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Divorce and Remarriage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Jordan Bishop O.P.
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1. Introduction—the present malaise

One of the effects of the Council has been a clearing of the intellectual atmosphere to the point where honesty is tolerated even when it runs counter to deeply rooted taboos. Dr Victor J. Pospishil, priest of the Byzantine Rite Catholic diocese of Philadelphia, has published an appeal for a profound reform in the marriage discipline of the Roman Communion: Divorce and Remarriage. Towards a New Catholic Teaching (Burns & Oates, London, 1967). A canonist with experience in tribunal work, Dr Pospishil presents a convincing case for a reform in present discipline which would allow for the extension of the power of the Church to dissolve those marriages which are ratum et consummatum, sacramental marriages consummated by the sexual union of the parties. As he points out, these are the only marriages excluded from this power in the Church at present.

There is no doubt that a profound malaise with respect to the ecclesiastical discipline on Christian marriage exists in the Western Church today, a malaise which expresses itself in many ways. There is an ever-increasing number of petitions for nullity or dissolution, and in many cases diocesan tribunals are ill-equipped to handle formal (nullity) cases. The escape provided in the Western Church for people in non-viable situations for the past few centuries is, under present circumstances, clearly inadequate.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 49 , Issue 579 , August 1968 , pp. 588 - 599
Copyright
Copyright © 1968 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 ‘J’ excepte ici le cas d'un pur vice de for me que le juge sera heureux d'utiliscr pour sortir d'une situation douloureuse. Les demandeurs peuvent fort bien agir contre leur conscience en profitant d'une telle aubaine, la légalité est autre chose que la moralité. Devant Dieu, en effet, la valeur d'un lien et la fidélitéè laquelle il engage ne peuvent être annulées par une affaire de pure forme ‘ (Duqoc, Christian, ‘Le marriage, amour et institution’ in Lumiére et Vie 82 (mai‐juin 1967), p. 56)Google Scholar.

1 Kokkinakis, Athenagoras, Parents and Priests as Servants of Redemption. New York, Morehouse‐Gorham, 1958, p. 51Google Scholar.

1 Pospishil, op. cit., p. 36. The fact that the parektos logou porneías and me epi porneía of Mt. 5, 32 and 19, 9 are probably commentary additions (cfr. Bultmann, R., History of the Synoptic Tradition, Oxford, 1963, p. 148)Google Scholar hardly weakens his argument.

1 Cited by Pospishil, pp. 108–109; Rousseau, art. cit., p. 65; cfr. Gunten, F. Von, ‘La doctrine de Cajétan sur l'indissolubilité du mariage’, in Angelicum (Rome) 43 (1966), pp. 62–72Google Scholar.

2 Rousseau, art. cit., p. 65; Pospishil, p. 66; A.‐M. Dubarle has written recently: ‘J'ai émis dans mon article l'opinion que la possibilité d'un remariage pour l’époux injustement abandonné n ‘était pas en contradiction avcc les canons du Concile de Trent sur le mariage et donc donné au canon 7 une pleine adhésion, que je formulais ainsi: “l'intransigeance de la tradition occidentale en matière d'indissolubilité ne constitue pas une erreur, tout en n’étant pas l'unique manière d ‘être fidèle è l'Evangile”’ (Revue des Sciences Phil. et Théol. 50 (1966), pp. 599–600).

1 ‘The sources cited for canon 1118 leap from Benedict XII (fourteenth century) to Gregory XVI (nineteenth century). It is true that the reader is referred to canon 1013 §2, which affirms indissolubility as a property of matrimony, where Trent is cited in the sources. However, it should not be forgotten that the Greeks also affirm indissolubility as a property of matrimony. Gfr. also M. Hurley, S.J., ‘Christ and Divorce’, in Irish Theological Quarterly, January 1968, p. 65: 'But the precise relationship between this Church doctrine and the Christian revelation is neither defined nor clear in itself. … In other words the indissolubility of consummated sacramental marriage even in the case of adultery is not a dogma. This, however, I hasten to add, does not at all mean that the doctrine is certainly not part of revelation and could certainly not become a dogma’ (italics mine, J.B.).

2 ‘Divorce and Remarriage’, The Clergy Review, November 1967, p. 890.

3 Ofr., e.g. ‘The Christian Response to Marital Breakdown’, by Dr J. Dominian, Ampleforth Journal, Spring 1968, p. 3. In this article Dr Dominian gives an excellent summary of what is currently known from the psychological sciences about the emotional factors that make for the impossibility of a true relationship. Dr Dominian's book on the subject is due to be published as a Pelican in August under the title Marital Breakdown.

1 Crebrae allatae, 22 February 1949, can. 72 §1; can. 95 (AAS 41, pp. 105, 107).

1 Cited by Pospishil, op. cit., p. 198, No question here of separation ‘from bed and board’. Another Western formulary from the same period concludes: ‘Whenever my husband shall wish to take a wife, he may do so. Likewise he agrees that whenever the aforesaid wife herself wishes to take another husband, she has the free power to do so’ (ibid.).

1 Cfr. Schillebceckx, op. cit., I, pp. 1–23. For example: ‘It should hardly be necessary to add that prostitution is a mere drop in the ocean of our contemporary society compared to what it was up to the beginning of the present century. … In many middle‐class families, it was regarded as “normal” to visit prostitutes in those days’ (ibid., p. 8).

2 Cfr. Bonhoeffer, D., Act and Being, London, 1961, at pp. 11–16Google Scholar for a statement of the problem of ‘act and being’. We use the term in the sense discussed by Bonhoeffer.

1 One reason for the complexity of present procedure is the need for some rather sophisticated safeguards against fraud. Against the background of present doctrine, some such safeguards are certainly necessary. This would not be the case if remarriage of divorced persons were permitted following pastoral criteria, either under the hypothesis of dissolution of the bond (Pospishil) or that of admitting a non‐sacramental second union to be lived in the Lord (Duquoc). Paradoxically, Pospisbil's solution might well create another ecumenical difficulty, since the Orthodox do not admit a dissolution of the sacramental tie by any human power, including that of the Church. But as we have mentioned, a very different view of the reality is involved.