Did the council of Trent allow divorce

Discussion in 'Navigating Through Church Life' started by anglican74, Sep 15, 2021.

  1. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I found this shocking when I heard about it, because we are always told about how the RC's are strong on the indissolubility of marriage.... Of course Pope Francis finished that myth with Amoris Laetitia but that's swept under the rug as a departure from the 'traditional' view of the Council of Trent

    And yet it is in Trent that we seem find equivocation and ultimately a permission for divorce..... has anyone seen this??

    E. Brugger, The Indissolubility of Marriage and the Council of Trent | 2017
    https://www.cuapress.org/9780813229539/the-indissolubility-of-marriage-and-the-council-of-trent/
    "Brugger proposes that Trent did indeed dogmatically teach the absolute indissolubility of sacramental marriage, while conceding a policy of toleration—but not approval—for Greek divorce for the sake of ecclesial communion between the churches."
     
  2. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    I can't remember what council it was but there was a council in Rome, I believe in the 700's that allowed divorce and remarriage.
     
  3. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    nuts
     
  4. ZachT

    ZachT Well-Known Member

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    I'm sure this is implicit, but the historic position of the Church was to permit at-fault divorce. The earliest I can see the Roman Catholic Church splitting from the East and opposing at-fault divorce as well is ~1200AD. Before that, both East and West permitted divorce (and subsequently, remarriage) if one party commits adultery.

    There's lots of records of the Eastern church, perhaps always, also permitting divorce in cases of absence/desertion (the only Church fathers who seem to oppose it, other than Athenagoras who was so extreme he opposed all divorce and remarriage, even for widows, are Western). I can't find any clear date that the East began to allow divorce in event of desertion, so it stands to reason there is no date and it was always the case. I can't find much to confirm that divorces were permitted in cases of desertion in the West, but that could also be Romans destroying any evidence of it once they innovated that marriage is an unbreakable sacrament in the 13th and 15th centuries.
     
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  5. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    I know that ST. Basil allowed divorce in remarriage but it carried a stiff penance for the second, a really stiff penance for the third, and just was not allowed for the 4th. They even made it into a council or two. I would have to go look back up the reasons allowed. The East, and I don't kow when this came about, talk about a marriages spiritual death that dissolves the union. Their practice reminds me a lot of the practice in the ACNA.
     
  6. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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  7. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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  8. PDL

    PDL Well-Known Member Anglican

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    It is necessary to understand the Roman Catholic Church's full teaching on this matter. They do believe that if two baptised persons marry and consumate the marriage that it is indissoluble. That's the principal teaching. They're teaching is quite complex but I'm not going to write a lengthy post on it.

    The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) does permit divorce by civil courts. It would prefer people not to divorce and instead to try to resolve their marital problems. However, it doesn't penalise in anyway those Catholics who get a civil divorce. The RCC accepts that there are occasions when a marriage completely breaks down and it may be better for the spouses and the children for there to be a separation. The RCC also understands there are many issues to be resolved in such circumstances such as the ditribution of assets, the support of the spouses and their children, custody of and access to children, etc., which the RCC is happy to leave to the state and this is achieved through the civil process of divorce. Indeed, the RCC has something analogous where the couple can formally apply to their diocesan bishop for a decree of separation.

    However, the RCC does not accept that the civil divorce ends the marriage. The RCC teaches that after a civil divorce the sacred bond of marriage still exists and that neiher spouse is free to marry. If either one of the divorced couple wants to marry another the RCC requires that they apply to an RCC tribunal to have the marriage declared null. If a person has a civil divorce and then marries another without an annulment then the RCC will penalise them.

    I do not know enough about the canons of the Council of Trent to know whether they permitted divorce. I do know that the RCC currently permits divorce.
     
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  9. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    It just seems from what I have gathered and what I looked at that this teaching was a developed innovation away from what went on in the church. Even up to the 800's there was a snynod in Rome that allowed divorce and remarriage in some cases and their penitential had penance for them before being allowed back into communion with the church.
     
  10. PDL

    PDL Well-Known Member Anglican

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    If you've looked into this you're going to be better informed than me because I haven't. I'd always understood that the RCC has never allowed divorce. Indeed, that used to be the Anglican position, which I understood we'd inherited from the RCC.
     
  11. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    We inherited their position at the time that we have now made more in accordance with the patristic consensus.
     
  12. PDL

    PDL Well-Known Member Anglican

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    May I clarify a point here. Are you saying the patristic consensus was against divorce? Alternatively, you may be saying that the current stance most Anglican churches take, which is to allow divorce and re-marriage, is the patristic consensus?
     
  13. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    All were against divorce. No one was in favor of it. What most in the East did allow was for a second marriage after penance was done. The West took a firmer stance and were more split. Then you had many local councils that took the eastern stance adn you had some that took what we call the today's version of the RC stance. As late as the 800's you had a synod in Rome that allowed divorce and remarriage after penance. Penetintials produced in the West allowed remarriage and the person remarried to receive communion after penance was done.

    I would say that remarriage after divorce, with penance attached is the patristics consensus. What I have not delved into is what we would term the Oriental praxis on it after they split over Chalcedon. What I do know is that the Coptic Church does allow divorce in remarriage. It used to me much more laxed and then it was tightened way up and was then relaxed a bit again.
     
  14. Invictus

    Invictus Well-Known Member

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    It’s important to bear in mind that medieval Western canon law required 7 civil degrees for the validity of a marriage (modern US law requires 4). In the overwhelmingly rural and low-mobility social environment of medieval Europe, finding an eligible partner within a few miles of where you lived that was at least 7 civil degrees removed from you, was a tall order. So people just got married anyway, but a “divorce” (annulment) was relatively easy to get if you could show that the blood relation was too close.

    In the Byzantine world, as far as the Church was concerned, only one marriage was allowed (for non-widowers) and the granting of ecclesiastical divorces was rare. There was no such thing as annulment as far as I know. But the marriages themselves were administered and recorded by the State, not the Church. That changed in the 11th century when responsibility for recording and administering marriages throughout the Empire, for all citizens, was transferred from the Imperial government to the Patriarchate. One uniform rule was then imposed: only three marriages per lifetime, with penance for the second and third marriages requires for the Orthodox. After the Empire fell, the Imperial legislation lived on in the national Churches.
     
  15. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Not quite... in Amoris Laetitia the RCCs teach that it is fine to divorce and remarry and then receive the Eucharist

    And in the Council of Trent, while they taught their marriage to be indissolubile, it seems that they accepted the Greeks divorces and remarriages as valid
     
  16. PDL

    PDL Well-Known Member Anglican

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    What I think you will find is that Pope Francis has been deliberately vague in Amoris Laetitia, as he commonly is, and that within the Roman Catholic Church it is hotly disputed as to whether Pope Francis has changed centuries of teaching. Of course, confusion will continue to reign because the usual recourse Catholics had to clarify theology was to submit a dubia to the pope or one of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia. Pope Francis simply ignores them.