Reviving the Bride Nullified

“Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.” Ez. 37:4-5

Marriage and family are not simply one “institution” among many. All of salvation history is the ever-unveiling betrothal of God to His People (Scott Hahn). As St. John Paul II observed, “The future of humanity passes by way of the family.” Marriage and family have the mission of making God, who is love, known to the world. (Gen. 1:27)

In sum: As goes marriage and family, so goes the church, so goes civilization.

Thus, while most won't like this statement, it is logically necessary and has critical implications for salvation in Jesus Christ: The degree to which the validity of marriage rests in pastoral competence, is the degree to which annulment is a declaration of our incompetence.

Yes, our. As members of the Church, as participating members in the sacrament by way of witness, we share responsibility for the formation, validation and support of couples to be married and in their marriage. A declaration of incompetence extends to each of us.

Pillar and Foundation

My presumption here is one shared by all faithful Catholics who affirm the authoritative, magisterial teaching of our Church. For purposes of this article, below is foundational truth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), given by “the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth.” (1 Tim. 3:15)

2384 Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:

If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another's husband to herself.

2385 Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.

1629 For this reason (or for other reasons that render the marriage null and void) the Church, after an examination of the situation by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal, can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e., that the marriage never existed. In this case the contracting parties are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union are discharged.

The real face of divorce.

Let’s put a real face on this. Let’s presume what the priest, community and couple must presume at the time of marriage: There are no impediments, nor is there compelling indication of anything that might later call the validity of the vow into question. In sum, we’re presuming no flags are being raised.

Regardless, sometime after marriage, one of the spouses has an affair, or develops an addiction, or even becomes abusive. After some time one or both find it impossibly broken. They separate and get a divorce. They begin separate lives with different people. As years pass, they have children with respective others. All society and culture around them, perhaps even other churches, reinforce their separate unions as “marriage.”

Presuming the original marriage was valid, none of this changes what is stated above:

Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery. (CCC, 2384)

While the most orthodox canon lawyer would rightly have a heart for the situation, and maybe even a pastoral desire that the initial marriage be declared null, he would not be able to. He knows it is beyond his power: “What God has brought together let no one separate.” (Matt. 19:6) He would know that no subsequent circumstance revises spouses prior vow to conform to the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.”

He might recall Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). Into her fifth marriage, Jesus acknowledges the one she’s with is not her husband. He lovingly but boldly challenges her. She becomes a believer, and as a result of her testimony many come to believe.

As broken as the human situation may be, it does not have the power to alter the landscape God revealed for our salvation. Even if one of the spouses remains recalcitrant. In the eyes of God, the couple is married “until death do [they] part.” That landscape remains as the occasion for our salvation. The greater the sin, the greater the need for salvation. The greater reliance on the restoring, healing, transforming power of Jesus Christ.

The greater need for the community to wrap their arms around all involved.

Report Card: How competent are we?

Let’s return now to our competence at two levels:
(1) The endurance of Catholic marriages.

Nearly 28% of Catholic marriages in the United States end in divorce. (LINK) While this is 12% better than those with no religious affiliation (40%), the latter do not share the same sacred understanding or grace-empowering context. A Navy SEAL wouldn’t compare his success on an obstacle course with an ordinary civilian; indeed, he’d be embarrassed if they were even close.

Of course, the divorce rate merely pronounces marital brokenness seen; it does not take into account innumerable examples of major marital brokenness unseen. For instance, some studies suggest that Catholics willing to cheat on their spouse is as high as 23% (LINK).

(2) The validity of marriages being administered through the Catholic Church.
According to a well-documented article by Bai MacFarlane of Mary’s Advocates (LINK):

“In 2012, sixty-two active tribunals, that covered half the Catholic population in the U.S., granted annulments in the first instance to 98.7 percent of the petitioners. In 23 of these dioceses, annulments were granted to 100% of the petitioners.” [emphasis mine]

The United States has been called the "annulment nation":

"[T]he United States, with 5.9 percent of the world’s Catholics, still accounts for 60 percent of the Church’s 58,322 declarations of nullity.... Of the 27,654 declarations of nullity granted in the US by the ordinary process, 99.6 percent were granted for reasons of defect of consent—the most oft-criticized grounds for annulment." (Catholic World Report) [emphasis mine]

What is this saying?

Let’s acknowledge that the problem may well be beyond anything any of us could have done. The Church can be exacting in evaluation and formation, and a couple can lie through it all, right up to the altar. Of course, this would render their marriage null. This ought to alert any approaching the altar: the legitimacy of your marriage is based upon the integrity of your vows, without which, you simply are not married. And as we’ll learn below, such integrity is not simply constituted by affection, it is constituted by real affirmations and commitments.

That established, the degree to which nullifying factors were known at the time of the vow, and “marriage” was permitted anyways, is the degree to which we all share responsibility for the consequences:

1) Eradicated value of a sacrament.

Why should anyone bother getting married in the Church if it can be so easily nullified? It’s like printing paper money. What’s it worth?

And what’s to keep couples together when they face the inevitable, ordinary temptations and struggles of married life? How does such caprice not factor into an “iffy” kind of disposition in the mind of one or both at the altar: “Hey, if down the road I’m more attracted to another, if it gets ‘too difficult,’ if I ‘fall out of love,’ no problem! Like many around me, I can get a divorce… and an annulment is just as easy! All with the Church’s blessing!”

Please know, I doubt any consciously think this at the time of marriage, but this cultural reality can constitute dark clouds over one’s vow, obfuscating the radiant light God designed marriage to be.

In the words of Chesterton: “The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason.”

For all the reasons given as basis for annulment, prominently evidenced in marriages today, perhaps we need to have the audacity to draw the conclusion shared with me by a prominent Catholic commentator: Perhaps we need to presume most are NOT married.

(2) Eradicated value of the entity administering the sacrament (the Catholic Church) and therefore, the means of salvation.

As sacrament, the Church is Christ's instrument. "She is taken up by him also as the instrument for the salvation of all," "the universal sacrament of salvation," by which Christ is "at once manifesting and actualizing the mystery of God's love for men."The Church "is the visible plan of God's love for humanity.” (CCC, #776)

Simply put, how does such caprice not dampen one’s confidence in the Church? If something She holds so sacred, that She insists on presiding over with integrity, can be so easily nullified, how does that not factor into others, in fact, nullifying the Church?

Amidst the great swell of storms and waves that constantly press us, where can one find more than shifting sand, but solid rock to anchor us? (Matt. 7: 24-29)

The post-modern soul has been living in the delusion that moral truth is something we can be bend to our brokenness. As a consequence, we are all the more broken. Standing in the crumbled remains of shifting sand, we are desperately seeking solid rock (Matt. 7:24-27). We yearn for a truly prophetic Voice that will boldly proclaim that the path to salvation is not something we can not create, but Someone Who created us.

So long as we do not ask the hard questions and faithfully press for integrity of fulfillment, regardless of how inconvenient and difficult, sacred words and actions will continue to be held suspect, if not disregarded as farce. Numbers will continue to decline. Impoverished masses will continue to be impoverished.

And whatever anyone wants to say about confusion where it concerns the sacredness of gender, sexuality and marriage, so long as the Church is mired by such caprice, we have nothing to say.

The hard questions.

The future of humanity passes by way of the family. It is therefore indispensable and urgent that every person of good will should endeavor to save and foster the values and requirements of the family. (St. John Paul II, Familiaris consortio, #86)

While there’s no way of reading hearts, we can and are called to judge actions (CCC, 1786). And we need to recognize, in the situations of the vast majority who approach the altar, circumstances that render the validity of their marriages suspect, if not outright invalid.

When I first shared these thoughts with some priest-friends, one stated that he was under orders by his bishop that marriage could be delayed, but never denied.

Compare this with what is required for “validation” of a surgeon, or electrician, or school teacher, or even an employee at McDonalds! Do managers base their criteria on merely professing they will, or on demonstration of the capacity to actually do? Would you choose a doctor from a system where 99% of those who contested their “credentials” were found invalid? “For the people of this world are more shrewd... than are the people of the light.” (Luke 16:8)

The integrity of the sacrament of marriage, and the Church which presides over it-- and hope in the salvation in Jesus Christ that comes through it, will not be restored until it is reasonably determined the couple can be validly married; couples ought not be married until it is reasonably determined they have the disposition of faith necessary. This is not about “denying” a couple marriage; it is about appraising if authentic marriage is something the prospective married couple is denying.

National stats correspond to what we’ve discovered in our nearly two-decades of conducting marriage formation events. The portrait has become 90%+:

(1) Living together (sexually),

(2) Contracepting,

(3) Not regularly attending Mass,

(4) Little to no interest in the Church’s (Christ’s) ultimate purpose in helping them discover and live their nature and mission “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Each of the above betrays dispositions radically contrary the disposition of faith required for a valid marriage. Maintaining these constitute a lie at the altar. Moreover, they correspond to rejection of the true good of the human person, of man and woman in marriage, of our capacity for holiness and happiness in this world and the next. Perhaps the greatest validation of the relevance of Church teaching is that these are predictors of real hardship in “marriage.”

Yes, I understand many will protest: “Don’t marry them if they’re living together? If they’re contracepting? If they’re not regularly attending Mass? Are you kidding! None will get married! They’ll leave the Church!”

Words matter. Beliefs matter. Such situations betray that a couple is rejecting the faith-life of the Church. They’re rejecting a disposition of faith essential to marriage. The wedding vows would be just words. A charade. An absurdity. If they want more than a glorified dress-up, they need to embrace the total, mutual, self-gift nature and mission of marriage revealed in Jesus Christ. The eternal life-saving nature of love and marriage isn’t easy. It’s rarely popular. But it is true. And there is no other way. As Church we are not about creating truth; we are subordinate to the Truth who created us. In absence of this, any subsequent “marriage” would be in jeopardy, and the world will be deprived of the compelling witness of God’s purpose for marriage.

Accordingly, marriages are in crisis. It’s witness is disparaged. Mass attendance continues to be in rapid decline. And many have lost belief from absence of compelling witness of the real, transforming power of Jesus alive in the Sacraments. On any given Sunday too many exit church no closer to sainthood than when they entered. While every individual bears the ultimate responsibility for a “fully conscious, and active participation” (Sacrosanctum concilium, #14), too few are confronted with real, concrete sin as the occasion for steps further in the horizon of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is about eternal salvation. He showed us a path lined by denying our very selves, taking up our crosses and following. (Matt. 16: 24) He never pulled punches in communicating hard truths, even as it meant losing a multitude (John 6). He exhorted us: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” (Matt. 7:13-14)

For our institutions, parishes, families and marriages, Jesus gave us “cross metrics” - the vertical beam of authentic discipleship holds up the horizontal beam of multiplying disciples. If we get the authentic part right, the multiplication will follow.

We are the church.

If you're a believing Christian, this failure doesn’t simply fall on the pastor, it falls on each of us-- the entire community present. We are church. We are not only responsible for the formation and ever-strengthening endurance of marriages, we play a role in the validation. The vows must be witnessed before a community; a community is essential for the vows.

Put simply, it's not enough for us to be there for two people who say they "do", we are responsible to make sure they possess the virtue to do what they say.

It begins with our witness in our marriages. It extends to formation of our children at their earliest age. It is particularly realized when they are of the age where attraction is compelling, an occasion for formation and virtue, not insecurity, self-gratification and using of others.

And yes, this extends to all family and friends who have included us in their lives. We are responsible for their marriages. We are accountable.

I am challenged by my own words. Do we go to weddings simply because we've been invited? Without regard for the integrity of the couple's vows? If we are aware of serious impediments are we not corroborating a lie?

Again, from a Christian perspective, attending a wedding is not just a show. A social pleasantry. We are not merely spectators. We join in a declaration of both validation and support for the couple. It doesn't end at the altar. Much more significantly, it may mean appropriately intervening to help them. For instance, if I know the husband has a problem with porn, I have an obligation not only to pray for him, but to appropriately encourage and challenge him!

Universal Altar-ation

Anyone who’s ever been to a marriage presided by Fr. Larry Richards is haunted by his booming voice to the couple prior to vows: “You know what happens next… YOU DIE! Isn’t that nice [chuckle, chuckle]….” Christ’s conquering power in and through Catholic marriage is revealed in the fact that it takes place at the altar. Altar is the place of sacrifice. A couple is no longer two, but one. (Matthew 19:6) Marriage is only possible in Jesus Christ whose self-sacrificing love ushers us into the life of the Holy Trinity.

“Spouses are therefore the permanent reminder to the Church of what happened on the Cross; they are for one another and for the children witnesses to the salvation in which the sacrament makes them sharers.” (St. John Paul II, Familiaris consortio, #13)

If we want to see restoration of the dignity and beauty of marriage, not as we might fashion it, but as God has fashioned us... we can no longer sacrifice its integrity on the altar of whatever fears we may have in offending or disappointing others. People are languishing far more from truths not spoken in love than they are from the momentary offense possibly caused in speaking them. There is no truth without love, nor love without truth.

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:1-2

[If you’re a Catholic married couple united in striving to “live it” in your marriage and home, and moved to impact other marriages and families around you, please email us, subject line, “Tell me more about Core Mission Couples”: Greg@MassImpact.us.]