I’m not a Catholic so I don’t think too much about the Pope. However, I do read New Yorker magazine and a recent article made me wonder why the Catholic Church doesn’t treat divorce lawsuit plaintiffs and defendants differently. As noted in the History of Divorce chapter, an American divorce in the old days typically meant that both spouses had negotiated and cooperated, possibly traveling together to a divorce-friendly jurisdiction such as Nevada. Today, however, the one thing that a defendant in a no-fault jurisdiction (nearly all U.S. states) knows is that he or she will lose the divorce lawsuit, regardless of how much is spent on defense (i.e., the divorce will go through, even if no wrongdoing by the defendant is alleged or proven).
Consider a woman who testified at a recent Massachusetts family law hearing (previous posting). As noted in the previous posting:
the one woman who testified about losing her children; she was a yuppie identified by the court as the family “breadwinner” while her husband, a firefighter whose full-time job consisted of just two 24-hour shifts per week, was anointed the “primary parent” (the “breadwinner” was ordered to keep supporting this guy, and presumably any young hotties he hooks up with, until the kids turn 23))
Suppose that the father had educated himself about family law in advance, married her purely for the cash, and then sued her as soon as she had generated his desired number of children. She was an unwitting participant in a purely mercenary arrangement. She did nothing to cause the divorce, other than failing to educate herself regarding Massachusetts law and, before agreeing to a marriage or child-bearing, move to a jurisdiction that provides fewer financial incentives for mercenary marriages and/or child-production. Once sued there was nothing that she could have done to prevent becoming divorced. Why does the Catholic Church now want to block her from entering into what might be an enduring marriage? (Let’s hope that she is smarter next time and settles in a different state and/or marries someone who earns more than she does and/or quits her job and thus doesn’t present her partner with a continuous financial incentive to file a lawsuit.)
The old school christian position is that absolutely everyone, king or pauper, only gets one shot. No double dipping. Only death breaks a marriage. If you made a bad choice, tough luck. We’re talking immortal souls here and your material concerns about money and a missed chance for happiness don’t enter into it.
Oh to actually address your point about the distinction, the church wouldn’t deny communion for having lost a divorce. They’d just refuse to allow you to remarry.
Joe: Would they deny communion to the person who files a divorce lawsuit in a no-fault jurisdiction? Or would the person who sought the divorce and the person who sought to remain married be treated the same?
Off topic, but I thought I’d pass along another entry for your juicy divorce file.
philg, I read a comment in that article, referring to some federal statutes biasing court judges towards awarding more child support? Is this correct?
draggedintoit:”C’mon folks, check it out. Please google and read OFCSE 42, Chapter 7, subchapter 4 Part D sections 651-659. In summary, the Federal government pays the state and the courts up to 500 million, yes half a billion dollars in unrestricted money, matched 66 cents on the dollar for child support, alimony, legal fees and “other” awarded to the “winner” from the court ordered “loser”. This is a compelling incentive for judges to order too much child support and alimony, and carte blanche for the judges to let the lawyers rack up far more billable hours than should be customary, reasonable and necessary to divide assets and rear children. How much it really costs to raise children resembles the payments from to foster parents – not the child support formula for divorcing middle and upper class parents. About 1/3 of child support goes across state lines – that means that mom moved away – not dad. Time for our elected leaders to stop incentivizing marital break-ups at the expense of our children’s futures.”
Phil, I’m no expert on Roman-Catholic jurisprudence, but they do not recognize bourgeois divorce unless the “holy matrimony,” once certified by the church, first been annulled (for which there may be a variety of reasons that the Pope [i.e. the ecclesiastical collegium entrusted with this very task] may consider valid.) Such annulments used to be rare, and, as everything else with Catholicism over the ages, subject to hefty pecuniary “donations.” They are more common now, and given for a greater number of causes, even if a marriage has been “consumed.”
At the core of the RC Church’s illiberal standpoint is, however, the fear of thus watering down their usurped “God given” right to grant (or deny) their “flock” natural rights to cohabit without fear of “afterlife/ celestial damnation”—which, alas, not a few people have bought into, thus bestowing it consensual legitimacy. That this is a form of “historical legacy” usurpation is confirmed by even the most conservative Catholic states such as Ireland, in that they now recognize offspring of “common law marriages” (formerly “bastards”) as having the same basic human rights as “lawful children,” though for politically-pragmatic reasons they may still make a difference in other (hereditary/ primogeniture) respects. But even that remaining exclusivity is slowly being eroded (nullified).
The Catholic Church is very much against no-fault divorce. The situation you describe is the sort that is eligible for an annulment. Once the annulment is complete, the woman can remarry. And they do not have to fly to Las Vegas or Rome.