes, he is
her husband still and she may not take
another.”
—Letters
55:3, A.D. 396
“Wherever there is fornication and a suspicion of
fornication, a wife is freely dismissed. Because it is
always possible that someone may calumniate the innocent
and, for the sake of a second joining in marriage, act in
criminal fashion against the first, it is commanded that
when the first wife is dismissed, a second may not be
taken while the first lives.”
—Commentaries
on Matthew 3:19:9, A.D. 398
“[T]he practice is observed by all of regarding as
an adulteress a woman who marries a second time while her
husband yet lives, and permission to do penance is not
granted her until one of them is dead.”
—Letters
2:13:15, A.D. 408
“Neither can it rightly be held that a husband who
dismisses his wife because of fornication and marries
another does not commit adultery. For there is also
adultery on the part of those who, after the repudiation
of their former wives because of fornication, marry
others. This adultery, nevertheless, is certainly less
serious than that of men who dismiss their wives for
reasons other than fornication and take other wives.
Therefore, when we say: ‘Whoever marries a woman
dismissed by her husband for reason other than
fornication commits adultery,’ undoubtedly we speak
the truth. But we do not thereby acquit of this crime the
man who marries a woman who was dismissed because of
fornication. We do not doubt in the least that both are
adulterers. We do indeed pronounce him an adulterer who
dismissed his wife for cause other than fornication and
marries another, nor do we thereby defend from the taint
of this sin the man who dismissed his wife because of
fornication and marries another. We recognize that both
are adulterers, though the sin of one is more grave than
that of the other. No one is so unreasonable to say that
a man who marries a woman whose husband has dismissed her
because of fornication is not an adulterer, while
maintaining that a man who marries a woman dismissed
without the ground of fornication is an adulterer. Both
of these men are guilty of adultery.”
—Adulterous
Marriages 1:9:9, A.D. 419
“A woman begins to be the wife of no later husband
unless she has ceased to be the wife of a former one. She
will cease to be the wife of a former one, however, if
that husband should die, not if he commit fornication. A
spouse, therefore, is lawfully dismissed for cause of
fornication; but the bond of chastity remains. That is
why a man is guilty of adultery if he marries a woman who
has been dismissed even for this very reason of
fornication.”
—ibid., 2:4:4
“Undoubtedly the substance of the sacrament is of
this bond, so that when man and woman have been joined in
marriage they must continue inseparably as long as they
live, nor is it allowed for one spouse to be separated
from the other except for cause of fornication. For this
is preserved in the case of Christ and the Church, so
that, as a living one with a living one, there is no
divorce, no separation forever.”
—Marriage
and Concupiscence 1:10:11, A.D. 419
“In marriage, however, let the blessings of
marriage be loved: offspring, fidelity, and the
sacramental bond. Offspring, not so much because it may
be born, but because it can be reborn; for it is born to
punishment unless it be reborn to life. Fidelity, but not
such as even the unbelievers have among themselves,
ardent as they are for the flesh … The sacramental
bond, which they lose neither through separation nor
through adultery, this the spouses should guard chastely
and harmoniously.”
—ibid., 1:17:19)
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