“Pope Benedict XVI praised the Catholic program Retrouvaille for its dedication to helping couples overcome serious marital difficulties,” according to Catholic News Service."He said the people guiding the program are like ‘custodians of a greater hope’ that troubled couples need and have lost along the way.”
Apparently emboldened by the pope's words, Mary’s Advocates, an advocacy group based in Ohio, is urging the Catholic Church to take action against divorce and protect the rights of Catholic children and spouses who have undergone civil divorce.
According to a press release, Mary’s Advocates has given to the Roman Catholic diocese of Rapid City SC copies of public records of a Catholic woman who initiated a no-fault divorce.
The release noted that Bai Macfarlane of Mary’s Advocates said “The Catholic Church has canon law procedures for the separation of spouses that are the opposite of routine no-fault divorce. We want the diocese to do something to try to reconcile the marriage and prevent scandal. A Catholic wife and mother can’t mutilate her family with no-fault divorce and remain in communion with the Church at the same time.”
Canon law is internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church faithful and, similarly, in the Orthodox churches.
Their plea was sent in a letter to Rev. Leo Hausmann, who serves as Judicial Vicar of the Rapid City diocese. Mary’s Advocates also provided Hausmann with a copy of Stephen Baskerville’s book, “Taken Into Custody, the War Against Father, Marriage and the Family.” According to the release, this was done to familiarize Rev. Hausmann with “understanding the no-fault divorce process.”
Bishop Angelo Gracias of the Roman Catholic diocese of Bombay separates fact from fiction and explains why claims of forced conversions by Christians are lies. He says no religion is as missionary as Hinduism, while Christian have the right to convert.
According to the release, Baskerville said, “It is clear from research that women file for most divorces and violence, abuse, and adultery by the husband are not present.” Baskerville is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Patrick Henry College in Virginia. He is also a Fellow of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society in Rockford IL.
The body of Catholic teaching known as the Magisterium teaches that divorce is immoral, introduces disorder into society, brings grave harm to the deserted spouse and children; divorce has contagious effects that make it truly a plague on society, as noted in the Catholic catechism.
The release quoted Patrick Fagan PhD, a psychologist and Senior Fellow at the Family Research Council, as saying, “For a husband, having one’s children taken away by no-fault divorce, after being rejected by his wife is likely one of the worst psychological trauma a man can experience. It robs him of what is the most important purpose in many adults’ lives. A father’s natural instinct is to protect and raise his children, and stealing his children from him is a violation against both father and child.”
Mary’s Advocates operates a Yahoo! group that discusses issues relating to divorce and family separation. Mark Feliz of Colorado Springs, who is separated from his wife, wrote "I never found anyone in my parish or diocese to teach my wife that abandoning our marriage was gravely immoral. Our parish priest was supportive of her decision to abandon me, wanted me to 'get on with my life' and implied that I have grounds for annulment."
A member of Mary's Advocates Yahoo! group since 2004, Feliz says, "The only support I found for my marriage was from Mary's Advocates and non-Catholic ministries."
In their appeal to the Diocese of Rapid city, Mary’s Advocates concluded, “If the Church remains silent, others erroneously (though understandably) conclude the Catholic Church has no objection to a process that abducts children from a reliable spouse, forcing this spouse to pay support for a second household in which he is not allowed to live.”
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(Source: CNS)