This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of two legal tragedies for families. While the Church loudly protests one of them — Roe v Wade, the other — the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act — is completely ignored.
A Legal Milestone Hidden in Obscurity
Marriage is cutting a wider swath in the news these days, now that the possibility of same-sex marriage is on the horizon.
Until recently, “marriage” news came mostly by way of its dark counterpart — divorce — when word leaked out about a high-profile breakup. But that has changed. Several recent High Court rulings have put “marriage” on the front page.
Recently, the Catholic Church in this country weighed in on this issue. U.S. Bishops made their position unequivocally clear — that the sacrament of marriage would not be opened to same-sex partners.
But, this country’s secular leaders will continue to grapple with this contentious issue, and as a result, they may let another cat out of the bag.
The current rhetoric surrounding the threat to marriage posed by same-sex partners neglects a far more serious threat unleashed thirty years ago — the same year that Roe v Wade sent shock waves through the Church. While most people know the date of the historic legal opinion giving women the “right” to abortion — January 22, 1973 — the other legal milestone is hidden in obscurity.
But, on August 2nd that same year, a select group of lawyers meeting in Hyannis, Massachusetts, approved the final version of their five-year project — the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act.
Every summer, this group, known as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, comes together to write laws. Appointed by their respective governors they come from every state.
In 1969, they began work on a “model” law on marriage and divorce. This law would then be promoted back in each of their home-states. The commissioners expected their respective legislatures to enact state laws based on this model law.
The stated purpose of their historic work was to bring “the law” into uniformity throughout the country. The transcripts of their meetings reveal their concern about, “the existing hodgepodge of laws on Divorce and Marriage”. They also express concern for children of divorce. “If the improvement and uniformity in this field were not at hand for the sake of the marriage partners, it is surely at hand for the sake of the children.”
Yet another concern was the problem of “migratory divorce” where a spouse might cross state lines to access more lenient laws. Migratory divorce — which could mean a loss of revenue for the local lawyers — allowed a spouse to “shop” for divorce and sometimes use fraudulent tactics to discard their vows.
While the stated goal of this new law was uniformity, another mission crept into the work — to overthrow the rules of divorce and replace them with a vague standard that would give judges absolute power over people’s lives.
The work of this group remains obscured even today by misconceptions about the group’s good intentions. But the resulting monumental scale of family breakdown in this country is testimony to the deceptive nature of their work.
The Death-knell for Stable Marriages
This seemingly innocuous rule-change sounded the death-knell for stable marriages. But, it didn’t make the history books the way the abortion ruling did that same year. While the Church has been busy defending the unborn, she has abandoned the 3,000 victims a day of a legal system that extinguishes marriages through the practice of “forced” divorce.
The outrage directed at Roe v Wade continues to this day, because abortion has such clear victims. On the other hand, “divorce” dehumanizes and removes the focus from the victims — victims that include children and relationships.
The rule-change incorporated into this model law is more commonly referred to as “no-fault”, which is really a palliative label for an agonizing process. The rules are clear — the spouse who files for divorce has all the power over the decision to divorce. Marriage vows originally exchanged by mutual consent can be terminated by just one partner — without any good reason.
No-fault divorce empowered judges to terminate the marital bond in the same way that Dr. Kevorkian ended lives through assisted suicide. And worse yet, the use of draconian measures can turn some judges into legal henchmen, wielding absolute power over people’s lives. A judge can even jail a resistant spouse for not being a willing participant in his own execution.
Only those who have been victimized by this process can truly understand what was really done to families thirty years ago.
When two people marry, they make their vows by “mutual consent” but when that same marriage is terminated, it can be done unilaterally. Once two people are married, the power over their lives is insidiously transferred to civil authorities residing in the courtroom — judges working in concert with lawyers to destroy what life is left in a family.
No-fault divorce is like a toxin eating away at the fabric of society.
Catholic marriages receive no greater protection from this legal nightmare than marriages outside the Church — in spite of the Vatican’s continual reminders that families are precious — like “domestic churches”, and that the marriage bond is indissoluble.
For those unfortunate victims who beg for help from the Church, the response they get can sometimes shatter their faith. A case in a Catholic Diocese in Ohio provides a glimpse into the usual scenario.
Why Are They Abandoned?
Blair’s wife, Jane, moved out one day while he was at work. She soon had divorce papers served on him. Blair believed his marriage could be saved — given the right help — but once the legal machinery started rolling, he was cut off from talking to her. The court issued a “No Contact” restraining order that used the threat of jail to keep them apart — even though there had been no physical violence warranting this protection.
When Blair sought help from one priest after another to break the impasse, not one would offer more than prayers and comforting words. Not one of them stepped out of his comfort zone to set up a meeting between the two estranged parties. Not one made a phone call to Jane or her parents (all Catholic) to try to mediate the perceived problems. Not one accompanied Blair to court.
Towards the end of the legal process, one of the bishops heard about Blair’s plight and expressed interest. This was a bishop trained in both civil law and canon law, so he understood more than most do. He invited Blair to meet with him. After a two-hour meeting, the bishop offered his assurance, saying, “I will do everything I can to help.” Blair left the meeting feeling like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He had a renewed sense of hope, because alone, he could do nothing to stop the divorce machinery that was destroying his family. The hardest part was seeing the signs of deep distress his 3-year-old son was showing. Every time Blair was with him, he would cry, “I don’t want our family to be broken anymore,” and he would pray, “Jesus, please fix my family.”
Blair envisioned that the bishop or a priest would write a letter to the court, or to Jane. He even hoped that the Church might intervene in court on his behalf — ask for time so he and Jane could heal their wounded relationship.
But, days passed with no word and, at the eleventh hour, he understood that he’d been abandoned. Something had drastically changed and Blair did not know what had happened behind the scenes. Only those on the inside knew.
At the next-to-last court hearing, the magistrate — himself a Eucharistic minister on Sundays — gave this response when Blair reminded him of Catholic teachings on marriage, “I don’t care what the Church says, your divorce will be final on August 22nd!”
Blair’s case is just one example of the Church’s response to these “victims” of a process that destroys families — they are ignored until after the divorce, when a spouse like Jane can request the Church’s annulment process to clear her conscience so she can re-marry. At that time, an official in the role of “Defender of the Bond” steps in to investigate the validity of the marriage, but this role is akin to the coroner doing a post-mortem. It’s too late to save the “victim”.
The Vatican has expressed alarm at the fact that while only 6% of the world’s Catholics reside in the U.S., 80% of annulments worldwide come out of the U.S.
Church teaching claims that the sacrament of marriage lives on, in spite of the fact that a civil marriage has been destroyed. But, this is like saying that abortion doesn’t matter because the child’s soul goes to Heaven. It’s so much easier for the Church to see an unborn child as a victim. The Church has invested heavily in anti-abortion activities, but those such as Blair — who face a similar barbaric process — are ignored until the execution is over.
How can the Church consecrate the sacrament of holy matrimony and then, simply turn away when civil authorities are desecrating it?
The silence from the Church about the destruction of countless families is in stark contrast to the media campaigns and street demonstrations leveled at abortion.
When the rules are written in such a way that one marital partner has all the power to end a marriage and the other spouse can do nothing to save it, then outside intervention is needed. Marriage deserves the favor of the law, according to Canon Law. But in civil court, “divorce” has been given the favor of the law.
The same year the right-to-abortion was legalized, the right-to-divorce was also affirmed.
There are remedies available that can save a marriage by restoring its relationships. The excuse that “we can do nothing” may have been true in past times, but things have changed. We can do something now. There are new remedies to the relationship-ailments that can lead to divorce. The Church’s inaction is contributing to the destruction of families. The Church must stand up to what is being done to families “under the color of law”.
© Copyright 2003 Catholic Exchange
Judy Parejko, lives in Wisconsin and published a book entitled, Stolen Vows (www.stolenvows.com). Michele Gauthier, lives in Louisiana and is the founder of Defending Holy Matrimony (defendingholymatrimony.org).
