The Law and the Ideal
Introduction
(Catholic
busy-ness)
Our Catholic Church has
always been quite "busy" with marriage. In the old days if a Catholic married an un-baptized person
without getting a dispensation the marriage was invalid. It didn't count before
the church, and not even before God. If two Catholics got married but didn't
get permission from the bride's pastor, the marriage was invalid. It didn't
count before the church, and not even
before God. If a Catholic would marry with the intention of excluding the
conception and birth of children, the marriage was invalid. It didn't count
before the church, and not even before God. If a Catholic married before a
justice of the peace and not before a priest, the marriage was invalid. It
didn't count before the church, and not
even before God.
That’s the way it was with
my parents. They migrated to this country at the turn of the last century. They
married in 1922. A clipping from the Manitowoc newspaper for Dec. 18, 1972
(from the "50 Years ago Today" section) reads: "Pasquale Luzi, a
native Italian and naturalized American citizen, was wed to Euphemia Lucchesi, also a native Italian, at the
Manitowoc County Courthouse." My parents (uneducated Italian peasants,
fleeing terrible odds at home, filled with the anticlericalism typical of the
peasantry, and having no Italian-speaking priest in their midst) my parents
married in front of a judge and not a priest! That made their marriage invalid. It didn't count before the church or God.
Years later I had the opportunity to hunt up my
baptismal record in our parish church. There, to my surprise, I discovered the
“quiet” adnotation: "Illegitimus." Not only was their marriage
invalid but I too was invalid! Illegitimate! The Italian word for it is
"bastardo."
The Church was busy not only with marriage but also
with divorce. It declared every attempt at a civil divorce and
subsequent remarriage to be invalid for Roman Catholics, and it leveled the
penalty of excommunication against such an attempt, a penalty reserved
“speciali modo," as canon law put it,
to the Holy See (Only Rome, not the local bishop, could lift the
excommunication).
Civil
divorce and remarriage was declared not only invalid but also sinful, and in
those days we used to say, “They are living in sin.” That severe judgment
haunted some people twenty-four hours a day through the whole length of the
second marriage, right up to the very moment of death. That supreme moment of every human life
which is already sufficiently burdened
with the pain of one’s illness and with the grief of saying good-bye to
loved ones -- that supreme moment was further complicated and burdened with
the need to “make one’s peace with God” especially with sacramental confession
and absolution.
All of us
know divorcees. Some of them are our
fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, nephews and
nieces. Some of them lived for years painfully outcast and marginalized, at least in times past. Things, of course, have changed a lot since those
days. Many Catholic divorcees today have quietly solved the problem for
themselves. Refusing to be cast
out, and loving their church too much to leave it, they simply
continue to participate in Catholic
life.
That wonderful Bishop of Saginaw, Ken Untener, has
said, "I wish the churches would
get out of the marriage business (the marriage busy-ness). When we try to sort
out who can get married and who can't get married, what marriages can be
annulled and what marriage cannot be annulled, we can become quite
inappropriate,” he says. “ Look," he continues, "I preach
life-long commitment. No mistake about
that. I preach life-long commitment.
But what if, for some reason, it all falls apart? I like the distinction Jesus
carefully used upon the woman caught in adultery. He said, `I don't condemn
you.' But some people think the opposite of `condemn' is `condone.' `Condemn'
comes from the Latin word `to damn.' And the opposite of damning someone is
helping someone. So," says Bishop Untener, "I'm not here to condemn
people; I'm here to help people." That’s exactly what we are trying to do
with our words today: trying to help and not condemn.
The Bishop says,
"We can become quite inappropriate." That ‘s a kind of
weasel word, but a good weasel word. It makes us ask what does he mean by
“inappropriate”? Does he perhaps mean "ridiculous” or
“offensive"? Through annulment (a
practice today) the Church declares that a
marriage which took place never
took place at all! Some scorn at that as being
ridiculous. Also as being offensive, especially for the
woman whose well-known and influential husband wants a divorce so that he can
run off with the secretary without too much public disapproval. How offensive
for his wife to be told that she really was never married at all for those twenty-five years, and that her children
were never really born of wedlock!
Some wonder whether there is a better route to take
than that of annulment. Some suggest
that we come right out with it, and call annulments for what they really
are: "divorces." Like Bishop Utener, the Church, they say, is
absolutely correct in her constant preaching of life-long commitment;
absolutely correct in her insistence upon one man with one woman “until death
do you part." But that's the ideal which Jesus places before
us.
An we
immediately remind ourselves that an
“ideal" is no shabby thing. It is not something wish-washy. It is
not something you can take or leave.
An ideal is a shining star that stands
before us and above us to lead us on. It is for inspiring us to keep
soaring to the heights promised on one’s wedding day. Remember those heights?:
“I promise to keep loving you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in
health, until death do we part.” The
ideal is not only for convincing us to keep soaring to the heights we promised, but it is also
for convicting us of failure when indeed we have failed to soar. And “failure,” we immediately remind
ourselves, isn't all that bad. It’s part of the torn fabric of human
life. It’s often leads to growth and wisdom, making us more savvy for
the future. Failure is also good for repentance, making us change our mind things,
and helping us to get back on track.
(It is interesting to note that in the Orthodox Church the rite of
remarriage begins with a repentance
ceremony.)
(Divorce with
tears)
Some feel that annulments (which claim that there
was no marriage in the first place) seem to by-pass failure: if there was no
marriage to begin with, then there is no failure, and if no failure, then no need for tears and
repentance. Some, in fact, call annulments "divorce without tears,"
and claim that divorce with tears is
better than annulment without tears. That approach, they say,
would seem to be more honest.
And religion, before anything else in this whole wide world of ours, should be
honest. Only then does it have the moral authority to call politicians to
honesty -- a concern foremost on our
minds at this moment as we begin in earnest the process of electing a new president -- a process blighted for many people by a
deep sense of cynicism.
<<Divorce with tears would also seem to be more
compassionate; it makes room for the human condition where everything, even
what seems so promising in the beginning, can fail and fall apart. It makes
room for those people for whom in centuries past there was no room in the
inn.>>
The law,
chiseled out in cold stone, commands you to stay married. The
ideal, inscribed upon the warm human heart, commands you to stay in love. To stay in love is superior
to stay married. In fact, the way you stay married is by staying in love. The
law to stay married sets the teeth
gritting for the ordeal ahead. But the ideal to stay in love sets the spouses calling out to each other:
“Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be: the end of life for which the
first was made. Our days are in his hands. “