For a discussion starter... and at the risk of getting into trouble... here are, especially for my North American readers,
Suggested GUIDELINES to follow when deciding who may be married in a church using the official marriage service of the Church
I have often stated that there is a connection (not logical but real in experience & practice) in the USA between the increase and acceptance of the divorce culture in churches and the campaign by homosexual persons to have their "faithful partnerships" blessed in church, and thus the best way to stop the advance of this part of the Lesbigay agenda is to begin gently but firmly to remove the divorce culture from the churches. In this context I have been called many things (e.g. "a legalist") and sometimes I have been asked by serious minded persons when it is right and proper for the local bishop/ parish to allow a service of holy matrimony when the two persons involved are not simply in law a bachelor and spinster (e.g., when one is a divorcee).
Here I set down some guidelines which are much the same as those recently offered by the Flying Bishops in England & Wales to parish priests who are under their pastoral supervision. (You will find similiar advice given in the ECUSA years ago and in the Church in S Africa more recently.)
1. If the first marriage has been annulled by the State court then a marriage of each of the parties to a different person in church is permissible, other things being equal.
2. There are some unions of a male and female, though incapable of being annulled in civil law, may be treated by the Church as being not true marriages and thus each person involved may, after divorce, be married to another, other things being equal. Examples of such unions are as follows:
(a) the marriage was contracted clearly for such other reasons than those stated in the Preface to the Marriage Service in the BCP of 1662 - i.e., the procreation and nurture of children (save where age or condition make impossible), the hallowing and right direction of natural instincts and affections, & the mutual help and fellowship one with another at all times, in adversity and prosperity.
(b) At the time of the wedding one or both of the two involved was most clearly not able to evaluate and understand in basic terms (not in detail but in basics) what Christian marriage is all about. Thus he or she entered marriage with a very major misunderstanding or gross ignorance and he/she did not quickly learn.
(c) Most clear evidence of behaviour before, or soon after, the marriage showing that at the time of the marriage one party did not accept the marriage to be an exclusive and indissoluble union.
(d) Either party had an undisclosed yet clear intention not to have children.
(e) The existence of a pre-nuptial contract between the parties, providing for division of assets/property upon civil divorce, thereby suggesting that the union was intended to be merely conditional, and not for better or worse.
(f) Both persons at the time of the marriage were not baptized; later one of them becomes a Christian and is baptized and the other one, without any reasonable cause being given by the baptized one, departs not to return..
In these instances, following a civil divorce, persons from categories a - e, and the baptized from f , would be eligible, other things being equal, to be married in church to a new spouse.
3. Apart from a decree of nullity from the State ("void marriages") it is possible for the Church to declare that the following unions are no longer marriages (that is they are "voidable marriages") and thus that persons involved in them after divorce are possible candidates for being married in church to another person, other things being equal.
.
(a) One of the parties is impotent (except this be fully known to both before the marriage)
(b) One of the parties made the promises and consented when he or she was in such a state of mind as not to be wholly in charge of his/her statements and actions (e.g., through drug use or major illness).
(c) One of the parties, unknown to the other, had venereal disease in a communicable form.
(d) The woman, unknown to the man, was pregnant at the time of the marriage by another man
(e) There has been a wilful refusal by one of the parties to consummate the marriage.
With all such regulations (as has happened clearly in the Episcopal Church of the USA in the 1960s and following) it is possible to begin with the intention of keeping to them as interpreted reasonably yet strictly but then, due to the very powerful emotional pressure of the current divorce culture, and the greater context of human rights and the pursuit of personal happiness & satisfaction, to begin to interpret them loosely in favour of laxity and thus bring virtually every divorcee into one or another of the conditions listed above.
Today, nearly all bishops in the ECUSA allow a second marriage without any question and only begin to ask questions with respect to a third or fourth marriage. Many bishops take part in second and even a third marriage of a priest! And some of the major Continuing Churches make use of the power of annulment very liberally indeed so as to give the impression of keeping to traditional Anglican canon law, when they are rejecting it. In the C of E, new legislation for 2003 leaves the matter of who is to be married in the parish church entirely and finally in the hands and judgment of the parish priest! This is a very terrifying thing indeed to those of us who are parish priests.
Two final comments. Apart from any counselling, there needs to be for persons entering a second marriage a period of guided self-examination, confession and absolution so that he or she is prepared to enter the new marriage in soundness of mind and with a cleansed soul.
For many couples where one or both is/are divorcees it is probably better in some circumstances that they be married by the State and come to the church for a Service of Blessing, where God is asked in his merciful grace to bless their new union. This can be done in an attractive way so that it has something of the joy and solemnity of a marriage service proper.
The Revd Dr Peter Toon December 29th 2002
No comments:
Post a Comment