The insolubility of Catholic marriage.
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I have another story that deals with divorce and a spouse who couldn't let go. I worked with a woman whose husband left her for another woman. He divorced his wife whom he validly wed in a Roman Catholic ceremony - a sacramental bond. His wife is very devout, he is not - and he remarried. That was years ago - nevertheless the wife continues to hold onto the marriage insisting the civil divorce is invalid in the eyes of the Church - which is true.
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She continues to wear her wedding ring and wouldn't dream of dating - she remains faithful to her marriage vows, which are insoluble. Some co-workers mocked her for that, even called her a bitch because she holds this fact over her husband's head - they say she controls him and got more support for her kids this way. For a time, even I thought she should move on and forget about her failed marriage. Eventually I came to see her point and understood that she was actually acting/living virtuously, perhaps even heroically. She was living her marriage vows, keeping her end of the bargain before God and man.
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It turns out there is an actual apostolate, or movement, offering support and solidarity for Catholic spouses who are separated or divorced. Here is that story:
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Westlake, Ohio, Jul 7, 2009 / 06:03 am (CNA).- A new support community for divorced or separated Catholics who remain faithful to marriage has launched in the United States, taking inspiration from a similar Italian effort to help people fulfill their vows and live their "I do."
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The Saint Mary of Cana project, sponsored in the U.S. by the non-profit Mary’s Advocates, seeks to work with dioceses in the United States in order to, in project director Bai Macfarlane’s words, "reject the divorce culture’s indoctrination that our marriage is dead or that we have new lives as single people."
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"He who is faithful to the sacrament is faithful to God," she wrote. "Matrimony is the state of life that a man and a woman have chosen freely as a way of holiness. Both of the spouses are able by the Grace of the sacrament to be ‘conjugal ministers' for the sanctification of their spouse and their children, in view of the whole Church."
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"This mission ...does not end in the case of separation or divorce of the spouses," Campanella continued, referencing Paragraph 1615 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. She said the separated or divorced person gives witness not only to the Church but also to the World that Jesus is faithful to the marriage covenant with the Church, even if the Church is "adulterous."
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A Minnesota connection.
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Fr. Timothy Cloutier, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Waverly, Minnesota, has endorsed the manual, saying it is "long overdue" in addressing how to live one’s marriage vows after divorce.
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"This is not a self-pity book, laying blame or fault. Neither is it simply another book about coping with life after divorce… It is an insightful work drawing on faith and love to face the challenge of continuing to live one's ‘I do’ after the conjugal life has broken down."
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Fr. Cloutier said that Campanella shows how married love can and needs to continue "for the spiritual growth of the spouses themselves."
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"The reality of Christ's love as source and example for a divorced Catholic is revealed with a clarity that can only be called inspired, and truly timely," he added. - Source
"The reality of Christ's love as source and example for a divorced Catholic is revealed with a clarity that can only be called inspired, and truly timely," he added. - Source
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