Let Man Put Asunder?

Sandra Gail Dolley, 28, of Ludlow, Mass., is a practicing Roman Catholic who once taught catechism at her parish in Springfield. She was married in a Catholic ceremony in 1970--just as her husband began his Army service. By early 1972 the couple had separated. A priest advised Sandra to seek an annulment* but the local diocese decided there was not enough evidence to justify one. In January 1973 the couple got a civil divorce. Later that year, when Sandra began to think seriously about marrying again, she stopped receiving Communion because by remarrying she would automatically incur excommunication. Priests were sympathetic, but not until she discovered Boston's Paulist Center Community did she find one who returned her to full Communion with the church. She was remarried last month in a Protestant church where her husband was a parishioner (he agreed to raise any children as Catholics). On her honeymoon, she received Communion in a Catholic church.

Stories like Sandra Dolley's--once unheard of--are becoming more frequent among U.S. Catholics. Faced with an incidence of Catholic divorce that is nearing the national average of one out of four, priests and lay people are seeking--and rinding--compassionate solutions that often clash with church law. What is more, many of them are publicly defending such departures from Catholic practice as the inevitable path that the church must take.

The most notable "coming out" so far occurred late last month at the Paulist Center Community in Boston, scene of the third--and by far the largest --National Conference for Divorced Catholics. Some 200 women and 100 men--a number of them already remarried--turned up to talk out their problems. They also endorsed a proposal by Monsignor Stephen Kelleher, a Catholic canon lawyer, that the church allow Catholics "to divorce and remarry openly and wholesomely in Christ."

The proposal is a radical one in a church that flatly forbids remarriage to anyone who has previously had a valid Christian marriage. Roman Catholicism still teaches that once consummated, a marriage between two baptized Christians is a sacrament: it creates an indissoluble bond breakable only by death. The church has taught that Jesus' dictum "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder" means that men not only should not, but cannot break that sacramental bond. In recent years, however, Catholic theologians, psychologists and scripture scholars have begun to question whether Jesus meant that marriage is in fact indissoluble or only that it should be.

In the meantime, the Vatican and the U.S. hierarchy, while upholding traditional doctrine, have taken steps to relax the stringent rules on annulment, thereby creating easier ways out of broken marriages. U.S. bishops recently won from Rome an extended approval of simpler annulment procedures, which, among other things, no longer demand that a favorable decision by one matrimonial court always be confirmed by a second court. Moreover, more and more diocesan marriage tribunals recognize "psychic incapacity" in either partner as a fatal defect in the original marriage contract--an interpretation that has led to a sharp rise in the number of annulments granted. The liberality of the courts, however, can vary widely: in Brooklyn last year there were 575 annulments, in Boston only five.

Another problem with the tribunals is that they still require considerable evidence, which may not be available if a spouse is hostile. One pastoral answer to the problem has been the so-called good conscience solution. It allows Catholics who are divorced and remarried to return to the sacraments if they believe that their first marriage was invalid but are unable to provide the evidence the court requires. An even more liberal approach "welcomes home" responsible Catholics who are entering or already in second marriages. Some priests--but still only a small minority --go so far as to perform second marriages privately for divorced Catholics.

More than a few reformers see both the streamlined annulment procedures and the good conscience approach as half measures at best. What they want is a rethinking of Catholic marriage theology. At a meeting of the Canon Law Society of America in St. Paul earlier last month, Moral Theologian Charles Curran of Catholic University called for a change in church teaching to match the growing compassion in pastoral practice. The church could retain the ideal of indissolubility, argued Curran, but recognize that marriages in fact break down and allow church remarriage when that occurs.

Moral Counsel. At the Boston conference, Paulist Father James Young, adviser to the divorced Catholics group there, agreed. Recalling that the Eastern Orthodox churches--which were in union with Rome until the 11th century --have permitted remarriage after divorce since apostolic times, he pointed out that Orthodox theology sees Jesus' words as moral counsel rather than divine law.

Whether or not Rome and its bishops soon heed such advocates of reform, they may choose to overlook the grassroots solutions already in use. When the church is suffering serious losses in the number of Catholics who attend Mass, it may not seek to trouble the Sandra Dolleys who want so fiercely to receive the sacraments that many ignore.

* An ecclesiastical declaration that for reasons such as lack of full consent, a marriage has never really existed, as distinguished from a civil divorce, which recognizes a marriage but puts an end to it.

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