Mailbag: Catholic Divorce

In your March 2nd article titled, "Schiavo's Catholic Parents Seek Divorce for Daughter" you said that it was against Catholic doctrine to divorce.

I said no such thing. Crysostom should have read it more carefully first before trying to criticize it.

In fact, I specifically said that "In the quotations, at least, there isn't any indication that the divorce is being sought on grounds that are consistent with Catholic doctrine." Does this not clearly imply that there exist possible grounds for divorce that are consistent with Catholic doctrine and, therefore, I'm not making a blanket assertion that divorce is against Catholic doctrine?

Also, in order to get married, certain oaths must be taken; if they are not intended at the time they were taken the marriage is invalid and could have an anulment. The simple fact that Michael [Schiavo] is willing to violate church law by committing adultry is enough to make it presumtive that he did not intend to remain faithfull.

Terri's parents encouraged Michael to start dating again and begin a new life with someone new. Thus, they encouraged him to be unfaithful (in spirit, if not in flesh) with their daughter and then they wanted to use the courts to impose a divorce upon them, despite the lack of any agreement on the part of either party.

As far as I can tell, none of these actions have been undertaken in a manner consistent with canon law. There is no provision for dissolving a marriage when neither party agrees. I must conclude, then, that conservative Catholics who attacked Michael but ignored the actions of Terri's parents are first-class hypocrites — self-righteous mandarins of ethical values that they only promote when it's convenient and ignore when it's inconvenient.

As an aside, it's illogical to say that because a person is unfaithful that, therefore, they never intended to remain faithful. It's not that uncommon for people to promise to do things that they intend do and then, for whatever reason (sometimes good, sometimes bad), they go back on their word. Saying that it is "presumptive" that he did not intend to remain faithful based solely on his failure to remain faithful is, quite frankly, a tremendous failure of proper reasoning — but no greater than Crysostom's original failure to accurately read what I wrote.

More selections from the Agnosticism / Atheism Mailbag...