Tough to do that. I do some divorce work. I hate it, because the bitterness on BOTH sides can be palpable to the point of suffocating. And when you first come into the case, often you really can't pin down who started it or how. And I'm talking about after you've done personal interviews and taken detailed discovery. So I just can't take it seriously when people like us, light-years removed from the true facts of the Gingrich case, sit in judgment over people we don't really know. Now I know the passage in the Sermon on the Mount is often twisted to falsely imply we should tolerate of immoral behavior. It means nothing of the kind. However, it does imply, at a minimum, that such judgment of others is often dead wrong because unlike God and those close to the facts, the rest of us just don't really know what happened or why. Our treatment of others should always be tempered by a healthy respect for our own ignorance.
ABSOLUTELY! Completely spot-on assessment. Thanks for the badly needed adult intervention in this childish food fight.
You have my utmost respect for such wise and gracious words!
I’m not saying that Newt is solely responsible for the divorce. Marianne has to be responsible for her part. But we can’t go back and say look, Marianne is a shrew, a witch, a homebreaker, and then give Newt a pass for all of it. Newt has to bear up to the fact that yes, he had two failed marriages - he’s partially responsible for both.
Arguing that he was ‘taken advantage in his first marraige’ - he was 19. Old enough to go abroad and fight in the military. Old enough to get legally married. Nobody forced him to make that decision to marry, he chose to marry her.
Maybe he finally found true love with Callista, and if so, that’s good for him. But he still has the obligations that he undertook with Jackie. He can’t just go back and say that it all didn’t happen. It did happen and there are consequences for it.
This is different then how it was for Karen Santorum - she lived with a man, she wasn’t a Christian at all. There are different standards that the Church has for those who are Christians and those who are not. Newt got a Christian marriage. That’s the problem here. Had Newt not been a Christian and then came over - it would not have been a problem the way it was that he got married.
Look at it this way - the Church teaches that if you convert, you stay married to your wife. You don’t have to get remarried in the Catholic church. The reason for this, is because the Catholic church holds that marriage is valid, even if it happens outside of the Church. The consequence of this principle is what seems to be tripping people up.
What an incredibly thoughtful and profound post. Thanks. I was about to stop trying to catch up on the SC primary news because there are so many really cranky exchanges going on between posters, and then your post pops up. You have given readers something serious to remember and think over for the rest of the weekend in a renewed sense humility.
Well said. Thank you.