And their orders aren't valid either.
(Sarcasm)
Oops. Should've said "orders". My bad.
Tooooooooo funny.
Dropping the sarcasm: why couldn't God use Henry VIII's obsession with producing a male heir to produce an important and lasting tradition (Anglicanism) within the church catholic? God writes straight with crooked lines sometimes.
This passage actually was borrowed from an oped, I believe in the LA Times, defending the Episcopalians' antics. What's really funny is that the original author thought Henry VIII's determination to ignore scripture justified the recent actions when it only proves that error metastasizes and that one schism encourages another.
Speaking of founders, I have a naughty habit myself: when speaking with protestants I ask them who founded their church and when. Usually I get a variety of responses, depending on which denomination they belong.
They I tell them that I am Catholic and that my Church was founded by Jesus Christ.
It usually leaves them speachless.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! ROFL, already!!!!
What critics call "metastasis", supporters call "development". 
Seem thing here Roberto
Tee hee!! 
Maybe the current crew adheres to the noted theologian Curly The Stooge-
I resemble that remark.
Ouch
*sob*
(It is funny, though ...)
peace,
FWIW, I have been reminding "orthodox" or "faithful" or "professing" or "conservative" or "traditional" (or "whatever" else they are called) Episcopalians on my weblog that they ought to be better able these days to sympathize with the Catholics of sixteenth century England who watched their bishops (all except St. John Fisher) commit, first, schism and, later, heresy. But "orthodox" Episcopalians have things much better nowadays: at least they didn't have the secular government hounding, harrassing, suppressing, oppressing, imprisoning, torturing, and executing those who wanted to maintain the faith they grew up in.
ELC -- Not yet. But see Mark's link to the recent fine judicial decision in Denver, below.
My day wouldn't be complete without some Catholic spite...
"Dropping the sarcasm: why couldn't God use Henry VIII's obsession with producing a male heir to produce an important and lasting tradition (Anglicanism) within the church catholic? God writes straight with crooked lines sometimes."
Um, sure, and after Sept. 11 God worked through people's generosity to help the victims of the attack. Doesn't make it a good thing. Henry VIII was one of history's few unecquivocally wicked men.
Actually, ROberto, your church was not really founded until the Council of Trent. Or, if you regard Papal infallibility as essential to the Catholic Church (I'm sure if I said "I'm Catholic but I don't believe the Papacy is infallible", you' reply "Wrong church, buddy"), then not until the 1870s.
Really, Catholics, given that, contemporaneously with Henry VIII, you lot had the Borgia Popes impregnating their own sisters and the like, you really, really, really, really DON'T want to go throwing this particular stone at the great stained-glass house of Anglicanism.
"Ah, but the wicked Popes never changed Catholic teaching!" you say.
Yes, well neither did the wicked King Henry VIII. Anglicanism actually reatined a strict ban on divorce, believe it or not (anyone heard of King Edward VII and why he had to abdicate? Go Google the name. Anyone know why Camilla isn't Mrs Prince Charles already?) If anything, stricter, since Anglicanism rejected the unbiblical idea that the Church could "annul" a consummated marriage, years after the ceremony, for reasons other than adultery.
Why couldn't God use Henry VIII's obsession with producing a male heir to produce an important and lasting tradition (Anglicanism) within the church catholic? God writes straight with crooked lines sometimes."
As one of those "orthodox Episcopalians" I can tell you that God has used the Church of England to preserve good taste in music and liturgy. Who knows? Through a coming uniate Church my Roman Catholic friends may eventually be freed from their cultural captivity to choral arrangements of "Wind Beneath My Wings" and the folk antics of the St. Louis Jesuits. That said, I am sure you are getting years off purgatory for enduring that stuff now. When it comes to the true, the good and the beautiful - my Roman friends may edge us out on what is true, but we are, I believe, the conservators of the good and the beautiful.
Blessings,
P
This quip is a cheap shot because Anglicanism was not founded by Henry VIII. The Church in England under Henry was in schism, but not heresy. The key event of the founding of the Church of England is really the Elizabethan Settlement, not the "King's Great Matter." Recall that there was a Catholic hierarchy in place prior to her accession to the throne. The Church of England was created as we know it when the State hijacked the institution of the Church by depriving the bishops of their sees, imprisoning them, and installing new ministers in their place with a Protestant understanding of the sacraments.
If I remember right, there were two Borgia popes, an neither impregnated thier sisters. Lucretia was accused of being impregnated by Caesre (as I recall, a cardinal) by the Sforzas, but only as payback for her claim that the Sforza she married was impotent (or gay...Italian politics, I can't recall all the insults...and I DON"T TRUST INTERNET HISTROY.)In any event, how strict can the rules of divorce be if the guy had six succesive wives?
how strict can the rules of divorce be if the guy had six succesive wives?
Well, if you have them executed, you deal neatly with that "until death do you part" section of the wedding vows.
peace,
Re: Tom Round's comment on why Camilla isn't Mrs Prince Charles already. It's because she is Catholic. The Act of Settlement excludes Catholics, and those who marry Catholics, from the line of succession (e.g.,Prince Michael of Kent).
One of the stranger episodes in the history Henry's marriages is the annulment of his marriage with Anne Boleyn. Cranmer granted the annulment shortly before her execution for reasons that were never disclosed. Probably, there was no reason: Henry simply wanted it and got it. Yet this strange incident and other strange circumstannces gave rise to rumors floated by Catholics at the time of Elizabeth that Anne Boleyn was in fact Henry VIII's illegitimate daughter and that was the reason for the annulment. That story has never been substantiated and I believe that most historians reject it. However, it was an explosive charge because if it were true that Elizabeth was the product of an unnatural incestuous relationship, she was not only a bastard but bastard whose claim on the succession could not have been regularized or recognized by anyone without grave public scandal at the time.
The whole story surrounding England's break from Rome is quite simply bizarre and is almost beyond belief.
Mr. Frey: touche! If Catholicism wasn't founded until the Council of Trent, then what on earth was Thomas Aquinas doing defending it in the 13th? Or Benedict of Aniane in the 9th? Etc. etc.
Re: I'm suprised that none of you reference the excellent "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" which is on PBS this fall. It is a mini-series dealing extensively with the whys and wherefores of his divorces and the beheading of other wives. On several occasions he proclaimed the current wife his "sister" and both she and the new wife would dine with Henry.
Henry was a nut and should have gotten the Bobbit treatment.
I've come across several references lately to an Anglican belief about their history. Apparently the original Christian church in England was established by Irish missionaries and had no connection whatsoever to Rome. Rome later came in and claimed authority that wasn't theirs. Therefore Henry VIII simply threw off Rome's illegitimate authority over the English church. And the whole thing had nothing at all to do with his wish to marry again.
It boils down to the same old argument. The Roman church came along late and stole everybody else's ideas and property. The Anglican church never broke away from Rome at all, they just threw off an illegitimate imperial authority. A little creativity can explain away anything.
I recommend Divorced, Beheaded, Survived for Henry VIII. While it is subtitled a Feminist Look, it is a level-headed discussion, (well, except for a couple of graphs about adultery), which is tricky when your premise is that the subject of your book was a monster.
how strict can the rules of divorce be if the guy had six succesive wives?
Well, if you have them executed, you deal neatly with that "until death do you part" section of the wedding vows.
Actually, the execution might introduce a problem.
The quibbles about legitimacy of Henry VIII's wedddings:
Catherine of Aragon -- marriage to his brother. This one was dispensed.
Anne Boleyn -- Catherine was still alive.
Jane Seymour -- Anne Boleyn was executed in order that Henry might marry her. This would invoke the impediment of crimen; one of the three conditions is that you kill someone, either your spouse or that of the person you intend to marry, in order to marry that person. (The other two are commit adultery and promise to marry the person, which can only happen if your spouse is dead, and commit adultery and kill either your spouse or the spouse of the other person. Applicable to a certain man in Florida, perhaps?)
continued. . .
Anne of Cleves -- he was free to marry, but there was the suggestion that she had entered a betrothal.
Katherine Howard -- since the marriage was not consummated, Henry could put Anne aside and marry Katherine Howard.
Catherine Parr -- If Henry had an eye on her before he executed Katherine Howard, this would invoke the impediment of crimen again.
One might point out about Anne Boleyn that if Catherine was still alive, the marriage was invalid. Would crimen apply?
I point out that the reason for the impediment is to protect the life of the innocent spouse, and that Henry would have had to get an annulment of that marriage to form another. A matter of form, to be sure, but still, the reason would apply.
Kathy,
I've heard some of those same claims in various permutations over the years that you have heard. They are all fantasies and fairy tales. These theories fail to account for the fact that what we think now of "England" was during the Dark Ages after Roman occupation was in fact an island of competing kingdoms that were fighting each other for territory, some of whom were pagan and a few which were Christian. For instance, there was a Church of the Britons, but the Britons were conquered and exiled by pagan Anglo-Saxons and that Church slowly died out as the Britons faded away from history. The simple fact is that the Ecclesia Anglicana as such did not exist until St. Gregory the Great sent St. Augustine to convert the Anglo-Saxons. The Church that St. Augustine erected was always loyal to Rome from the beginning and it is that Church which became the Church of what would become England. Moreover, the conquering Normans under William the Conqueror, who took over the reigns of both Church and State were also loyal to Rome and had even closer ties with Rome in terms of administrative practice and so forth. It was Henry VIII and Elizabeth - the successor to the very Roman Catholic Norman monarchs who removed the Church in England from the orbit of Rome. It was not some sort of implausible popular rebellion against Rome by the descendants of marginalized Britons from c. 500 AD that somehow had a collective memory of a church that was not dominated by far away Popes.
"Really, Catholics, given that, contemporaneously with Henry VIII, you lot had the Borgia Popes impregnating their own sisters and the like, you really, really, really, really DON'T want to go throwing this particular stone at the great stained-glass house of Anglicanism."
So...and Jesus had Judas and Peter in the Church from the beginning. But what He really wanted was that there always be unity - that all may be one - with or without sinners and saints. And the Catholic Church kept that unity rather that splitsville, at times with and at times without sinners and saints. Is someone trying to say that Christ's Church was ever without a sinner as its head? Yet faith and morals in its doctrines are always promised to be given through the Spirit rather than merely through sinful men and their examples of bad behavior. Thank God for that favor.
Another reason why Henry VIII ignore the "rules" - after all he was by this time the supreme authority - he was riddled with syphilis, and had started to send him a bit crazy, along with his heavy drinking & revelry. Was also the main reason why his male chilren were sickly, and died.
There are also unconfirmed reports that he was , on his deathbed, reconciled with the church, and full of remorse for the destruction he had unleashed on the Church. I'll dig out more info.
Notice how the Catholic critics have dropped out of the discussion? Historical facts are pesky things, aren't they? Easier to simply dismiss them altogether, and claim that those sarcastic Catholics really don't know their own history.
Thanks to Kathy and Patrick and Mike for the history seminar, and especially Mary for the important perspective of canon law.
Oh for pity's sake...
As was mentioned above, Roman Catholics seem to have a nasty habit of throwing stones from their glass basilicas. Of all your possible targets, Anglicanism is probably the least hostile to you. Don't you have bigger fish to fry, such as the Southern Baptists, Hinduism, or people not trusting your priests enough to leave their children alone with them?
For all the talk of apostolic succession, it's my understanding that JPII's apostolic lineage hits a snag with Scipione Rebiba, of whom there exists no record of consecration. Could it have happened anyway? Certainly. However, Rome appears to be just as open to Canterbury on the charge of broken lineage.
Henry VIII's wives? Funny how quickly Roman Catholics forget that Henry was a noted theologian and was even declared Defender of the Faith. Do you honestly think he didn't know how to get around these things? Catherine of Aragon could justly be argued to be anullable. Anne Boleyn apparently was sleeping around, which is not only the one exception given in the NT for allowing divorce, but was also a capital crime in England at the time. Anne of Cleves died, so no problem there. Evidence points to Katherine Howard cheating on Henry as well, giving her the same status as Anne Boleyn. Thus, we're left with Catherine Parr, with whom he did not consecrate his marriage, which wouldn't have mattered since he appears to be in the clear, marriage-wise.
Let me ask this: if the sins of a bishop do not remove the consecration he puts on a priest or new bishop, then why would any sins of Henry VIII mean that Anglicanism is invalid?
I futher expect another jab in the eye from those whom I'd prefer to be close, but maybe I'll get some decent responses.
Anglicanism rejected the unbiblical idea that the Church could "annul" a consummated marriage, years after the ceremony, for reasons other than adultery.
You mean to say that if a married couple discovered (from a deathbed confession of her father, perhaps) that they were siblings, Anglicians would regard the marriage as valid and binding?
Or if a woman is kidnapped and forced to say the vows at gunpoint, it doesn't matter as long as the groom had sex with her? Or, perhaps, since you mention "years after the ceremony," it would matter if she escaped after the ceremony, but if he held her prisoner two years, she was out of luck?
Or if a couple (both believing themselves widowed) went through the marriage ceremony, lived together for two years, and his wife, or her husband, showed up, both the original marriage and the second one are binding?
The annulments have suffered grievous abuses over the years, especially nowadays, when the chief applicable phrase seems to be "Hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue." Nevertheless, there are apparent marriages that are no such thing.
Funny how quickly Roman Catholics forget that Henry was a noted theologian and was even declared Defender of the Faith. Do you honestly think he didn't know how to get around these things?
I honestly think that he knew he didn't have the chance of the proverbial snowball in hell of getting an honest annulment. I honestly think that he knew of fradualant one, many people did, but he didn't care whether it was false or not.
Let me ask this: if the sins of a bishop do not remove the consecration he puts on a priest or new bishop, then why would any sins of Henry VIII mean that Anglicanism is invalid?
If a bishop tried to consecrate as a priest an unbaptized person, the consecration is invalid, even if the bishop was unwitting and therefore did not sin.
Schism is a wrong thing in itself. Furthermore, it is, in the ultimate sense, impossible. There is one Christ, and the Church is His body, and therefore there is one Church. " If a foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,' it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,' it does not for this reason belong any less to the body." (True, Paul was talking of different gifts, but the statement is of general applicability.)
> "Notice how the Catholic critics have dropped out of the discussion? Historical facts are pesky things, aren't they? Easier to simply dismiss them altogether, and claim that those sarcastic Catholics really don't know their own history."
Sorry, I was away for the weekend, and in any case have other fish to fry (NPI) than argue with people who are never going to withdraw from the view that sexual sins invalidate the doctrines of Protestant church leaders but not those of Catholic church leaders. In any case I have no particular liking for Henry VIII and am quite happy if Catholics want to rip him to shreds. Whenver people say "Anglicanism was founded because of sexual sin by an evil man" my answer is "Come on now, William Tyndale wasn't THAT bad".
Mary: re annulments -- there is only so far you can get with arguing "the abuse does not nullify the proper use", especially when you are arguing that other religions should be judged by a different, much stricter principle.
Jamie McCandless: you "DON'T TRUST INTERNET HISTORY", yet you want me to believe something you write in a comments box? That's almost as funny as the Popes spending their working lives writing reams and reams of theology about how "the written word is not sufficient if not supplemented by the oral tradition". (I don't know what the Pope could possibly mean by that, since I've never spoken with him personally).
ELC: No, but "orthodox" Episcopalians did have the secular government hounding, harrassing, suppressing, oppressing, imprisoning, torturing, and executing those who wanted to maintain the faith that Jesus taught, both before and after Henry's time.
And finally Mike: Camilla -- Catholic? Surely not!!! She's [a] divorced and [b] been conducting an adulterous affair with the future King of England. She there must be Anglican must be Anglican, since everybody knows Anglicanism is closely linked to divorce and adultery among British royals.
Tom,
Anglicanism is not invalid because Henry was a pig, and I don't think anyone here has quite said that. It was founded because Henry was a pig; invalidity stems from elsewhere, such as Caesar's lack of authority to make himself a Primate or a Patriarch. Which is what Henry was trying to do.
When Tom Round and prots besmirch
Tradition, and popes of our Church,
Any bad behaviour
By Holy Spirit's favour
Prohibits further schizmatic lurch.
(A little limerick to lighten things up.)
Mary: re annulments -- there is only so far you can get with arguing "the abuse does not nullify the proper use",
Tom: it is far enough to refute someone who has dismissed the entire notion, the use and abuse alike, as "the unbiblical idea."
especially when you are arguing that other religions should be judged by a different, much stricter principle.
Who's argued that?
What the original point was, was that when schism occurs to indulge what you admit is an abuse, it is not surprising that similiar behavoir manifests itself later.
You argued: "Anglicanism actually reatined a strict ban on divorce, believe it or not." I point out that the consequences of one's actions are frequently delayed in time.
Dear Tom,
You asked that if we had any doubts about your view of history, we could "google" it...My problem is that there is a site to support almost any idea I wish on the internet, and even sites who are serious about thier history will eventually refer one to books. "History" as done on the internet is useless, or very close. Thus, if you had a book that might support your claims, fine, but I'm not going to take your argument seriously if the only evidence you offer is www.whighistory.com/supportpopemyths. etc. etc. My comments were meant to point out the fact that neither of the two Borgia popes ever impregnated thier sisters (had they any.)Thus your quip was incorrect, but I am not going to try an recreate the Borgia dynasty on the internet to prove it.I didn't intend for my comments to be the evidence I cited: they are not, as such "history."
In any event, I am not Clio's pope, you may accept or reject what I said (or even call me a hypocrite) but don't refer me to a website to clear up a historical matter.
Jamie
Camilla is not a Catholic; her ex-husband (Andrew Parker-Bowles) was a Catholic, and this occasionally led to misreporting of her religious affiliation by the press. Whether Camilla is Anglican, Nonconformist, or none of the above, I don't know, but she is not Catholic. As far as I know, she and Charles were legally free to marry in the years before their respective marriages (and would be again if Mr. Parker Bowles died), but, for various reasons, they chose not to.
Okay, fine. Henry VIII was a pig and Anglicanism (or, more accurately, Caesaropapal Catholicism) only became the established religion of England because he was a pig. I agree. Imagine how you lot would feel if some Protestant was throwing around news reports about paedophile priests or Nazi-sheltering bishops and then smirking "Of course, we all know the Catholic Church is infallible, don't we?!! Wink, wink" and you will some idea of my feelings of aggravation about this.
PS: Mary -- Brother and sister inadvertently marrying would come under “adultery” (Christ’s actual word was porneia, “sexual uncleanliness”; some Protestants have even argued that this _only_ allows divorce for marriages that were invalid in the first place). How about this hypothetical: a man marries his brother’s widow, but after she suffers several miscarriages ands stillbirths, comes to believe that he is being punished by God for incest, and wants the marriage dissolved. Note: your answer should _not_ be affected by the number of Imperial troops, under the command of the to-be-divorced wife's father, who are currently occupying the Vatican.
Tom,
We don't have to imagine 'Protestant[s] ... throwing around news reports about paedophile priests or Nazi-sheltering bishops and then smirking "Of course, we all know the Catholic Church is infallible, don't we?!! Wink, wink"'
and of course we all really do know that the people in the Catholic Church are not indefectible. And you know that infallibility indefectibility.
I pity the man who married his brother's widow in those circumstances, especially becasue he sought competent adice to the effect that the marriage was licit, and when his conscience troubled him sought to compel the competent advisor to declare itself to have been wrong. Now I am not a cannoneer, let alone a canonist. But if I had concluded the marriage was valid previously, I would have to either find the flaw in my reasoning or declare the miscarriages and stillbirths to be a new public (because binding the whole Church to recognize Henry's subsequent marriages) revelation.
And in that last case I should have to actually speak to St John to be sure.
Tom, give it up. Two topics NEVER to debate Catholics over: (a) that Mary was not born sinless, and (b) that Henry VIII was not Satan incarnate. Stick to something less controversial, like whether Jesus existed and claimed to be the Son of God.
I'm a Protestant so have no dog in this fight. Henry's own simulacrum of the Catholic Church in England persecuted both Protestants and Catholics, so the Catholics can damn him as much as they want. The Cranmers and other Evangelicals at the time should have told him they didn't want to associate with such a depraved sinner who would blacken their name -- just like the Catholics did when Oscar Wilde and Evelyn Waugh tried to convert (admittedly, Wilde and Waugh didn't have anyone killed, so from a utilitarian viewpoint they were not as wicked as Henry).
Mark, you probably saw that Andrew Sullivan was equally amused by the joke you quoted. While I wouldn't go quite so far as to compare him and you with Pilate and Herod, it does confirm something I've often noticed -- that there's nothing like having a snicker at the bible-bashers to bring Catholics and infidels together! (A couple of years ago, I got forwarded that "Dear Dr Laura, the Old Testament says ..." e-mail twice on one day. Once from a Latin Mass Catholic friend and the other from a diehard atheist).
*blink, blink, blink*
Both Evelyn Waugh and Oscar Wilde were received into the church.
Mary, I think Russell was being sarcastic (again), making the point that Catholics have sinners in the ranks too.
PS: Mary -- Brother and sister inadvertently marrying would come under “adultery”
You're arguing with yourself, Tom. You called the notion unbiblical. I notice you do not touch the kidnapped woman, which would introduce the whole issue of marriage being consent to marriage.
How about this hypothetical: a man marries his brother’s widow, but after she suffers several miscarriages ands stillbirths, comes to believe that he is being punished by God for incest, and wants the marriage dissolved.
This man most unbiblically claims to be know that certain things that have happened to him are the result of God's wrath, and he even knows the sin. Compare Jesus's comments on the tower at Siloam, and all of the Book of Job. Note also that numerous couples of his time had no children whatsoever, while he and his wife had a living daughter, and many more couples had only daughters, not sons -- including the king across the English Channel.
This man also ignores all the Biblical comments about suffering in the Christian life (1 Peter 4:13-19, 2 Corinthians 1:5-9, Mark 8:34, for instance).
This man, finally, has the choice of asking his wife that they should no longer live together as husband and wife, if his conscience is really troubling him. It's the woman waiting for the crown that raises serious doubts about his sincerity.
We are, after all, discussing a man who, after Jane Seymour's death, was rejected by two foreign princesses who openly admitted why to the English ambassadors: they feared for their lives if they accepted.
Okay, Mary, I retract the word "unbiblical" (though why is that a bad word, for a Catholic?) for annulment of marriages that never should have occurred in the first place. The various Catholics I know personally, however, whose marriages were annulled, did not suddenly discover they were actually brother and sister, or that the woman had been forced at gunpoint to marry. They were granted annullments essentially on the grounds of incompatibility, rather than on the Biblically specific grounds of adultery (Jesus) or irreconcilable abandonment by the other spouse (St Paul). I would respect Catholicism more if it said honestly, "we are allowing the innocent party to a divorce to partake of sacraments", as the conservative Protestant churches do.
I agree with Russell; I don't particular _like_ sticking up for Henry, any more than you lot would like defending Pope Gregory XIII for having a medal struck to celebrate the St Bartholomew's Day. What annoys me, though, is --
(a) the frequent wink-wink implication by Catholics that Protestantism arose essentially from Henry's (and Luther's) desires to marry their lovers. (Funny how the Orthodox were doubting Papal supremacy five centuries before those two were born!) (Ed, I can live with your clarification but I think that distinction is a minority view among Catholics);
(b) my estimation that, had Henry not broken with Rome, he could have killed just as many people but would not be singled out by Catholics as "history's greatest monster". Look at Thomas More, who persecuted "heretics" against the state church just as zealously as Henry did, but did it on the Catholic side and so has now been canonised.
Jamie: Re "Internet history" -- not me who was saying I doubt it. There's a big difference between the 10,000 web sites you can find (including the Britannica and the Catholic Encyclopedia) that will say "Edward VII was forced to abdicate because he wanted to marry a divorcee" and the one or two that will say "Edward VII was forced to abdicate because Stanley Baldwin was being subjected at the time to mind-control waves by the Illuminati". Are you going to argue that there were _no _ mediaeval Popes who kept concubines, even ones unrelated to them? Please keep to the script; you're supposed to be arguing the Vanauken/ Dulles line that "The Church in Luther's time was sunk in moral corruption, but the solution was reform from within, not schism".
They were granted annullments essentially on the grounds of incompatibility
Morely likely, they were granted annulments because they were willing to perjure themselves about their consent to marriage. I recommend the parable of the tares and the wheat.
I retract the word "unbiblical" (though why is that a bad word, for a Catholic?)
Nice try.
However, if you really though "unbiblical" is not a bad word to Catholics, you wouldn't have used it in the first place.
Mary, are you really claiming that every case of a marriage annulled by a Catholic church tribunal involves belated discovery of weddings at gunpoint or unknown consanguinity?
Enlighten me on Catholic canon law here: will a Catholic tribunal ever grant something explicitly labelled a "divorce" to a person whose spouse has committed adultery AND abandoned them, or would the same result still be labelled an "annullment" so Catholics can point their finger at the Proddo heretics and proudly say "WE don't allow divorce!"?
Tom, I'd distinguish unbiblical from anti-Biblical. A lot of just war theory is not expressly set out in "thou shalt not kill" BUT IS COMPATIBLE WITH IT as an implied exception. Whereas a teaching that you should perform an "honour killing" on someone who insults you would be directly, head-on, anti-Biblical. I agree with Tom that the Bible doesn't say anything about "annulment" (in the sense of "Everyone thought for years these two were married, but what do you know, there never was the requisite consent and/or they are too closely related"). [Unless I'm missing something in the OT?] But I see some logic in the Catholic interpretation, even if in practice annullments get handed out like candy bars. However Paul says that even sex with a prostitute makes you "one flesh" with her, not that "you never were truly one flesh with her" because the required intention was lacking.
However Paul says that even sex with a prostitute makes you "one flesh" with her, not that "you never were truly one flesh with her" because the required intention was lacking.
Are you saying that a man who has sex with a prosititute can never marry except to her?
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