Francis Is Telling The Truth on Today's Marriages

Aidan’s mother is Presbyterian but has consistently attended Saturday evening Mass with her husband, Pat, in the thirty-two years of their marriage.  In fact she directed the children’s choir in their parish while Aidan and his sister, Aile were in their middle-and high-school years.  Aidan and Aile each were altar servers in their seventh and eighth grade years and graduated, after Confirmation, into being lectors.  Aidan went to the local Jesuit prep-school; Aile to the “Madames” of the Sacred Heart Day School.  During his college years at the University of Delaware, however, Aidan drifted away from regular Mass attendance.  He also met Katie, like him from the D.C. suburbs, and they began dating.

Katie was also from a devout Catholic home.  She is an only child.  Her parents belong to the Cathedral parish of Saint Matthew in Washington where her mother is an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist.  Katie graduated from Georgetown Visitation before going to the University of Delaware.  When she began dating Aidan she got him back to Sunday Mass.  They dated in Sophomore and Junior year, but Aidan broke it off over the summer between Junior and Senior year.  He was concerned that Katie was overly dependent on her mother, Frances.  Frances would drive two hours every Tuesday to have lunch with Katie at the University and insisted that Katie come home every weekend. 

During their senior year Aidan and Katie slowly rebuilt their relationship and when Aidan decided to go to Law School in Boston, Katie followed to do her Masters in Math at Boston College.  Katie became very involved at the Paulist Center in Boston where she and Aidan regularly attended Mass every Sunday.  Katie was also on the RCIA team and Aidan became involved in fundraising for the center.  In Aidan’s final year of Law School they became engaged to be married.  They moved in together after they were engaged.  Frances flew up to Boston every-other-weekend.   Pat and Joan (Aidan’s mother) were concerned about Frances’ “apron-strings” but Aidan assured them that he could handle it.   They were also concerned that Aidan seemed unable to make up his own mind with determination and worried that the reconciliation between them in their senior year was little more than Aidan’s tendency to “be a nice guy.”  But in the end they felt they had to respect Aidan’s choices. 

Aidan graduated and passed the Bar for Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia.  Pat and Joan hoped “the kids” would move back to Fairfax but Katie had found a job teaching Math and Physics in a Boston High School and didn’t want to move back.  Aidan, on the other hand, was having trouble finding a position with a Law Firm in Boston though through family connections there were a number of positions available in the D.C. area.

They were married that July after graduation in the Cathedral of Saint Matthew in Washington.  Aidan’s uncle, a religious order priest teaching at Catholic U, said the Mass and presided over the marriage.  A reception for 150 followed at the Washington Country Club.  The two families split the cost of the reception based on the proportion of guests each had invited.  By September Aidan and Katie were back in Boston with Katie teaching and Aidan continuing to do interviews for a position in a law firm.  Meanwhile, Aidan took a position in a foreign currency exchange upstart company.  All seemed to be well though when they came back to the DC area at Christmas Aidan spent most nights at his parents in Fairfax, Katie with her family in Chevy-Chase.  They both spent Christmas Eve with Katie’s family and Christmas Day with Aidan’s. 

It was only in April that Aidan told his parents that Katie had left him in January and moved in with Maggie, the girls’ gym teacher in her Boston High School.   Maggie is gay and the exact nature of her relationship with Katie was never clearly defined.  Aidan felt, however, that Maggie had undermined their marriage from when she and Katie had first met and had told Katie that she (Katie) could move in with her if she ever left Aidan.   Katie stayed with Maggie for six months before moving out and getting an apartment of her own.  She told Aidan she wanted a divorce.

Aidan had been seeing a counselor since the breakup and he repeatedly asked Katie to see a marriage counselor with him but she refused.  He went to Katie’s parents to enlist their help—they too told their daughter to get counseling, but Katie refused.  The marriage was over and there was no room, according to Katie, to negotiate.  Pat and Joan were concerned that Aidan may have done something wrong.  Was their any violence?  Was he dealing with any issues?  Substance abuse?  Pornography addiction?  Aile put out what feelers she could among various friends and acquaintances she shared with Katie but could find no reason for Katie leaving Aidan other than “he wasn’t on the career track that would take them where she thought they should go.”  Aidan’s friends all assured his family that he never was abusive in any way and Katie has never alleged that he was.    

Pat and Joan told Aidan that since the marriage had lasted such a short time, wedding gifts should be returned and this led to an interesting revelation.  Aidan agreed; Katie refused.  But it turned out that Aidan had kept the gifts from his family and friends and Katie had kept hers.  They never established joint finances but each had their own bank accounts.  It turned out that Katie’s parents always had separate finances as well and Katie had refused the idea of joint accounts.  The divorce became final eighteen months after the breakup.

This is a true story.  Some particulars—names and places—have been changed but it is a story from within my own family.  I tell it because I believe Pope Francis is dead on when he says that the idea of permanent commitment escapes the understanding of many—if not most—people today.  Key to this is that I have not exaggerated the Catholicity of either family or the Catholic backgrounds of Katie and Aidan or Katie’s commitment to the Church through her College and Boston years, but note that it was Aidan who fought to keep the marriage.   If these happen when the wood is green, what will happen to the dry? 

Pope Francis’ comments on the instability of modern marriage—and its impact on the validity of the sacrament—stirred up a hornet’s nest among the krazies on the blogosphere, but it is totally consistent with what most of my priest-friends have been saying for years.  Some priests in my acquaintance even say that the Church “should get out of the marrying business.”  I think that would be a sad mistake but there is no doubt that we have a culture problem that is probably beyond the Church’s ability to fix.  I am not sure what the answer is but denial is not part of the solution.  Perhaps the Pope needs to speak out in more detail on this issue so that it is not as easy to retreat into denial.  It certainly explains why he is trying to chart a different course for the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried as the implicit nullity of so many contemporary marriages severely complicates the issue.  

The Challenges Facing the Synod: Jesus, Paul, Teutberga, and Modern Family

The upcoming Synod of Bishops is stirring up quite a controversy over the possibility of changing the discipline on how the Church integrates into its sacramental life those who have been divorced and remarried.  While the New Testament is pretty clear on the prohibition of divorce, history has some lessons to teach us on the matter of how the Church has dealt with the matter throughout its history.  There has been a long tradition supporting the indissolubility of Christian marriages but it is not an unbroken tradition.  I mentioned in the earlier post that while Mark and Luke present the teaching of Jesus as an absolute prohibition of divorce and remarriage—saying that those who remarry are guilty of adultery—Matthew gives an exception to the prohibition, namely “unchastity”—presumably on the part of the wife.  This has usually been interpreted as the wife not coming to the marriage as a virgin.  This is particularly interesting as it is the reason that Joseph has for his original plans to divorce Mary until the Angel comes and assures him that Mary has conceived by the power of God (Matt 1:20). 

Paul takes a different approach than the Synoptic Gospels—and it is interesting because Paul’s letters are written before the Gospels and thus reflect an older practice in the Church.   Paul does not allow for the marriage of two Christians to be dissolved, but does permit it when one of the partners is not a Christian and attempts to hinder the Christian partner in the practice of his or her faith (I Corinthians 7:12-15).  Jesus’ teaching, recorded in the Synoptics, declares all marriages to be indissoluble; Paul restricts this to Christian marriages.   It is Paul’s teaching, not Jesus’, that has shaped the practice of the Church through the centuries where the Church has willingly dissolved marriages where one or both of the partners have not been baptized and where, therefore, the marriage has not been “sacramental.”  The Church does not annul these marriages but dissolves them, that is the Church recognizes that the first marriage did exist as a valid marriage but declares that since it was not a sacrament (one or both partners not being baptized and thus no sacrament, even for the baptized partner) it can be dissolved regardless of the teaching of Jesus to the contrary. 

I also pointed out a statement by Pope Gregory II in the eighth century that somewhat astoundingly permits divorce in the case of a wife who can no longer, for reasons of health, have sexual relations with her husband.  This statement is remarkable as it is the only papal statement I can find that permits divorce and remarriage.  Finally, I mentioned in the previous post the marriage/divorce/annulment of Lothair II of Lotharingia and his wife, Teutberga which marks a significant turning point in the Catholic approach to the dissolution of supposedly indissoluble marriages. I want to look more closely at this case. 

The first point, just to answer the obvious, is where in God’s Name is Lotharingia?  Lotharingia designates a medieval kingdom extending from Frisia on the North Sea in modern day Holland south through Burgundy, Provence, Lombardy and even part of Tuscany.  It spanned most of Holland, parts of Belgium, France, Switzerland and Italy and would include such modern day cities as Utrecht, Aachen (the capital), Liege, Cologne, Verdun, Strasbourg, Lyon, Marseilles, Geneva, Milan, Florence, and Siena.   It was created upon the death of Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, when his three sons divided the empire with Louis’ son Charles the Bald being given most of what is today France, his son Louis being given most of what is today Germany, and his son Lothair being given this middle kingdom between the two brothers.  The name Lotharingia survives in “Lorraine,” that province which today belongs to France but which has been a source of fighting between France and Germany for over a century and which is famous for its quiche (which real men don’t eat).

In any event, Lothair I, son of Louis the Pious, had several sons and further divided his kingdom, leaving the Italian lands to his son, Louis, the French/German lands to his son Lothair II, and Provence (the southernmost province of what is today France) to his son Charles.  Lothair II thus governed what is today the Netherlands, much of Belgium, and North west and central France. Lothair II had a long-time lady friend, Waldrada, (think Camilla Parker-Bowles) who came from an aristocratic but not noble family.  His father, Lothair I, required that he marry Teutberga (think Princess Diana) daughter of Boso who is variously described as the Count of Arles, Count of Turin, and Count of Valois.  Boso, for his part, wanted his daughter to marry into the Imperial Family and Lothair I saw the advantages of an alliance with this powerful noble from the south-eastern part of his realm.  There were problems, however, with this marriage.  Lothair loved Waldrada, not Teutberga (I don’t know; can you imagine screaming either name in the fit of carnal passion?); moreover Teutberga proved to be incapable of bearing children, leaving Lothair II without an heir.  Waldrada, on the other hand, bore Lothair four children, one of whom was a son; but an illegitimate son.  Damn.  Born on the wrong side of the blanket, Hugh (the son of Lothair and Waldrada), could not inherit.   But if Lothair could marry Waldrada, then Hugh would be legitimized, and could inherit.  How to do it in an age before speeding paparazzi in mad pursuit behind one’s chariot?  First Lothair accused Teutberga of unchastity—remember Matthew’s one out of a marriage?  Lothair claimed that she had been involved in an incestuous relationship with her brother, Hucbert (where do they get these names?  Were there no Baby Books to choose from?).  Teutberga was outraged at the claim against her character and backed up by Hucbert (who had a powerful army at his disposal) insisted on a trial to clear her name. 

Now, back then they didn’t do trials like we do.  They wanted something more entertaining and so they did Trials by Ordeal.  There were several ways to do this, but Teutberga submitted to “Trial by Ordeal of Water.”  She had to put her hand into a bot of boiling water and retrieve a stone at the bottom of the pot.  The hand was then bandaged.  At the end of three days, if the hand had not festered but was healthy (or healing at least) the accused party was considered innocent.  Teutberga passed the test and Lothair had to take her back as his wife.  Notice—there is not an appeal here to ecclesiastical authority, just a trial by ordeal to establish or clear guilt and, if established, end the marriage.  It was only when his first plan failed, that Lothair turned to the local clergy and asked permission to set aside Teutberg and marry Waldrada on the grounds of her alleged (but disproved) unchastity.  The clergy acquiesced.  A synod of bishops met two years later and confirmed the decision of the clergy.  But Teutberga fled to the court of her husband’s estranged uncle, Charles the Bald, and from there appealed to the Pope.  The Pope, Nicholas I, overruled the Synod and declared the marriage of Lothair and Teutberga valid.  Lothair had to take back his wife. This appeal to the Pope is one of the earliest appeals for the Pope to get involved in terminating a marriage. 

Historians are not sure what happened next to cause   Teutberga to change her mind, but she now wanted the marriage to be annulled.  Lothair went to Rome to speak personally to the Pope and the Pope—now Adrian II, agreed to terminate the marriage.  Unfortunately for Lothair, however, he died on the way home and never did get to marry Waldrada.  And so Hugh remained illegitimate and since he was illegitimate and could not legally inherit, Lothair’s kingdom should have gone to his brother Louis.  Louis, however, was busy with wars in Italy and the inheritance was stolen by his uncles, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, Lotharingia thus disappearing from the map.  It was a rough and tumble world. 

Lothair’s appeal to the clergy and Teutberga’s appeal to the papacy to resolve their marital dispute is one of the earliest  turning points in how marital breakups were handled.  I do not know of an earlier case—though there may be one or more—where the papacy became involved in this sort of dispute.  Up to this point, the Germanic kings and powerful nobles just pretty much put their wives aside and took another when either lust or politics led them to a more advantageous second marriage.  Pope Stephen III supposedly warned Charlemagne not to put aside his first wife, Himmiltrude, but Charlemagne did precisely that to marry Gerberga (sometimes called Desiderata for reasons we don’t have to go into here).  There is some dispute whether Himmiltrude was actually Charlemange’s wife or a concubine, but the letter of Stephen refers to her as a wife. And when Charlemagne put aside Gerberga to marry Hildegard of Vinzgouw there was not an appeal to Rome to validate the divorce. Two generations later, however, it was different when Pope Nicholas got involved in the dispute between Lothair and Teutberga, but it is important to note that Nicholas only did so at Teutberga’s appeal and not at his own initiative.  And it is interesting to see that Nicholas’ successor, Adrian, was willing to annul what Nicholas had not. Adrian’s decision was more a matter of political convenience than of worthiness of cause.  Nicholas’ refusal to annul the marriage, for that matter, may have been to please Charles the Bald who did not want to see his nephew free to marry and have an heir because he, Charles, planned on stealing the kingdom when and if Lothair should predecease him.  And he did steal it, of course. 

Just as a historical note, Lothair’s grandson by Waldrada was Hugh of Italy whose second wife was Marozia—the notorious mistress of one pope, mother and grandmother of two others, tying Lothair into that whole mess of the papal pornacracy.  You might want to check out the entries for Jan 15 and June 6 2015 by clicking Marozia’s name on the sidebar of the blog for more details on that sleazy affair. 

While Lothair and Teutberga’s marriage ended up being reviewed in Rome, this was because they were royals and there was much at stake politically.   People further down the social scale did not bother with such niceties when switching bedmates.  Or to put it more accurately, Popes (and even bishops) did not bother involving themselves with people further down the social scale when they wanted to leave one marriage for another.  Arrangements tended to be much more informal among the peasantry.  Germanic Law—which governed most of Europe, even down into Italy—at the time was well used to marriages being abandoned in favor of new ones and it would be centuries before a process of annulments evolved for the ordinary person in the pew.  And it would only be in the mid 20^th century that annulments became somewhat common.  But then—and mostly because of a combination of the emergence of a Middle Class in the 16^th century and of the influence of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic reforms coming from the Council of Trent—that the ideals of the Christian family solidified. 

Now we are in a difficult situation as what might be called the post-Christian culture begins to predominate in the Western world and that ideal of the Christian family is replaced by the social complexities caricatured in the television series Modern Family that we are faced with having to find pastoral solutions for what is today becoming the norm but which for centuries would have been unimaginable aberrations in family life.  What do we do?  Do we put our head in the sand and pretend that the world has not changed?  Do we shun and exclude those whose lives represent the post-Christian culture?  Do we just abandon our tradition and go with the flow and hey, as long as everyone is happy God is cool?  Do we accept the changed conditions and see it as a field for evangelization? 

The answer obviously is that we accept the changed conditions and see it as a field for evangelization, but how do we do this?  What does it mean to evangelize in a post-Christian culture?  What can we change and what must be unchangeable.  Various people on all sides have facile answers but the reality is not all that facile.  How does Joe Parish Priest deal with Cam and Mitch when they bring Lily for her First Communion?  How does he deal with Gloria and Jay when they bring Fulgencio Joseph Pritchett for baptism?  And what advice does he give Phil and Claire about Haley who is sleeping with her boyfriend and Luke who is finding out about masturbation?  The bishops have their work cut out for them at the synod.  Thank God for Alex; there is at least one normal person in the family.  Is this geek thing the new normal?  Not sure I like that either.  

Red Sky in the Morning--More on Francis and Waves for the Barque of Peter

Change is in the Wind

Pope Francis allegedly telephoned an Argentine woman who had written him of her pain at not being able to receive Holy Communion because she is divorced and remarried.  According to the woman’s husband, the Pope told the woman, Jacqui Lisbona, (also known as Jacquilina Sabetta) that she should consider herself free to receive Holy Communion.  This has made the blogosphere light up like the Christmas tree in Saint Peter’s Square—though it is nothing different than what many priests do, and do legitimately. 
One of the less known aspects of Catholicism is what is called the “internal forum” solution.  A priest friend of mine jokes that when they were taught this in Canon Law class, the classroom door was locked and the shades drawn.  This solution is not usually talked about publicly.  Normally it works this way.  A person who would ordinarily be ineligible for Holy Communion presents her or his case to a priest—in most cases one’s confessor.  In the case of a person who is divorced and remarried the confessor would ask:  did you seek an annulment?  If  not, why not?  If you did and it was refused, why was it refused?  Sometimes a person does not seek the annulment for a good reason—they have a reasonable fear of retaliation from their estranged spouse, they have been abandoned and cannot find their former spouse, the parish priest has refused to help them with the annulment process, a family member has intimidated them.  There are all sorts of reasons.  More often they have sought an annulment but were denied it.  Sometimes, unfortunately, their ecclesiastical lawyer has not given the case the attention it needs and the argument, though real, did not stand up in the tribunal; sometimes the reasons for the annulment are legitimate but could not be proved.  Sometimes the ecclesiastical judge is just opposed to the idea of annulments and does not give fair hearings.  I know a case where the wife’s pastor—the priest who had done the wedding—stepped in an interfered simply because he didn’t want it to spoil his record of marriages that last.  When the confessor—or other priest who acts as a spiritual advisor—determines that the marriage could have and should have been annulled had the law worked justly, he will advise the person that they are free in conscience to receive the sacraments.  The point is that justice must be permitted to trump the law.
This solution is not employed lightly.  I must admit that I am surprised the Holy Father called a person from whom he only had a letter and had not spoken with at length.  Of course the letter could have been “quite a letter.”  Nevertheless, it strikes me as unusual—to say the least—that “Father Bergoglio” as the Pope identified himself would take on the responsibility of giving this advice without extensive research into the case.  But he did.  And he is the Pope.  And it is not the first signal that Pope Francis has sent that he wants to see a different approach to the pastoral situation of the divorced and remarried.  Maybe it is time that we give this some serious thought.   After all Pope Francis told us in his Easter homily—as I pointed out the other day—that the Resurrection demands we re-think a lot of things and not be afraid to change.  And history is in the making with this papacy.

Foundations of the Anglican Church LII

A question to consider is: Should Henry have gotten his annulment? 

Martin Luther defended

Katherine's cause against

an annulment.

The refusal of the annulment was purely political and shaped by the interplay of Medici and Imperial policies.  (Pope Clement VII was a Medici and Katherine was the aunt of the Emperor Charles V.)  Did Henry’s case have sufficient merits that he should have, if it had not been for the political aims of the Medici Pope, Clement VII, received an annulment from his marriage to Katherine of Aragon?

Before we go directly to that issue, we need to look at Katherine’s claims that her marriage to Henry’s brother, Arthur, had not been consummated.  Arthur was fifteen when they married; Katherine sixteen.  They were both in good health.  The marriage was solemnized and the couple was publicly bedded with prayers and a blessing by William Warham, then Bishop of London.   The marriage lasted only five months before Arthur died of a malady, probably influenza, which Katherine survived.  Although the Bride and Groom were young by today’s standards, it would be probable that the marriage had been consummated, but….
In order to obtain the required papal dispensation to marry the brother of her deceased husband, Katherine swore an oath that the marriage had not been consummated.  Now Katherine had plenty of reason to swear this oath—it was very much to her advantage as it involved both inheriting a crown and attaining a husband with whom she was in love.  But…in an age and in a court-culture where duplicity was the routine form of communication, Katherine stands as a monument to an inflexible integrity.  For her whole life Katherine could be counted on to tell the truth no matter what the cost; she was incapable of dishonesty.  If Katherine said the marriage was not consummated—you can take it to the bank. 
Shortly before her death, Katherine herself—in a frenzy of anguish about the consequences of her refusal to cooperate in the annulment process— acknowledged to the Imperial ambassador that had she ‘gone quietly’ i.e. acceded to the annulment, Henry would have been granted it.  She is undoubtedly right.  The annulment would have been granted, however, not on its merits but for political reason even as it was denied for political reasons.  Uncontested annulments of various royal marriages were routinely granted through the period before the Council of Trent—and often afterwards as well as in the case of Napoleon and Josephine’s marriage to permit Napoleon to marry Marie Louise of Austria in hopes of an heir. 
Thomas Cromwell in 1530 suggested to Henry that he poll the canon law faculties of the universities of Europe for opinions regarding the annulment.  The overwhelming response was in favor of the King’s argument.  While academics were always looking for patronage and Henry was in a better position to grant patronage than Katherine, they had to offer sound arguments in the King’s favor and many credible tracts were produced.  It was all a bit of a charade however as the universities did not have the power to grant annulments and while their arguments were meant to push the Pope into the King’s corner, Clement’s own political  interests made such pressure irrelevant to his decision.  Nevertheless, the Universities showed that credible canonical arguments could be made.  On the other hand, had Katherine been in a position to offer patronage, she too would have found her support among the academics.  Bishop Fisher, one of the leading voices of Church reform in England and a good theologian and canonist, went to the scaffold for defending the marriage. 
Curiously enough, two voices in favor of Katherine and the marriage were Martin Luther and William Tyndale.  We all know the former.  The latter was an English priest who was a pioneer in introducing Protestant thought into England in the 1520’s.  Tyndale provided an early translation of the Bible into English for the common folk to read.  Tyndale was arrested and executed in the Netherlands for his Protestant ideas in 1536, the year of Katherine’s death.  Both Luther and Tyndale said that it was unscriptural for Henry to end his marriage, but then each of them wanted to make the point that the Pope didn’t have the authority to over-rule the scriptural adjunction that what God has joined, man must not divide. 
In the end, I think we can say that were it not for Imperial/Medici politics trumping English politics, Henry would have gotten his annulment.  I also think, however—and I am not a canon lawyer—that for him to have gotten the annulment would have been a gross miscarriage of justice.  In the end, Katherine is vindicated.    

Foundations of the Anglican Church XL

Pope Clement VII

Well, enough about Judie Brown and Michael Voris and their ilk for now, let’s get back to ol’ Henry and his annulment problems.  We left off that story with the 1527 Sack of Rome by the troops of the Emperor Charles V.  The troops were mostly German followers of Martin Luther, recent converts to the Protestant movement Luther had established less than ten years previously, and all their religious bile came out as they had the chance to sack the papal capital.  It was, as I wrote, a sickening sight with about 12,000 people murdered, from priests at their altars and nuns in their monasteries to women and children in the streets and alleys of Rome.  The Swiss Guard were massacred as they protected the Pope, permitting him to escape through a secret passageway in Leonine Wall to the Castle Sant’ Angelo where he was holed up for months like a rat in his warren until a hefty ransom could be paid to call off the German troops. 
Historians often say that Clement refused Henry his annulment because he was afraid that Charles—the nephew of Henry’s Queen, Katherine of Aragon—would return and revenge his aunt’s disgrace.  But the story is a bit more complicated.  We need to remember that Clement, like Luther’s Pope Leo X, was a Medici.  And the Medici were, as usual, “up to something.”
The Medici had been country folk from the Mugello, an area just north of Florence, who moved into the city sometime around 1200.  It was a time of urban expansion in Europe, and in the cities of Italy in particular.  From the very beginning the Medici began advancing up the social ladder.  They married into some of the better families.  They forged business alliances with some of the more successful families.  Little by little and generation after generation they did better and better.  Actually their rise was comparatively rapid.  In 1397 Giovanni di Bicci Medici established a bank which soon became the leading Bank not only in Florence but in Europe.  The family had had some previous experience in banking but it was when Giovanni di Bicci took his operation in Rome and moved it back to Florence that it really took off.  In the fifteenth century it was Florence that was the center of the Renaissance and indeed the economic center of Europe.  And the Medici were bankrolling it to their profit.
The Medici knew not only how to run a good bank but how to use a bank to advance themselves not only socially to become the premier family in Florence but politically to control the policies of the Republic.  Ironically few Medici ever held civil office and yet the family were the puppet masters of the great Republic.  Florence had longed been governed as a republic but with a rather clumsy governmental structure of a Council known as the Signoria and composed of representatives of the various guilds.   Members of the Signoria were chosen by the respective guilds to serve terms of two months during which they were sequestered in the municipal palace with little or no contact with the outside world so that they could not be influenced in their decision making by individuals or corporations that might want the city government to go this way or that.  So it worked in theory.  In practice the Medici were always able to make their will known to the officials and officials dutifully followed Medici policy.  So important was their position in society that Cosimo the Elder (1389-1464) became known as Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland) though the highest office he ever held was a brief term as Priore della Republica—one of the “priors” or members of the Signoria, the city council.  Cosimo’s grandson was Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492)
On Easter Day 1478 Lorenzo and his brother Guiliano were attacked while they were at Easter Mass in the Cathedral of Florence by a coalition of political rivals under the leadership of the Pazzi Family and with the support of Pope Sixtus IV.  Guiliano died, Lorenzo survived.  The plot failed and the Medici emerged victorious.  Lorenzo’s son went on to become Pope Leo X, the Pope with whom Luther struggled.  Giuliano’s illegitimate son, Giulio, became Pope Clement VII, the Pope Henry would petition for his annulment.
While they successfully staved off the attack by the Pazzi and Pope Sixtus, the Medici eventually ran afoul of the Republic and were banned from the city from 1494 until 1512 when Leo X Medici was able to use his power as pope to have the ban lifted and the family return from exile and restored to power.  They were again sent into exile in 1527 as the Florentines realized that their political machinations were a danger to the Republic.
Now this is where the story will intersect with the Annulment—or lack thereof—requested by Henry VIII.
When the Medici were exiled from Florence in 1527 there was a Medici—Clement VII—on the papal throne.  He was determined to have his family restored to power in Florence as his cousin Leo X had  managed to have them restored after their earlier exile.  But how?  Rome was in ruins after the sack by the troops of Charles VII.  Clement’s Swiss guards had been all but wiped out and indeed the papal armies were not only beaten but decimated.  There was no money to hire mercenaries.   What did Clement have to use as a bargaining chip.
Well, fortunately he had a bastard son, Allesandro (1510-1537).  And fortunately for Clement, the Emperor Charles V had an illegitimate daughter, Margaret of Austria (1522-1586).  Now illegitimate children, especially daughters, can be a bit tricky to place as far as marriages go and Clement—a bastard himself—was not one to quibble about which side of the blanket one had been born on (or actually conceived).   Charles had, of course, just beaten Clement silly in the Sack of Rome but Clement wasn’t one to hold a grudge when it came to family politics.  And besides, Charles himself was horrified that his troops had behaved so sacrilegiously and he needed to make things up to the Pope.  Of course the girl was only five or six, but marriages were arranged that early.  The wedding itself wouldn’t take place until 1536 but negations were underway throughout this period and the deal was this:  Charles should take his army and beat the cr** out of Florence just as he had Rome.  Then he should put an end to this pesky Republic and install the young couple in Florence as the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of a Florence that was now, in name, a fief of the Empire.  Thus the Medici would be restored to Florence and secure in their position.  There was only one problem.  That pesky King of England kept petitioning for an annulment of his marriage to Charles’ aunt.  For the Pope to grant an annulment to Henry would scotch his ambitions for the Medici to be restored in Florence.  Florence or England?  Hmmm.  Which should it be?  In the end Clement was willing to give up England rather than for his family to lose Florence.  As Jesus said, “A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.” (John 10:12-13)

More on The Catholic Church and Same Sex Marriage

Cardinal Spellman presides at the Marriage of
Edward (Ted) Kennedy and Joan Bennett
November 29, 1958

In our last post we spoke of the issue of Gay Marriage because New York State, despite the protests of the State’s Catholic Conference and the Catholic Bishops in New York, passed the recognition of Same Sex Marriage into Law.  Governor Andrew Cuomo is not exactly the paragon of Catholic Laity for a number of reasons in his personal life; nevertheless there was pressure on him as a Catholic to veto the Bill.  He did not, of course—he was one of the strongest supporters of legitimizing Same Sex Marriage.  There are those in the Church who think that Catholics should oppose the recognition of Gay Marriage in civil law because such a “marriage” is not a marriage at all.  Perhaps what needs to be considered is the difference between the legal recognition of a marriage in the civil law and the theological recognition of Matrimony according to the norms of Christ and his Church.  This is not an artificial distinction in any sense.  Two people come to the parish office and wish to marry in the Church but not civilly.  There could be a sound reason for this.  Perhaps one or both parties are in the United States illegally and they do not want to draw attention to that fact by applying for a civil license.  Perhaps by entering into a legal marriage, one or both parties might lose certain pension or Social Security benefits which they need to survive.  There can be other reasons as well, but as long as no ecclesiastical impediment exists, a priest or deacon is free—in the eyes of the Church—to witness and bless their entering into the Sacrament of Matrimony.  Legally there is no marriage; in the eyes of God and the Church, there is.

Let us consider another situation.  A couple, one of both of whom are Catholics, marries in front of a Justice of the Peace or a Protestant minister.  Perhaps one or both have a previous marriage which is not annulled.  Perhaps they have been cohabiting and the priest has refused to marry them until they separate.  Perhaps the bride is pregnant and the priest has declined to marry them, unsure that the marriage is being entered into freely and with mature discernment.  Perhaps a non-Catholic partner has insisted in marrying in his or her Church.  Perhaps they simply wanted a “garden wedding” rather than the required Church service.  There are all sorts of reasons that people marry outside the Church.  The Catholic Church does not recognize that marriage as a sacramental bond but, at least in practice, it does recognize it as a reality in civil law. 

Divorce is a tricky issue.  Until the sixteenth century marriage and divorce were subject to religious authority, and only in a secondary sense to civil law.  In medieval Catholic Europe there was no such thing, strictly speaking, as divorce for the Christian majority. Traditional rabbinic law permitting divorce governed the Jewish minority.  While we say that there was no divorce for Christians, we must be careful how we nuance “divorce” for ecclesiastical annulments, especially those granted by the Holy See, often functioned as divorce in as that they permitted one spouse to leave another and remarry.  An example of this would be the dissolution of the Marriage of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine.  The marriage was “annulled” on a pretext of kinship—and all royal marriage had sufficient kinship to use this claim—but in fact the marriage simply had gone sour and each was anxious to marry someone else.  Louis married Constance of Castile; Eleanor Henry of Anjou who became Henry II of England.  Popes, or sometimes (as in the case of Eleanor and Louis) synods of bishops regularly dissolved marriages for causes real, alleged, or totally fictitious but always political.  Royalty was seldom denied their “annulments” and when we eventually look a the case of Henry VIII we will see that the only reason he didn’t get his annulment from Katherine of Aragon is that it interfered with Medici politics.  But that is a later story. 

Most common people in the Middle Ages did not bother with a religious wedding.  Peasants in particular simply came to some sort of agreement—financial and personal—and took up life together.  From the thirteenth century on more and more townspeople went through a church blessing because it was fashionable, a copying of a ritual more common among the “bluebloods.”  And when such marriages failed, the husband (and sometimes the wife) would just “take up” with a new partner without any formal to do.  It may surprise you to know that marriage in the presence of a priest was not required until the 1917 Code of Canon Law.   

With Luther and the other Reformers marriage did not make it into the category of a Sacrament and in fact came to be regarded primarily as a civil contract.  In Protestant societies this permitted marriage to slide from ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the authority of the Civil powers.  In seventeenth century England and its colonies, divorce became an established legal procedure.  It was not easy to obtain—adultery was the most common cause for it to be granted—but it was neither impossible nor uncommon.  It was simply an established legal reality in the American Colonies (and later States) and the Catholic Church never had to resist its legalization, except perhaps in Louisiana. That was not true everywhere.  In Catholic Italy, Divorce was prohibited by the Lateran Concordat of 1927 between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See.  It was approved by a referendum in 1974 despite the opposition of the Catholic Church.   Ireland had a similar story.  At the insistence of the Irish hierarchy, the 1937 Constitution prohibited it; in 1995 a referendum overturned that Constitutional provision.  Malta—again against the opposition of the hierarchy (though not vast numbers of ordinary parish priests) just approved civil divorce in May of this year.  Today only the Vatican itself and the Philippines are Catholic countries that make no provision for civil divorce. My point here is that the Church has gradually lost control, even in Catholic Countries, of marriage.  Marriage is a civil relationship, defined and governed by civil law.  Matrimony is a distinct reality with theological meaning and defined by the very Tradition of the Church.  Once united, they are now distinct and subject to different authorities. 

It is strange that the Catholic Church does not object to marriages that are not matrimonial except in the circumstances of same-sex unions.  If two non-Catholics, one or both of whom have been previously married, wish to get married, the Catholic Church has no objection whatsoever even though, by Church teaching, that relationship is nothing more than an adulterous union. One or the other of such a couple be an employee of the Catholic Church there is no objection to paying spousal benefits even though the Catholic Church sees that relationship is inherently sinful.  In fact, there are many Catholics who are in invalid marriages and who work for the Catholic Church as secretaries, maintenance and facilities personnel, health professionals, business managers, program administrators, social workers, and countless other positions and the Church pays spousal benefits.  Let both partners be of the same sex, however, and it is a very different story.   No person who knows our Catholic Tradition will say that the Church is wrong not to recognize same-sex marriages from a religious perspective, but there is an inconsistency when the Church recognizes the civil legal character of “sinful” unions between a man and a woman but not the civil legal character of a union of two members of the same sex.   The Church has every right to define Matrimony as the union of one man and one woman; but marriage is a contract in Civil Law and Catholics, like everyone else,  can have their opinions and vote their prejudice—that is the prerogative of all citizens in a democracy—but civil marriage is determined by Civil Law and not religious doctrine.

What we probably need to do in this age where “Traditional Marriage”  is collapsing among Catholics at the same rate that it is collapsing among the general population, is to undertake a genuine “Defense of Marriage” not by excluding same-sex couples but by developing means to assist traditional Catholic families to grow more deeply in their commitment to God, to his Church, to one another, and to their children.  Let society deal with those whom it recognizes as married; let us as Catholics and Chrisitans try to minister more effectively to those members of our Church who need guidance and help in making their relationships true Sacraments, true outward signs of the Love of God for his people and the Love of Christ for his Church.