Marriage was ordained by God and Jesus taught that marriage cannot be undone by man, so the Catholic Church teaches that the Sacrament of Matrimony is intended to be a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman.
A civil divorce does not impact a marriage in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
The Church prepares couples for marriage intending that they enter into the union determined that it will endure in good times and in bad.
If the couple consented to marriage, were free of any impediments, and followed the proper canonical form , their marriage is valid and will last until the death of one or both spouses.
A divorced Catholic who is not remarried is not excommunicated from the Church and can participate in the life of the Church and receive the sacraments.
Before a divorced Catholic can remarry, the first marriage must be declared invalid by a Church tribunal.
Marriage was instituted by God:
A divine moral law:
Divorce does not end a valid marriage:
They said to Him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss [her]?” He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.”
Matthew 19: 7-9
The Church teaches what Jesus taught:
A tough teaching:
Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery: If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another’s husband to herself.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2384
Divorced Catholics are not excommunicated:
Divorced Catholics are still part of the Church:
Jesus proclaims the truth about marriage again when, speaking to the Pharisees, He explains how the love which comes from God, a tender and spousal love, gives rise to profound and radical demands. Moses, by allowing a certificate of divorce to be drawn up, had been less demanding. When in their lively argument the Pharisees appealed to Moses, Jesus’ answer was categorical: “From the beginning it was not so”. And He reminds them that the One who created man created him male and female, and ordained that “a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh”.
Pope John Paul II, Letter to Families, 2 February 1994
Walking with divorced people:
From pain to healing:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Pleasing God:
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