Marriage is a human institution of obvious antiquity. It is based on the relationships established by human pair bonding, usually for the purpose, or as the result, of the parenting of children. It creates the family and, in some cases, the tribe or clan. Married people are generally recognized as having unique sexual rights and duties with respect to each other. Violation of these rights is called adultery, which virtually all societies discourage or penalize. It was a capital crime (Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:21-24) in the Old Testament.

Because it is such a basic human institution, marriage has become a part of organized society. Modern societies recognize that the partners to a marriage are united by unique personal and social relationships. They have established various traditions and laws that recognize and protect these relationships and the rights associated with them. Civil laws generally specify who can be married (and to whom), by what documentation these persons and their spouses are identified, and what rights and obligations are conveyed by being married. In most western countries, including the United States, people are married in a ceremony, the wedding, or by what is known as common law, by declaring that they are married in their dealings with others. Both kinds are equally valid in US civil law.

To the extent that it has jurisdiction over the relationships established by marriage, civil authority can specify, impose, modify or terminate them. The union is legally recognized by a marriage certificate, issued in conjunction with, or sometimes after (or, in the case of common law marriages, instead of) the wedding. Divorce terminates the civil union unique to married people, and allows them subsequently legally to marry others. The divorce is recognized by a divorce decree, issued by civil authority, that declares that a specific marriage is terminated and specifies what rights and obligations if any, still exist between the former partners.

Religions also recognize marriage. The relationships between the married persons are seen as involving their relationship with God, and the wedding is often viewed as a religious ritual as well as, or in addition to, a civil one. In the United States, the ceremony is often conducted by a religious official who is recognized by the civil jurisdiction as having the authority to formally recognize the civil union as well. In some cases in the US, and typically in some other countries, the religious ritual and the civil one are two separate ceremonies, conducted by two different officials.

Both societies and religious denominations recognize that marriage is much more than a wedding, and that a marriage does not always result from the wedding ceremony. For example, where the partners are merely acting, such as in a theatrical production, they do not really marry each other even if the actor portraying the official is, in fact, authorized to perform weddings and the actors portraying the partners are both single. An otherwise valid marriage ceremony may not actually be valid if the partners have not attained a certain age, or if they were somehow tricked or forced into participating.

If a marriage certificate is issued in such cases, it is nullified by an annulment, issued by the same authority. Whereas divorce terminates a valid civil marriage, recognized by the issued marriage certificate, annulment essentially declares that both the marriage and the certificate are invalid, that the marriage never happened at all. It is evidence that the partners involved are not subject to the laws involving married people because they are not, in fact, married.

Christians obtain some, or perhaps all, of their theology of marriage from the Bible. In the KJV, the word "wife" or "wives" occurs 449 times in the Old Testament and 101 times in the New, whereas "husband" can be found 103 times in the Old Testament and 72 times in the New. "Married" appears 18 times in the Old Testament and 16 times in the New, and "divorce" is mentioned 7 times in the Old Testament and 4 times in the New Testament. The first reference to marriage occurs in Genesis 2:24, (repeated in Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7-8, and Ephesians 5:31): "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one," which pretty well sums up the Judeo-Christian view of marriage.

The The Layman, A Ministry of the Presbyterian Lay Committee states that the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America views marriage as "an institution ordained by God, blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ, established and sanctified for the happiness and welfare of mankind, into which spiritual and physical union one man and one woman enter..." [however] "a breach of that holy relation may occasion divorce, so remarriage after a divorce granted on grounds explicitly stated in Scripture or implicit in the gospel of Christ may be sanctioned in keeping with his redemptive gospel..."

Protestant Christians generally regard civil authority as having complete jurisdiction over marriage, including its religious aspects. Thus, the wedding is basically a civil ceremony with varying religious overtones, undertaken, among other purposes, additionally sanctified for the happiness and welfare of mankind. Protestant churches generally regard anyone legally married under civil law to be married before God as well. (There is some disagreement of late about same-sex marriages, however.) Protestants also generally accept civil determinations regarding eligibility for marriage, the validity of weddings, the rights and duties of the partners with respect to each other and to other people, and the authority of the state to certify people as being unmarried by an annulment or to terminate a valid marriage by a civil divorce.

Catholics (and some other religions, including Islam) have a similar, but not identical view. Catholics regard marriage (however contracted) as primarily a religious act by which a man and women enter into a special relationship with each other and with God for the purpose, among other things, of participating in His creation of new citizens for His Kingdom and in redemption and sanctification of the family created thereby. Neither the Church or state marry people, they simply recognize the relationships established. ("I now pronounce you man and wife.") Catholics believe that all valid marriages (irrespective of the religion or lack thereof of the spouses) involve a special relationship with God, because of man's sexual identity, the "image and likeness of God "(Genesis 1:26), expressed most completely in marriage. Jesus himself referred to marriage as what "God hath joined together" (Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:9).

Confusion between legal recognition of marriage and what marriage actually is has recently given rise to controversy over what are commonly known as same-sex marriages in this and other countries. The desire for intimate companionship is so intrinsically a part of human behavior that people who are sexually attracted to others of the same gender frequently desire such a union. The United States Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, held in a 5-4 decision that the fundamental legal right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This decision made the legitimacy of marriage by individuals of the same gender, otherwise eligible, the Law of the Land. The basis of this decision is that the Fourteenth Amendment requires that each state provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction, and prohibits state and local government officials from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without legislative authorization. Thus, any law that applies the law unequally on the basis of gender is unconstitutional. Judicial restriction based on the gender of the partners involved is unconstitutional as well because it deprives them of the right to choose whom to marry without valid legal (constitutional) authorization.

The Bible condemns homosexual acts between men, which strongly suggests that "a man ... shall cleave unto his wife" means that the "wife" should be a woman, at least to people for whom the Old Testament is a guide to moral behavior. However, in the United States, at least, civil marriage is a contract between consenting adults that neither requires nor prohibits any act between them other than that involved in getting married in the first place. I have occasionally heard arguments in my church against marriage between men and men or women and woman, but Catholics have had a different view of marriage than many other people for a very long time. We don't expect others to have the same view of The Lord's Supper or ordination of clergy; I don't see that those other's view of what we would call the Sacrament of Matrimony is any of our business unless we live in Vatican City.

Most of the problem has to do with definition of terms. No less a Catholic authority than Pope Francis has reportedly expressed his opinion that civil unions should be available to those desiring them as a way for those not eligible for Catholic marriage to enjoy the benefits of having a family. Given the differences between Catholic understanding of marriage, and that of other faiths (recourse to divorce, civil determination of nature and eligibility, etc.) what others call marriages might well be considered civil unions by the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, Catholics maintain that one should not be confused with the other, and calling the same thing does that. This is one of the reasons why Catholics do not bless same-sex unions, because doing so would imply some equivalency between the two. It might well also imply Catholic acceptance of activities which Scripture forbids. On the other hand, we do not maintain that one must commit sin if he or she is in a family relationship with someone of the same gender. We are commanded to love one another as witness of our decipleship to Christ, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, national origin, or previous condition of servitude, and chastity is chastity, whether your thing is men, women or goats!

Catholics see civil recognition of same-sex unions as marriages as being similar to recognition of corporations as persons. In the United States, this recognition has roots in the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, as noted in the foregoing, but recognition of same-sex contracts does not make them marriages any more than its legal incorporation makes Deaf Women United, Inc. a deaf woman. While Catholics recognize the right of civil authority to recognize marriages and to regulate the legal, social and political aspects of marriage, we do not agree that it has authority over marriage itself, which is a creation of God, not the state or the Church, and involves physical, psychological, functional and moral factors totally outside the state's (or the church's) jurisdiction.

I think that this is why Catholics, and especially our church representatives, have not been more vocal in the public discussion of same-sex marriages. While Catholics are perhaps dismayed by current ruling, we recognize that this is a civil issue, not a religious one. Catholics are married in a religious ceremony which may or may not be recognized under civil law. The Catholic Church does not perform marriages between individuals of the the same gender any more than it refuses marriage between "white" people and "persons of color" (which were illegal in my home state of Mississippi before being ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia, which was cited as a precedent in Obergefell v. Hodges).

In Windsor v. United States, the United States Court of appeals for the Second Circuit put it this way: "But law (federal or state) is not concerned with holy matrimony. Government deals with marriage as a civil status--however fundamental... A state may enforce and dissolve a couple's marriage, but it cannot sanctify or bless it. For that, the pair must go next door."

Catholics regard the "grounds [for divorce] explicitly stated in Scripture or implicit in the gospel" referred to by the The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America as being few and far between. The enduring nature of the psychological and emotional bonds established, not to mention the existence of the children of the marriage, are strong evidence that this is so. Saint Paul claimed that "the Lord" commanded that divorced people not remarry. (1 Corinthians 7:10-11) Jesus himself stated plainly that anyone who put away his wife and married another committed adultery (Matthew 19:9, Mark 10:11) and that a woman who put away her husband and married another also committed adultery (Mark 10:12). His response to divorce allowed in Deuteronomy 24:1-3 was that it was permitted "because of the hardness of your hearts...but from the beginning it was not so" (Matthew 19:8). Catholics see Jesus' insistence that "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:9) as his declaration that the state does not have the authority to terminate a valid marriage between Christians, regardless of what its laws say or what decrees it issues. One is either married to someone, or he (or she) is not. In effect, Catholics regard "divorced people" as still married, no matter what anyone, including the partners themselves, think about it.

The phrase "except it be for fornication," in Matthew 19:9 is often quoted by Protestants as constituting the "grounds [for divorce] explicitly stated in Scripture or implicit in the gospel." Catholics note that the word used here is fornication, which is a sin committed between unmarried people, not adultery, in which at least one of the people involved is married to someone else. We also note that 23 other Bibles commonly used by Protestants use the terms "adultery" (once), "fornication" (seven times), "immorality" (three times), "lewdness" (once), "sexual immorality" (seven times), "being unfaithful" (once), "unfaithfulness" (twice), and "whoredom" (once). The implication seems to be that the wife's (but not the husband's) unfaithfulness at any time, if discovered, is grounds for divorce. In Jesus' time, brides were expected to be intact virgins, based on Deuteronomy 24:1. Why Jesus noted the exception is certainly open to discussion, especially since it is missing in Mark 10:3-12. Catholics consider the prohibition to mean "unless the marriage is unlawful," which is how the phrase is rendered in the bibles we use and how it is applied in Catholic teaching and practice.

(Jesus may have been thinking of the situation of his own mother in this confrontation. Matthew 1:18-23 records that her new husband Joseph decided to divorce her when he learned that she was pregnant with a child that was not his. It took the invervention of an angel to convince Joseph that Mary had not violated the Scriptural prohibition in Deuteronomy 22:13-21 against a bride pretending to be a virgin.)

Normally, Catholic doctrine about marriage does not pose a problem for others, because most people have their own ways of getting married and don't care what Catholics think. A difficulty arises when a "divorced" person wants to marry a Catholic. Catholics are forbidden to marry someone whom the Church regards as already married, so a Catholic normally excommunicates himself from his Church if he marries someone with a living "ex"-wife or husband in a non-Catholic ceremony. The Church considers the Catholic to be then living in an adulterous relationship with someone else's spouse, even though a state marriage certificate says, and they may truly believe, that they're married to each other.

These situations do not pose a moral dilemma for Catholics who are agents of the state. Church and state have different rules, as noted above. The Catholic judge, ship captain or county clerk performs his or her duties according to civil law, not that of the Catholic Church. There is usually no conflict between the two because of their separate jurisdictions and applications. However, if an individual Catholic finds an incompatibility between his personal faith and the requirements of his official duties, he is morally obligated to quit his job and find employment elsewhere. The Catholic Church has always taught that it is a sin to apply for a job, accept the job, swear an oath to perform the job faithfully, take money for doing the job, and then not do the job for "religious reasons" or any other, especially after a legitimate court has clarified the matter.

(We also recognize that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that prohibits issuing a civil marriage license to people (of any gender) or commits anybody receiving one to having sexual relations (with anyone), but those are whole different discussion topics!)

Marriage, for Catholics, consists of an intentional union by which a single man and a single woman freely give themselves to each other for life. In the Catholic wedding ceremony, the official asks the couple: "(NAME) and (NAME), have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage? Will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives? Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?" The couple's vows follow this formula: "I, (NAME) take you, (NAME), to be my wife [husband]. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life." The words can vary as long as the essential ideas are there.

Unfortunately, a growing number of civil partnerships today are not what Catholics consider marriages, the unions that "God hath joined together," (Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:9) even if a marriage certificate, or the partners themselves, claim otherwise. One or both partners may not have been single (perhaps "divorced" from previous spouses), or they might not have been old enough, or they might not have intended to give themselves to each other, or to do so for life. Maybe one of the partners was dishonest, perhaps concealing from the other something that would have influenced his or her decision to marry. Perhaps they did not intend to love and honor each other, or were forced or pressured into the union by parents or others or a real or perceived threat of some kind, or didn't really understand what marriage was all about or even believe in it in the first place. In such cases, free consent to a lifetime marriage of love, honor and fidelity is obviously absent. The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that "makes the marriage." If consent is lacking, there is no marriage. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1626-1628)

Because problems of this kind are so common, Catholics have a formal means of dealing with them. Each Catholic bishop has a marriage tribunal, a kind of court to which a person (of any faith) already divorced by civil authority can appeal if he or she wants to marry a Catholic. The tribunal examines all available evidence about the divorced person's marriage, especially the circumstances leading up to the wedding, and recommends a finding to the bishop as to whether or not the person is (still) married. The bishop makes the final decision, issuing a declaration of nullity, often referred to as an "annulment," if he agrees that an actual marriage never took place. In this case, the contracting parties are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union (such as child support) are discharged. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1629) A declaration of nullity states the position of the Church that a previous civil marriage was invalid under Church law, not that a previously valid marriage is terminated. The Catholic Church does not grant divorces.

A special case arises where the divorced person was married to a non-Christian. Biblical guidance in such cases is that the marriage is valid, but that the departure (evidenced by the subsequent divorce) of the non-Christian terminates the marriage. Both partners in such a case thus become single and free to marry again. Catholics refer to this dispensation as the "Pauline Privilege" (1 Corinthians 7:12-16). Marriage tribunals resolve these cases fairly quickly. Others take longer.

The tribunal examines the evidence, not the people. The people involved do not even appear, testify or participate. The tribunal considers what happened after the wedding only to try to determine the intentions and disposition of the couple beforehand. It is not concerned with who or what caused the civil divorce, or with blame or fault or guilt. The presumption is that the divorced person is still married, and that presumption must be overcome by the evidence presented by the petitioner's advocate, usually the Catholic's parish priest or a lawyer schooled in canon law. Both parties to the divorce are contacted, if possible, to protect everyone's rights and assure that all available evidence is considered, but consent (or even response) of a divorced spouse is not required.

Because of the importance of the matter, gathering and consideration of the evidence take a long time, usually more than a year. The petitioner is expected to pay the administrative costs of the tribunal if he is able (usually about $500), but inability to pay does not influence the finding or the issuance of the declaration. No one is turned away because of financial considerations or what religion they do or do not profess.

Most annulment cases are fairly simple, and the evidence consists of civil court records and statements of the people involved, easily provided. Sometimes, however, especially with people involved in multiple divorces, the cases become very complicated. One can appeal the bishop's decision to a higher tribunal and, ultimately to the Roman Rota, the Catholic Church's Supreme Court.

Because the tribunal bases its decision only on what is presented to it, occasionally it happens that a decision that the presumption that the marriage is still valid has not been overcome by available evidence is overturned on appeal by additional evidence subsequently obtained by a private investigation. The investigator(s) in such cases are usually very expensive, and the Church does not pay them. This has led some people to conclude that "if you pay the Church enough money, they will grant you an annulment." This is simply not true, because the money in such cases goes for the investigation, not to the Church. (It is true, of course, that the more money invested in any investigation intended to demonstrate the reasonableness of a given conclusion, the more likely it is that such a conclusion will be demonstrated.) In addition, because of the number of people involved, most of whom are interested in things other than acquiring wealth, it is extremely unlikely that anyone could bribe a Church official, much less a millionaire bishop, to reach a verdict not in accordance with the evidence.

Recently, Pope Francis has simplified the process of granting declarations of nullity in the Western and Oriental Catholic Church (which has somewhat different rules for East and West). Some Internet news articles about them are listed here. The changes are in the process of granting such declarations, not in the basic doctrine.

Divorced people, of whatever faith, who are or may be interested in marrying a Catholic should contact the Catholic's pastor or other parish priest as soon as possible. There are no guarantees with regard to the tribunal's decision, but the sooner the annulment process is begun, the sooner it can be concluded.

Good Luck!

John Lindorfer