Divorce and Catholicism
It's hard to believe that there are over six million divorced Catholics in the United
States alone. Recent statistics show that one out of two marriages now end in divorce.
The national average is a failure rate of about one out of two marriages. Most Catholics
are taught that marriage is sacred and that it means "forever". It means that you give up
your single life and prepare to be with one man or woman for the rest of your life. But
today, with divorce at an all time high, this is not always reality. Marriage is effected by
consent. A couple knowingly says "yes" to everything that a marriage involves. The
"yes" is the real issue.
Divorce is the termination of a marriage in civil law by court decree or
judgment. The Church denies that civil divorce can break the bond of a valid marriage,
whether the marriage involves two Catholics, one Catholic and a non-catholic, or non-
Catholics with each other. It feels that the termination of a marriage, in most
circumstances, is impossible because it is against the dominical command found in
Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9, …"what God has joined together, let no one separate."
This teaching does not say that the faithful cannot get a civil divorce or live apart from a
spouse, especially if staying married would bring harm to either one of them, or their
children.
The church is to provide justice for anyone whose marriage has failed, but, they
can only do this when it can be proven that from the very beginning, the marriage was
missing an important part for a true sacramental bond. Sacramental marriage is still a
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central Catholic teaching and Pope Paul VI and Pop...
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First of all, America has the highest divorce rate among western nations. Divorce rate increased after every major war, and decreased during the Post-World War II economic boom. The divorce rate has more than doubled since 1940, when there were two divorces for every 1,000 persons. Now for the same number of people, there are over five divorces. Studies indicate that there is more divorce among persons with low incomes and limited education and those who marry at a very young age. Teenage marriages are much more likely to end in divorce than are all other marriages. And women who marry when they are over age 30 are the least likely to become divorced. There has been a decline in divorce in the number of couples who have children under 18. Almost 45 p...
The controversy, however, lies in the argument from critics that restricting couples from marriage or imposing fines or penalties is unjust. Jennifer Daw, a therapist with the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy quoted an article from USA Today wherein opponents argued that, “divorce regulations or restrictions would create messier divorces, not prevent them and tougher restrictions on divorce could endanger women in abusive marriages.” People were once required to negotiate in divorce. The “No Fault Divorce” has changed that and takes the ground...
Fundamentally the main factors facing a Justice in their decision is the matter of public safety and the harmony of the marriage. Compelling a spouse to testify against their partner is in direct conflict with that ideology. Therefore divorced or legally separated couples do not fall under this category. In R. v. Bailey it was determined that spousal incompetence does not survive divorce. Justice Morden observed that: “The modern policy justification for the rule in question is that is supports marital harmony.
Stephanie Coontz, author of The Evolution of Matrimony: The Changing Social Context of Marriage, writes that there has been more changes in marriage in the past 30 years then there was in the 3,000 years earlier. With these changes there are no religious or cultural exclusions. Coontz claims, “Right here is America’s Bible belt exist some of the highest rates of divorce and unwed motherhood in the country, and born again Christians d...
Polygamy is a way around this. It is not a sin to sleep with your wife. It is understood
Statistically, in our world today, half of all marriages will end in divorce. About fifty-percent of our population will also live in a stepfamily environment. In other words, more than half of the American families today, are now or eventually will be in involved in one or more stepfamily situations during their life according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1990. The “U.S. Bureau decided to discontinue providing estimates of marriage, divorce, and remarriage, except for those that are available from our current census. Thus many of our current estimates were derived from the 1990 census and earlier sources” (Step Family Fact Sheet, 1). Therefore the exact statistics in regards to stepfamilies today may be more or less from the estimated fifty- percent.
...on of hardship, from adults to children, and therefore cannot be viewed as a morally neutral act” (Dafoe 1). “Until death do us part” is a strong phrase and is not to be taken lightly. Death of a marriage is inevitable when a couple cannot reconcile its differences. The end of the marriage affects the whole family, which eventually affects society. A person who chooses divorce will need to make this decision with these things in mind. For me, divorce was against my moral belief even though it was necessary to continue raising my children. They can grow up with peace and an understanding of what a marriage can be, and what it should not be.
How common is divorce in America? Statistically a great amount of married couples in the United Sates are choosing divorce. In 2003 in America, approximately 45 percent of couples in their first marriages ended in divorce. The divorce rate for couples in second marriages was 58 percent (smartmarraiges.com). Then there are those couples who have thought about divorce, but for different reasons decided to stay married. A Gallup Poll in the United States found that 40 percent of married individuals had considered leaving their partners, and 20 percent said they were dissatisfied with their marriage about half the time (Olson and Defrain 1994, p. 6). According to the U.S. Census, the total numbers of U.S. divorces reported finalized annually were 957,200 in 2000 and 944,317 in 1998. If Americans keep this rate up, we will proudly be reporting years from now, an annual divorce rate of higher numbers than we would like to think of (www.census...
Each year, over two million couples are married in the United States but nearly half of these
Sociological Analysis of Divorce as a Social Problem and Proposed Solutions Every year approximately 2.4 million marriages occur. Out of those,2.1 millionwill file for divorce in the United States. These marriage and divorce rates have significantly increased since the years past(Coltrane and Adams, 364).According to Schoen, in the 1950’s, 15 out of 1,000 marriages ended in divorce. In the 1970’s, the rates of divorcedoubled,increasing to 40 per 1,000 marriages. Currently, the rate of marriages resulting in divorce remains the same.
A key problem with the current divorce law is that if a couple has simply fallen o...
Ritual and Vows of Christian Marrage and Their Influence on the Differing Ways that Couples Approach Marraige and Marital Breakdown
Throughout the last half of the century, our society has watched the divorce rate of married couples skyrocket to numbers previously not seen. Although their has been a slight decline in divorce rates, “half of first marriages still were expected to dissolve before death.” (Stacy, 15, 1991) Whatever happened to that meaningful exchange of words, “until death do us part,” uttered by the bride and groom to each other on their wedding day? What could have been the cause of such inflated divorce rates? Perhaps young married couples are not mature enough to be engaged in such a trremendous responsibility, or, maybe, the couples really do not know each other as well as they thought. Possibly, they have been blinded by infatuation rather than by true love, or, quite simply, the couples mistakenly have different relational expectations.
Sex out of wedlock, divorces, childbirth out of wedlock, etc. are all seen as normal circumstances currently. Marriage is an indissoluble bond which means it cannot be broken for the rest of the life after the bond is made. The Church wants to stress the importance of marriage to a relationship and the significance of marriage in reference to Jesus’ loving sacrifice to all. Marriage is a symbol of the sacrifice Jesus made of himself out of love for mankind. Through marriage, the Lord allows us to experience that love with one another as Jesus loves us. Conjugal love can reach that extent of love which all married people are called
Marriage is an inevitable stage of our life. Some people choose to get married in