Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:54:33.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Thoughts on Divorce

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

P J Fitzpatrick
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Some twenty years ago, that wise and good man Gerald Vann wrote an article in Blackfriars about ‘The Muddled Marriage’. It was concerned with the plight of those spouses whose unions are canonically irregular, and apparently without remedy; it contended that they deserve a love and a sympathy they do not usually get; and it suggested they should be told that they were not in a state of grievous sin or cut off from the life of the Church. Such assertions could hardly go unchallenged, and a lumbering attack, Roman in origin, appeared shortly afterwards. Indeed, rumour attributes to the incident the subsequent residence of Father Vann in the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, whither he was sent, like some latter-day Ovid, to expiate his sins by the Black See.

Times have changed, and even Canon Law is not exempt. Ever more is being written on the matter of divorce and re-marriage. The bibliography at the end of this article (to which all references are made) shows that an up-to-date survey is available of how things stand in France, Germany and the United States; New Blackfriars, in June 1973, published several interesting articles to do with African attitudes in the matter; and the items by Harrington and O’Callaghan give useful accounts of scriptural and theological reflexion, with some further reading. Still more recent are the two works that provide the starting-point for this article. The first is an essay on the theology of indissolubility, the second an account, by a former presiding judge of the marriage-tribunal in the archdiocese of New York, of his own pilgrimage towards a change of heart in the matter. The two books contain between them most of the themes to be encountered elsewhere in what is being written : I wish to use them as an occasion for some remarks on the point myself.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 57 , Issue 674 , July 1976 , pp. 292 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(‘ITQ’ abbreviates Irish Theological Quarterly; ‘RSR’ abbreviates Recherches de Sciences Religieuses.)Google Scholar
Breuning, W. Discussions sur le divorce en Allemagne RSR 61 (1973), pp. 543–574.Google Scholar
Curran, C. Divorce: doctrine et pratique catholiques aux Etats‐Unis RSR 61 (1973), pp. 575–624.Google Scholar
Harrington, W. Jesus’ attitude towards divorce' ITQ 37 (1970), pp. 199–209.Google Scholar
Kelleher, S. The problem of the intolerable marriage’ in America 120 (1968), pp. 178–182.Google Scholar
Nautin, P. Divorce et remariage dans la tradition de l'Eglise Latine RSR 62 (1974), pp. 7–54.Google Scholar
Noonan, J. T. Power to dissolve: lawyers and marriages in the Courts of the Roman Curia. Cambridge , Massachusetts , 1972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Callaghan, D. Theology and Divorce ITQ 37 (1970), pp. 210–222.Google Scholar
O'Callaghan, D. How far is Christian marriage indissoluble ITQ 40 (1973), pp. 162–173.Google Scholar
Ryan, S. Survey of Periodicals: Indissolubility of Marriage The Furrow 24 (1973), pp. 150–159, 214–224, 272–284.Google Scholar
Schillebeeckx, E. Marriage: Secular Reality and Saving Mystery. Translated by Smith, N. D. from the Dutch edition of 1963. London . Sheed and Ward. 1965. Two volumes.Google Scholar
Simon, R. Questions débattues en France au sujet du divorce RSR 61 (1973), pp. 491–542. (Gives further bibliography).Google Scholar
Vann, G. 'Moral Dilemmas: The muddled marriage' Blackfriars, 34 (1953), pp. 374–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar