[GailA]

That maybe so, but I refused to stay married to a man who would beat a 3 year old for stupid reasons, or pick up a 6 week old to spank him because he had colic.

I spanked both of them many times when the offense was serious enough to call for it. But always with a open hand to the backside. Not a punch or a blow to the head, which their ‘father’ would have done if I had not left him.

[mas cerveza por favor]

It is the priest’s job to resolve family disputes like this. A father that harms his children is in serious sin and would be denied communion until he repents if the mother informs the priest. If the father is not controllable by the priest and there is grave necessity, separation and civil divorce is permitted.

[papertyger]

That maybe so, but I refused to stay married to a man who would beat a 3 year old for stupid reasons, or pick up a 6 week old to spank him because he had colic.

And no Catholic would criticize you for doing so...but you knew that, didn't you?

Do you really imagine no one notices the difference between why you justifiably left the first husband, and subsequently took on the second?

[Jim Noble]

Gail, I'm glad you left the bastard - but you know very well the Catholic Church does not prohibit divorce, and that being civilly divorced is NOT a bar to the sacraments.

What the Catholic Church prohibits is remarriage after divorce if the other party is alive.

Crazy as it seems, this does appear to conform to Matthew 19 and all of Christian history prior to about 1950.