Dear Dr. G,

I am confused on the Church's philosophy on marriage in this respect:

a) A marriage when ratified and consummated is indissoluble by nature; no power on earth can dissolve the marital bond except for death.

b) The Church admits her tribunal judgments are not infallible. Hence some declarations of nullity could be wrong through honest error, perhaps known only to God.

c) Therefore, if a marriage is declared null in error, and the two parties go on and "marry" others in the Church, who then is really married?

The question is not who is validly married, but who is really married? Since we know the authority of the Church cannot dissolve a real marriage that is consummated, where would the marital bond be?

Dear PJ,

In certain cases the Church has the power to dissolve a natural marriage that has been consummated. This often happened when one of the pagan parties converted to Christianity and the other party rejected the conversion. Also it is true that the marriage tribunals are not infallible. They can make mistakes. Nevertheless the Church teaches that they must be obeyed even though they do not grant an annulment when they should have. For the Church speaks for God. And God sometimes requires this kind of sacrifice, as is illustrated when God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son. This is hard to understand because we are dealing with a mystery here. Since the mystery is God's we have to accept it by accepting the rule if the Church in these matters. It is hard to accept mysteries when our notion of a good life is at stake. But ultimately, what is a good life. It is in obeying God. While this is very hard (it requires grace) it is better than our taking the matter of marriage into our own hands. Many people have done that. What is the result? Sex without marriage. This is supposed to be an improvement on God's plan!

Dr. Geraghty

COPYRIGHT 2013

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