And showing his eminently chiseled face and otherwise good looks and super brain is the author of a new book by Catholic Answers. It's called 101 Quick Questions with Catholic Answers, Marriage, Divorce, and Annulment. He's also a staff apologist here and a contributor to This Rock magazine.
And he's a man who once was scared to death, half scared to death, twice. Jim Blackburn, welcome back, sir. Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
That means then... I'm only a quarter alive now? I don't know.
There are three kinds of people in the world. Three. Those who are good at math, those who aren't. Okay. So I have no idea.
All right, marriage, divorce, and annulment. You get a lot of these questions on the air, and I'm not that surprised that you chose this particular selection of themes from the forums and from the magazine to collate into this current book. Have you always been interested in marriage and divorce and annulment and explaining it to people, or is that something you just fell into haphazard? Well, it's something that became very important, I guess, to me as I became an apologist here at Catholic Answers. When I started here seven some odd years ago, it became apparent to me very early on that the most, probably the most common topic that we get questions on, especially from Catholics, is the topic of marriage and all things related.
Annulments, divorces, weddings, remarriages. all these kinds of things together. You know, what does the Church teach?
What are the Church's laws concerning these? And, you know, questions from, can I attend this wedding? To, is this going to be a valid marriage?
To, you know, if I'm in this situation, I'm divorced, is it okay to receive communion? You know, when can a person get an annulment? What are grounds for an annulment? When can a person get remarried? All these kinds of questions come up again and again, and they still do.
We still get these kinds of questions, not only in the magazine, not only here on Catholic Entities Live, but on the Apologist line as well, we get these questions almost every day. We'll talk to somebody with a question like that. So I chose that topic for that reason, because I know these are questions that people are asking, and this is a great opportunity for them to get the answers to them.
The only organization on earth, religious or secular, that believes that marriage is indissoluble, one man and one woman. for life is the Catholic Church, correct? Yes, in the case of a Christian marriage, a marriage between two baptized Christians that is a valid marriage that has been consummated, that's what the Church teaches.
And that's based on Jesus'own, His words, that what God has joined together, let not man put us under. The Church recognizes there is no human power that can dissolve a valid, sacramental, consummated marriage. What's the basic definition of an annulment?
And for those who've never had the question answered, how does a decree of nullity differ from a divorce? Well, an annulment is sometimes secularly, I guess, called a Catholic divorce. And that's just a misnomer completely.
It's not a Catholic divorce. The Church does recognize that a couple who are married, validly married, there may come a time when a divorce, a civil divorce, might be necessary. A civil divorce, simply as that term civil implies, it takes care of things legally for them in the system in which they live, in the culture, in the society in which they live.
It does not, though, dissolve the marriage. They are still married in the eyes of God, in the eyes of the Church. They're still married, so they really are still husband and wife.
So that civil divorce does not allow them to go on and marry other people. But it can be a necessary step. A couple who can't live together anymore for some reason or another, you know, you've got an abusive spouse, you've got a philandering spouse, something like this might make it necessary for the couple to separate. And then the divorce part might come in to take care of custody issues of the children or to help secure assets and income situations and make things equitable for everybody.
In the long run, that may have to happen in the legal system and that could be handled through a divorce. As long as the person is willing. to not get married again. That would be the rub, right? That's right.
The problem is remarriage. That's simply not an option, and a person cannot go into a civil divorce with the impression that this is going to free me to then go on and remarry someone else. It does not do that.
However, if a person would like to submit the question of the validity of their marriage to the Church so that the Church can look at it and determine, did a valid... marriage ever come into existence or did it not, that's... the annulment process.
So the Church generally won't look at an annulment case unless a divorce, a civil divorce, has already happened. But once a civil divorce has happened, if one or the other of the spouses wishes to apply for an annulment, the Church can investigate it and determine, did a valid marriage come into existence on the wedding day or not? And if it did, then again, nothing's changed. If it did not, then the Church is not changing anything as far as the marriage goes.
It's just the way we will look at it from that point on is that, well, what we thought was a marriage was not. It's clear that it was not, and that's a declaration of nullity. What kinds of things are deal-breakers, what are called diriment impediments?
Obviously, the big ones are clear. You can't have been already married. You can't be an ordained priest or religious with vows and so on.
You can't have been drunk the day you took your vows. But what are the more, the kinds of conditions that have really been articulated only in this or last generation, psychological things that really are deal breakers but that may not be obvious at first? Well, there are a couple of things that the Code of Canon Law addresses.
For example, if a couple or one person or another murders a spouse with the intention to free himself or herself or someone to marry someone else. I never thought about that. Hey, till death do us part.
The Code of Canon Law actually includes a canon on that particular issue. The impediment of the inability to consummate a marriage, so impotence, which would be perpetual impotence that cannot be cured. rendering someone with the incapacity to complete a conjugal act, that would be an impediment to marriage. A person must be able to, at least capable of consummating marriage.
It doesn't mean you necessarily have to ever consummate it, but a person must be capable of consummating a marriage for a valid marriage to come into existence. To your knowledge, is there a female equivalent of that? Would it work for both genders?
Yes, yes. There is such a thing as female. I'm not sure the correct terminology.
Okay, but it works both ways. Okay. Yeah.
What about homosexuality? Homosexuality of itself is not listed as an impediment to marriage. But if a homosexual, if someone who suffers from the inclination of homosexuality is going to enter into a valid marriage, obviously it's got to be with someone of the opposite sex. Gay marriage is not something that is a possibility. That's just a...
That's... Not a reality at all. Oxymore. Yeah.
But if a person who suffers from homosexuality, and there are different, my understanding is there are different levels of that. And some people who suffer from homosexuality also do have an inclination towards heterosexuality as well. And the appropriate thing there to do would be to resist the homosexual temptations and embrace the attraction to the same sex or to the opposite sex. Right.
And then could possibly go on. Somebody in a situation like that, we've had questions before about if somebody went into a marriage not knowing that their spouse suffered from a same-sex inclination at some level or not, could that fact that that was not disclosed be a potential annulment? Right, if it was severe enough and so on.
Yeah, and that's a possibility. That's something that I can't sit here and determine for somebody. I'm not a canon lawyer. I need to make that clear up front. I am familiar with canon law and a lot of the commentary on it, but some of these cases need to receive the attention they deserve.
A canon lawyer needs to look at them. Well, one thing we've got to look at is break time. We'll take one now, and we'll come back after these words to speak with Thomas and David and Michael and whoever picks up the next line that's open, 1-888-31-TRUTH is the toll-free phone number.
Jim Blackburn, author of Marriage, Divorce, and Annulment. 101 quick questions with Catholic Answers. We're talking about marriage, divorce, and annulment here on the broadcast.
1-888-31-TRUTH. My name's Patrick Coffin. Keep it right here on Catholic Answers Live.
We'll be back.