Separation and Divorce

The answers to the questions are edited by the theologian Monsignor Costantino Di Bruno, Central Assistant of the Apostolic Movement.

The theme of the meeting: Separation and Divorce

Q. in the CCC it is written among other things that divorce is an attack against the natural law: what is meant by natural law from the point of view of who does not believe?

The natural law is your very being as God made ​​you. God did not make the Christians, made ​​man, he made the woman, he created the family. In Genesis, we read that God created all beings in their individuality. When creating the man instead creates the male and female to be one because this one is born to be the world government and the government of the land, the development of the whole of creation. This is the creation of man, this is the natural law. This is the law of life and not be abolished because if we abolish die. We always have to start from our nature which is not by chance, and the creation of man and woman comes from the Lord our God who creates unity, what Malachi called the only breath of life. The hardness of heart trouble and sin unfortunately this truth.

Q. When is a woman, if she is forced to grant the divorce even only through psychological violence, considered by God to be in sin?

Whatever is imposed to you does not depend on your will and therefore there is no responsibility because where there is violence, there is no freedom of the human person and his acts are never held attributable. The act of the person must be free, conscious, wise and wanted, otherwise there is no imputation of sin. In the Church the separation for serious reasons was always possible. What is not possible is remarrying, because separation does not annul a marriage for a marriage is never annulled once it is valid. In fact, the Ecclesiastical Court does not annul a marriage, but claims that marriage to have never existed. Whatever you do by compulsion is not a human act; and where the conditions of a choice made with will, science, conscience and full freedom are lacking we do not have a responsibility.

Q. In CCC it says that in marriage the marital acts the spouses are united with must be laudable and worthy. What does this mean?

The conjugal act must remain a part of nature, because a woman and a man are not objects, they are not things. They carry in them the image of God and the body cannot get the upper hand on what the truth about man is, and the body also needs its truth. The Lord put a limit to what can be desire and concupiscence; sin is also a limit. Today one of the most serious problems that exists in marriage is his or her slavery, mostly more hers than his. Nature is not an overall; nature bears the image of God and the woman is not a thing but a person with a dignity, sensitivity and heart that must be respected. Respect is seeing the body as God saw it at the beginning of creation. If we see in the light of God’s will we get an answer, if we see everything from the taste or sin of a man we get a different answer. It a need of our spirit and our vocation to see everything in the perspective of faith.

Q. In marriage there are several relationships: there are parent and child, husband and wife, mother and son and father and son relationships. What is the most important relationship; which one comes first?

None, because there is not a before and an after, a greater and a smaller one; but relationships are lived according to their nature. Between husband and wife the relationship of the one flesh is lived, always, because the breath of life never ends. A son goes away but the husband or the wife remains. The relationship between a parent and a child is a sublime one but nothing must be detracted to the other relationship which is a much more vital, much more essential one. It is the husband that makes his wife a woman and it is the wife that makes her husband a man; the woman becomes a mother thanks to the man and the man father thanks to the woman: they complete each other reciprocally, and this relationship can never fail. One of the reasons for many separations is that of not living these relationships in their entirety, in their perfection and their freedom. You cannot undo these two relationships, but the constitutive one is always the former, that of being one flesh. A child must always be loved by the parent but only from the truth of his nature which is that of being one flesh with the spouse.

Q. When two people get married, the Lord says, a man shall leave his father and mother to join together with the woman. What do leaving and joining mean?

When one is born he is under the responsibility of the father and mother, and he is not subject to independent decisions because everything he does needs to go under the scrutiny of the father and mother, because he has no autonomy and independence. When he gets married the relationship of submission is broken and he enters into a relationship of autonomy; it is the husband and wife who must decide in autonomy, others cannot enter into the decisions of the spouses. The Church in the generation of the children also talks about responsible fatherhood and motherhood, that is to say that the husband and wife decide in the sight of God, in conscience, taking the responsibility of how many children they can give to the Lord. There is an emotional decision making detachment that needs to be operated, and today many marriages fail because this detachment is not operated. This does not mean that the father and mother are no longer to be respected, helped, supported; there is always the fourth commandment that needs to be lived, but you have to realize that there is a new breath of life that must be conducted, must be governed and must be built every day.

Q. What is a single breath of life?

When the Lord created man he took some earth and kneaded it. Then he breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living being. In marriage this breath of life he does not give it to the individual but in a combined and compound way, and in this new clay he blows the breath of life, the breath of grace, love, Holy Spirit, joy and peace; and man begins to live no longer alone but in two. The mystery of marriage is an inexpressible mystery; in marriage the perfect image of God is reproduced. From Adam came Eve, from Adam and Eve comes the son by birth, the created trinity. The Son does not come from the Father, he is generated; by an eternal mystery, from the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit is not born but proceeds: unity and trinity in God, there is this breath of life, which then becomes a third party, the procession in God and birth in humans. This is the great mystery of life.

Q. How must we consider the cohabitation or as it is called today the right to a trial?

There is no right to a trial. In the Church there has always been an engagement which is a sufficient time to know, understand, want each other and decide or not decide. The union of bodies must take place in the unity of the only breath of life that was constituted otherwise it is a lying one, because God did not create it; and what God does not create we cannot do it. The Church cannot have a wedding for a period of time; when we present ourselves before the altar of God a new creation happens that one cannot delete or destroy because it is God’s creation. Man must rule himself, must follow a law that has been given him. We are not from ourselves, we were created by the Lord in a particular way, in a communion of persons and we are forced to walk in the respect of the personal nature and of that of the others.

Q. In Matthew’s Gospel we read that whoever repudiates his wife and marries another one commits adultery. Do we commit adultery if today we divorce and then we remarry?

Once a marriage was validly celebrated before God and the Church we are obliged to respect it for the whole life. Separation, which is possible, does not authorize one to a second marriage.

Q. After the wedding, the person manifests ways and attitudes (vulgar, violent towards the spouse or children) that make marriage unlivable. Is it lawful to ask for the recognition of nullity of marriage?

The causes of nullity of marriage must date back to before the wedding. What must be done, for example, if you marry an admirably healthy man and after marriage he becomes seriously ill? He is your flesh and you assist him because you are one flesh.

Q. If you get married with a person of another religion and after wedding you are stopped from living in the conditions of your faith. What can you do?

When you marry with a person of another religion, this is obliged to accept the reasons of your faith, otherwise marriage cannot take place. If my Christian faith and the condition of my faith are not respected there can be no marriage. The Church clearly shows you which are the responsibilities you must assume in a mixed marriage, marriage is indissoluble, one man and one woman, commitment to fidelity for the entire life. These are the basic conditions to celebrate a mixed marriage and the Church obliges you to accept these conditions that are at the foundation of the Christian faith.

D. In case of separation who must take care of the formation of the child?

The child needs both father and mother and cannot be separated by either one of his parents. The father and mother are the life of the child. As the physical life of a child comes from the father and mother, so the spiritual, emotional, social, cultural, educational life, come from the father and mother, and where the two do not live in communion the baby grows bad, becomes a misfit and something is missing in his growth. Marriage is a commitment of a lifetime. But let us ask ourselves, why do you get to this? Because we detach ourselves from the bonds of Christ’s grace. In the sacrament, the Lord gives you a special grace so that you may live all the commitments that you take charge of on the wedding day. However, the grace of God runs out, so that every day you have to grow in grace, grow in virtues, grow in the truth, grow in patience and forgiveness. Only then marriage will turn out well.

Directions given by Monsignor Costantino Di Bruno for the preparation of the meeting:

– Genesis 2, 3
– Malachi 2
– Matthew 19
– Catechism of the Catholic Church from number 2380 to number 2391.