IT IS CRUEL TO BAN DIVORCE AS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOES

Marriage is a contract but Christian teaching sees it as something biological where a man fits a woman as well. The contract is made and God is called in to make the contract so he has a say on whether he will or will not allow it to be terminated. Jesus says he makes it lifelong.

The Roman Catholic Church absolutely prohibits divorce and states that it is contrary to natural law – is unnatural. It appeals to reason, the Bible and Tradition to bolster this ban. Yet after saying this, incredibly an Eastern Orthodox Catholic who gets a divorce in his Church is allowed to marry a Roman Catholic without looking for an annulment! (page 164, Rome has Spoken). That is unfair.

For Christians, marriage is a supernatural bond between one man and one woman for life. It is also a natural bond and involves a contract. The view of some that marriage is just a contract or mainly that means that it is God's choice that it will be lifelong. He could make it temporary if he wished. But in the Bible marriage is more than just a contract but unites man and woman into a warm intimate combination.
 
Jesus banned divorce completely. The Jews said to him that Moses allowed divorce, as in facilitating a legal certificate of divorce, and they wanted to know if it could be allowed for any reason whatsoever. He said they knew the answer for they read that God made them male and female and thus a man will leave his parents and become one with his wife. The argument that Jesus was thinking of women discarded by their husbands and the injustice this could cause is not in the text at all. He goes back to God's original design. It then is not about if divorce is good for women or not. There is no hint that he knew women who had that experience. He even banned women from divorcing though they could not in those days. He bans women from divorcing their husbands which is his hint that this is not about protecting women. That is another topic. 
The apostles understandably reacted by saying that it is better for a man not to marry at all. Jesus didn't contradict them but stated that God makes it possible for some to keep the law that divorce is always wrong and not just wrong but invalid. This point is put in to help us see that Jesus' no means no. It is understandable if you feel marriage is off-putting if you cannot divorce.

Some feel that Matthew 19 has Jesus talk as if God arranges all marriages and brings man and woman together which is why divorce is so wrong. He says what God has joined man must not divide. If so, then God knows what he is doing matching a couple so if they separate it is their own fault. This is a very cruel and insulting idea. Some think God does not arrange marriages but ratifies them and make them binding. But that is no comfort either - they are still being blamed.

When Christ said that Moses had to permit the Hebrews to divorce when they would have rebelled if he hadn’t he was lying for these forced many vehemently despised rules on them. It is cruel to hurt people with broken marriages over the teaching of a man who lied when giving that teaching.
The argument that Jesus is contradicting the Old Testament scripture here is false. The Law of Moses speaks of a culture in which divorce happens but there is no commandment permitting divorce. So if Moses made a commandment it is his own not God's. Jesus never once corrected any Old Testament law and indeed said only false prophets say any law in the Scriptures is in any way inferior or not of God.
The Bible says that husbands and wives are to love one another meaning that they can do so for God only commands what is possible (Ephesians 5:28). This makes marital breakdown to be one or both of their faults.

The Bible would have to see marriage as being only for children when there was no birth-control in those days meaning that having children was a duty and would keep the marriage happy. This was a lie for it didn’t have to be necessarily true!

Marriage infers that divorce is wrong for it endeavours to tie two people together without any concern for them and by treating them dishonestly. When it does that it could hardly infer that divorce could ever be permissible. If you are to love the sinner and hate the sin then you are to act as if something in the sinner is sinning and not the sinner in which case divorce could never be right. Divorce would be wrong for if marriage is good then you love the person as good as if the sin was something separate from the person. You would not be able to penalise the sin by getting rid of the person in a divorce or separation. If a terrible deceit would justify divorce then it follows that you can get a divorce just because somebody married you for marriage is deceit.
 
Religion hypocritically says that marriage vows bind for life while other vows such as to be a nun for life do not. The Catholic Church will not release you from your marriage vows, but a nun can be released from lifelong vows. Vows exist to express commitment and to create order in society. So the Church says. And yet it claims the power to render a vow to be of no effect from that time on. The Old Testament gives regulations from God for dealing with people who made vows and who want to be free from them.
 
Roman Catholicism could allow some exceptions to the ban on divorce and remarriage. It allows killing in some circumstances and that doesn’t mean that everybody starts killing. To forbid a young childless wife from getting married again after her husband runs off with her money and best friend never to return is unkind in the extreme. The Church claims that it is right to do this because it is necessary to prevent people from deserting their spouses so that both of them can get out of their marriage and try it again with a new partner. This won’t happen enough to justify a blanket ban – and it could be watched out for. Jesus could not have been good if he was against divorce under all circumstances.

If the Church feels that the law will eventually get more liberal with the passing of time if it allows divorce at all then it should oppose the law of the land and set itself up as ruler for it is more trustworthy. The fact that some people will abuse divorce does not mean that it ought to be banned completely.

Banning divorce is not going to help keep the marriage together. When a husband and wife do not get along and cannot mend their differences they will find it easier to tolerate one another if they can leave easily and divorce is available. Banning divorce makes them feel they have to stay together and suffer and that leads to resentment and will lead to an abrupt break-up just because the pressure is unbearable and will reach a breaking point. That will devastate the children. It is a mistake pointing to statistics to argue that divorce leads to more divorce for nobody can judge. It could be that most of these marriages should be ended anyway.

It is said that divorce makes marriage vows insincere for they include promising to remain faithful to the partner until the parting of death while planning to divorce if things go wrong contradicts this. If that vow were essential for a valid marriage then no one who believes in divorce or separation could contract a valid marriage. But if separation agrees with that vow then divorce must too.

It would appear that the Church is obsessed with power and so would be better off if it did allow divorce for that would put the numbers of babies being born up. That drives some to say that its leaders must ban divorce out of spite and jealousy. Banning divorce was very useful in the era when both parents had the role of brainwashing the child into being a good or at least a convinced Catholic and it was necessary to keep the family together to get the job done thoroughly. The Church still bans divorce in the hope of seeing the world go back to all that.

If sex is giving your whole self to another person which is what the Church teaches, then how can it be right to look for a new partner or wife or husband if that person dies? To say I give myself to you until divorce if it happens is putting a condition on it as much as saying I give myself to you until you die is. It is not giving your whole self. If you give your whole self to a person you will be like the person who having lost their beloved wife or husband refuses to even think about a new partner for they loved the old partner so much. In Christianity, marriage ends only by death. What if in the future you die and are revived? If you married and wanted to marry, you could get killed in a hospital so that you can die and be brought back to life again a free man or woman. The Church couldn’t possibly deny that it succeeds in dissolving the marriage or ending it leaving you free to marry again. Some day it may be possible. In that day, people will see how silly it is to oppose divorce for this will amount to the same thing. The Church should allow divorce.
 
Even if this is not possible, it would be the same if it could happen – people will be wishing it could be done and if that is acceptable then these people are ending marriages in their hearts. It is just like when Jesus said that if you lust for a woman you sin in your heart with her even if you never touch her.
 
The Church professes to have compassion for those whose marriages have broken down and who want to be with a new partner or who wish to remarry. The Church says then it suffers with them and wishes to help. What is this compassion then but an admission that they know fine well they are wrecking lives and trying to wreck them? If we may use an extreme example to drive home the point, a man wants to rape a child you don’t say, “I feel so sorry that I cannot let you do this.” What you are really saying is that it is not wrong to rape the child but you won’t allow it. The Church cannot have any compassion for people who want a new partner after marriage breakdown. It can hardly have compassion that the marriage broke down in a lot of cases for God supposedly helps marriage to survive for it is a sacrament. If a husband wouldn’t stop beating his wife so the marriage had to end that would be different but the Church cannot have compassion for unhappy marriages that are not as bad as that.

The Catholic religion says that people living together before marriage makes the marriage more likely to end in divorce. There is no mention of the fact that religion encourages the notion that marriage is for life. That makes people suspicious of commitment for that is a mad ideal. Thus they start to live together and their fear that the relationship may be only temporary kicks in and causes trouble.