Free Republic

ROME, September 8, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- The public confusion over whether the Vatican’s upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family will somehow endorse divorce has been cleared up by Pope Francis, as he said definitively today that marriage is “indissoluble,” meaning that it is permanent until death. In his decrees released today on annulments -- declarations that a marriage was invalid from the beginning – the Holy Father moved to make it easier and faster to determine nullity of a marriage and eliminated the cost for such deliberations. But in doing so he also reaffirmed that as far as God and...

Please excuse the provocative title, and do not misunderstand. Obviously, neither the Pope nor anyone else can change Church doctrine normatively. That is, Church doctrine remains true and unchangeable whatever people--without or within the Church--believe or say. In the same way the teachings of Christ or the Commandments themselves remain true and unchanging. What the Pope can do, however, is to say that Church doctrine has changed or, more to the point, imply by his words or actions that it has. Or he can say or imply that Church doctrine wasn't what most people--including most people in the Church itself...

Pope Francis on Tuesday will release new streamlined procedures for annulling marriages after he — and thousands of Catholics before him — complained that the church's current system is cumbersome, costly and often unfair.

A local judge contends the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage has derailed Tennessee's ability to determine what constitutes divorce — leaving one Signal Mountain couple married against their will. Hamilton County Chancellor Jeffrey Atherton denied the divorce petition last week after hearing from seven witnesses and going through 77 exhibits. Among several reasons he cited in rejecting the couple's divorce, one was the Supreme Court's June ruling. Atherton said the Supreme Court must clarify "when a marriage is no longer a marriage." Otherwise, he contended, state courts are impaired from addressing marriage and divorce litigation altogether. "The conclusion...

In my opinion, only God can truly answer this question. Spouses are encouraged to spend extended time in the Word and obedience to it, as well as extended times of prayer and fasting, and seeking godly counsel. All destructive relationships and toxic counsel must be severed as you seek to answer this question. Many great bible teachers are divided on this issue. Some believe that remarriage to another is never allowed unless one of the spouses dies, but others suggest that it is permissible when adultery and abandonment occur. Much of the controversy centers on Matthew 5:32 where Jesus says,...

by Liz Smith I THINK I INVENTED THE TRUMPS, Part II Liz began her sum-up yesterday of what she wrote when first meeting the Trumps. This analysis was published in 2000 in her memoir "Natural Blonde." The story will conclude on August 26th in this space. I noted that Donald Trump had attacked a paralyzed, stultified New York bureaucracy and given commerce, construction and business a real shot in the arm. I asked, "If you love democratic capitalism, how can you hate Donald Trump?" I spoke of the other ruthless tycoons I'd heard opine that Trump couldn't last. I said...

Following a month-long hiatus, Pope Francis resumed his Wednesday general audience on August 5 and called for a compassionate welcome to those who have remarried outside the Church. In doing so, he made no mention of the upcoming Synod of Bishops nor of the controversial proposal to admit those in such situations to Holy Communion. Citing statements on the same topic by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, the Holy Father said that the Church should reach out to help those who are in irregular marital situations, aware that there are no "simple solutions" to their problems. Although the Church cannot...

Tiffany Stevens, 39, was sentenced in Hartford Superior Court eight months after a jury deadlocked and a mistrial was declared in her attempted-murder case. The hit was never carried out. Simsbury police arrested Stevens in July 2012, alleging she paid a handyman $5,000 to kill her ex-husband, Eric Stevens. Authorities said the handyman instead disclosed the plan to the ex-husband, who told police. Police said Eric Stevens had told them that whoever won custody of his daughter would control a $50 million fund, but Tiffany Stevens' father testified that was untrue. And despite an attempted murder against Tiffany Stevens, a...

VATICAN CITY: Divorced people who have remarried "are still part of the Church" and should not be treated as if they have been excommunicated or cast out, Pope Francis said Wednesday. Speaking ahead of a highly anticipated global meeting on family life in October, he said "awareness that a brotherly and attentive welcome... is needed towards those who... have established a new relationship after the failure of a marriage, has greatly increased".

Without a doubt, we — the church and its congregants — have hurt our witness to the world with our hypocrisy, thereby undercutting our moral and spiritual authority. Why should people listen to us if we preach one thing and do another? How can we expose sin in the society when we’re practicing sin in the church? On what basis can we speak out against same-sex “marriage” when we’ve allowed our own marriages to go to pot? The pedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church not only inflicted terrible suffering on the boys who were abused, but it also terribly...

Beijing: While social media was designed to bring people together, it can sometimes drive them apart — more Chinese people are switching their status from married to single and social media could be responsible, say experts. A report by the ministry of civil affairs in June found that 3.637 million couples divorced in 2014, up by 3.9 per cent from the previous year, Xinhua reported. Statistics from the ministry show the country has been witnessing a continuous rise in divorces since 2002. Su, a white collar worker from Shanghai, was stunned and furious after discovering her husband's secret romances online....

After four years of marriage, Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert announced they were getting a divorce Monday, and it looks like infidelity could be to blame. Shelton filed for divorce two weeks ago after months of suspecting that Lambert was cheating on him, a new report from TMZ claims. Country singer Chris Young opened for Lambert during her “On Fire” tour in 2012, and after the two were spotted together multiple recent times, Shelton thought rumors of her cheating were “believable enough to make him suspicious of her.” He also thought she was sneaking around with another man who’s not...

After 10 years of marriage -- they celebrated their anniversary on June 29 -- the power couple confirmed their split following months of media speculation. "After much thought and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to divorce," the couple said in a joint statement. "We go forward with love and friendship for one another and a commitment to co-parenting our children whose privacy we ask to be respected during this difficult time. This will be our only comment on this private, family matter. Thank you for understanding." Ben and Jen have three children: Violet, 9, Seraphina, 6, and...

It happened without a Summer of Love, without Timothy Leary, without a groovy anthem or a shaggy new national look. In the past decade or so, there’s been a silent revolution in American culture, one at least as profound as the ’60s upheavals. We’ve hardly taken notice of it, because it happened in people’s minds instead of in the streets, happened in ordinary people instead of in the elites and the punditocracy. Compared to just a few years ago, we have a completely different set of ideas about what constitutes acceptable behavior. As Caitlyn Jenner puts it in her new...

The German cardinal appears to backtrack on earlier comments in interview with EWTNCardinal Walter Kasper has clarified that Pope Francis did not approve his proposal to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion after a period of penance. The cardinal made the remarks in an interview with EWTN during a visit to the United States. He said the Pope wanted him to “put the question”, and that afterwards he “expressed his satisfaction with my talk”. But he added: “I wouldn’t say he approved the proposal, no, no, no.” The remarks appear to represent a backtracking from earlier comments....

An Orange County software consultant said today his divorce prompted him to write an initiative that would end alimony. “I was able to experience first-hand the many pitfalls associated with the process,” said Steve Clark, executive director of the Huntington Beach- based CalAlimonyReform.org. “The amount of time and money coupled with the emotional stress was more than I could have ever anticipated.” Backers of the initiative received permission this week from Secretary of State Alex Padilla to begin gathering signatures. The group has until Nov. 2 to obtain valid signatures from 365,880 registered voters -- 5 percent of the total...

Full title: Bobby Flay 'claims boob job is at fault for estranged wife Stephanie March's health problems' in bitter divorce The divorce battle between Stephanie March and Bobby Flay looks continues to cook up trouble. [sic] Now the celebrity chef is claiming his estranged wife's ill health is the result of a breast augmentation surgery and not the stress of their failed marriage, according to TMZ. Stephanie, 40, has suffered from a burst appendix and three infections, which she has allegedly claimed in court has prevented her from working as an actress ... According to TMZ Stephanie, due her ill...

In a recent lecture at the Family Research Council (FRC), Ryan McPherson, an associate professor of history at Bethany Lutheran College, claimed that no-fault divorces played a pivotal role in the culture wars. Even though the “dissolution revolution never quite finishes,” somehow the term “no-fault divorce” has “acquired colloquial acceptance,” McPherson pointed out in remarks at the FRC. “By 1980, thirty-seven of the fifty states had significantly altered their divorce laws toward the no-fault standard of California and the UMDA [Uniform Marriage Dissolution Act],” McPherson wrote in an essay which appeared in The Family in America: A Journal of Public...

What is no-fault divorce? When you ask most people, they will say it’s a mutual-consent process, or that it preserves privacy, or that it eliminates blame for the failure of the marriage. Not many people will answer that it’s a lawsuit in which one party is suing the other party. And even fewer will know that it came from the Soviet Union. Like previous divorce actions, no-fault divorce is still a lawsuit, which means that one party is invoking the state’s police powers against the other party. The main difference now is that the person filing for divorce no longer...

As part of the reforms prompted by Pope Francis, Germany's Roman Catholic Church has decided that lay Catholic employees who divorce and remarry or form gay civil unions should no longer automatically lose their jobs. According to Christian Today, Catholic Bishops have voted to adjust Church labour law "to the multiple changes in legal practice, legislation and society" so employee lifestyles should not affect their status in the country's many Catholic schools, hospitals and social services. It was gathered that the change came as the worldwide Catholic Church debates loosening its traditional rejection of remarriage after a divorce and of...