The Indissolubility of Marriage

About a year ago I wrote on the indissolubility of marriage and the unfortunate state of a baptized person who can not remarry, nor engage in sexual relationships, if their baptized spouse abandons them. If these people 'remarry' then they are practically living out an adulterous relationship and therefore are excluded from communion. This is an extremely sensitive subject because it very real and very painful to anyone who has been subjected to a loss of this magnitude. The main goal for anyone who suffers from this situation is to seek healing in a way that will draw them closer to God and draw them into a life of sanctity.

Excluding the Exception Clause

In order to interpret Scripture as a whole one must understand why some people attempt to appeal to the so-called Exception Clause in Matthew. Keep in mind that the parallel in Mark and Luke do not include the "except" statement at all. This is important because some of the worst advice that we can give someone who is hurting is to excuse "understandable" behavior as a result of the loss, such as the immediate search for another spouse out of a sense of entitlement.

“And he said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery against him.’” Mark 10:11-12

“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.” Luke 16:18

The so-called Exception Clause reads:

"But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." Matthew 5:32

"I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." Matthew 19:9

This is most likely a clarification, not such that what Luke and Mark say is too strong, strict, or rigid, but that for instance if someone is married to a sister, or some other illicit incestuous relationship then obviously Jesus' words would not apply because God had not put them together, and therefore it would not be adultery for them to leave that 'natural marriage' to enter into a legitimate marriage. Although the Greek word porneia does include the meaning of adultery, its meaning here understood in any way other than sexual perversion, such as in the case of incest, violates the tenor of the parallels in the synoptic gospels, that what God has put together, let not man separate. In which case, God did not put the incestuous relationship together.

Possible Solutions

There are three possible ways in which this situation can be understood that might grant a solution.

Annulment: No, this does not mean that the Catholic Church will annul your marriage. If you are validly married, then that is your spouse until they die, whether they leave you or not. What? So that means no more sex for the rest of my life because my spouse left me? Yup, why commit adultery yourself just because someone did you horribly wrong? What this does mean is that the Church can assist the individuals to discern if there really was a marriage to begin with. If there were impediments at the time of the wedding such as internal and external factors that limited the consent of the will, the gravity of the decision being made, etc, then it is possible that no valid marriage occurred.

Pauline Privilege: If two unbaptized people enjoin in a natural marriage, and one of them becomes baptized (becomes a Christian) then the newly baptized person could remarry if they are abandoned. St. Paul states: "if the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound."

Petrine Privilege: Similarly to the Pauline Privilege, if a baptized person enjoins in a natural marriage with someone who is not baptized, there can be no sacramental marriage since this requires that both members be baptized. A favor of the faith is that the baptized person could gain dissolution so that they can pursue Christian marriage as layed out in Norms for the Dissolution of Marriage in Favour of the Faith by the Supreme Authority of the Sovereign Pontiff.