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Show f ATHER JENNINGS ! CONDEMNS DIVORCE I ' ' j . Says Catholic Church Never Sanctions Divorce, i Although Separation Is 'Allowed in j Certain Cases. j One of fhe topics discussed at the recent Ohio Congress of Mothers, held at the Old Stone (Pres-j (Pres-j bytcrian) church Cleveland, was ''The Influence of I Divorce on the Home' Rev. Ciibevt P. Jennings, j pastor of Si. Agnes' church. Cleveland, presented i the Catholic position on the question. "It was a I novel sight," says the Catholic Universe, "to see i a Catholic priest on the platform of a Presbyterian j church elucidating the Catholic doctrine on the j subject of,divorce and pushing it home by numer-j numer-j ous and strong quotations from the Bible the whole rule of faith for the evangelists. Father Jennings spoke .strongly and convincingly-on the Catholic doctrine of no absolute divorce and won ! applause even from the enemies of this teaching." Father Jennings said in part: "Marriage is essentially between two. We cannot, can-not, conceive of any acceptable condition in which man's affections the kind of affection "implied by marriage can be shared by more. "Of its very nature it is such a surrender of mind and heart and will and love and spirit and flesh that for this reason every other tie must be broken and a man must, leave father and mother and cleave to his wife. Made male and female from lhe beginning two in one flesh the, complement j of each other corporally and spiritually, they form j a union so sacred, so absolute and complete' that even human judgment revolts from any conclusion that would permit of total separation or divorce. "And because marriage is the very corner-stone . of the social structure, it cannot be hedged about, with too many safeguards. A veritable holv of hoi es, it should be walled about by seven limes seven walls of jealous care to keep it in unsullied and uubroken purity. "From the divine origin and purposes of marriage, mar-riage, in the eyes of the Church the divorce question ques-tion is a moral question. In some of its consequences conse-quences it may affect soeirl oudi'ious and in so-I so-I far the State may deal with it; but in itself it is essentially within the domain of the natural and moral law and the determination of it belongs to the author of the moral law. It is all-important, therefore, to learn just what God himself says about marriage and 'divorce, and I assume that with this Christian audience he is in honor and the court of last appeal. "Our Lord came to the world at a time when the human race had fallen to the lowest depths of degredalion. . There was no law that men had not broken or turned against its purposes. Not only in the pagan world, but even among the chosen children of God woman was without honor in the 'homes of men the slave of her husband. Even rabbis sought the privilege of marrying for a day. . "At that very time the question of divorce was under discussion in Judea. one school holding to laxity and another for more restriction. The Pharisees, Phari-sees, who were always trying to entrap our Lord, knowing that whatever he said was sure to antagonize an-tagonize some one, tempting him, asked him: 'Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?' "To eslablish the very point that I am contending contend-ing for, he went back to the very foundations of the human race to show that both in nature and in God's words the marriage tie was to be permanent. perma-nent. " 'Have you not read that he who made man from the beginning; made them male and female I For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. Therefore, now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God had joined together let no man put asunder "The inference from this answer for the in- : violability of the marriage tie was so plain that ! his enemies, wishing to defend themselves and en-' I trap him, said: 'Why, then, did 'Moses command to j give a bill of divorce?' ! ''Moses did not command. lie answered them, but on account of your hariUhcartedness he per-i per-i mittedit. But, he added: 'It was not so from the ' beginning " 'And I say to you that whosovere shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry again, committeth adultery; again, he that shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery -v "It was not the answer passion demanded and it was not what they had grown to "consider as lawful, but it was the higher law to which he came to invite them. This was conclusive. "Even hs own disciples could not understand anything so contrary to accepted custom unless he did not want them to marry at all. They waited until they were alone with him and said to him: 'If lhe case of a man with his wife be so namely, that he could not dismisse her and marry again without adultery, 'if is not expedient to marry "St. Mark, recording what happened on this occasion, oc-casion, makes our Lord say lhe same thin::, but makes reference to no exception to the condemnation. condemna-tion. St. Paul even more clearly gives the law on this question. After extollincr vir."initv in rt- Epistle to the Corinthians (vii, 10, ), he said: 'But to them that arc married, not I, but the Lord, commandeth ihat the wife depart not from her hus-. hus-. band, and if she depart that she remain unmarried ov.be reconciled to her husband If for cause, therefore, even adultery, a man be permitted to put away his wife he cannot marry sigain. Then to show that death might, release a man, and nothing, else, in the seventh chapter of hi Epistle to the Romans he savs: 'For the woman that hath a husband, hus-band, whilst her husband livethis bound to the law. hut if her husband be dead she is loosed from the law of her husband. Therefore, whilst her husband hus-band liveth she shall be called an adulteress if . she be with another man, but if her husband be dead she is. released from the law of her husband, so that she is not an adulteress if tJie be with another man " . "Every one of these texts is aVdochiration' for the stability of the marriage contract and against the assumption that either husband or wife may marry again during the lifetime of the other. This is the law of God and ibis is the interpretation of the Catholic church that has witnessed Christianity j from the beginning. "Marriage by Christians is indissoluble except j by death. One wife or none at all is the law. And because the law was hard, difficult for human frailty, fra-ilty, the grace of God was necessary. For this rea-I rea-I son St. Paul says that under the new dispensation j the union is a supernatural union, therefore not I only a contract, but a sacrament conferring the ! necessary grace to enable man to fulfill his respon-I respon-I siblo duties." j "Within its own sphere the State may regulate l the divorce evil as it would lhe social evil drive j it like an impure thing within limitations but that only emphasizes its criminality and puts in bolder relief the justice of the Catholic position in deal-. deal-. ing with divorce as an evil in itself which deserves no toleration and should receive no quarter from j the Church that lias stood like a bulwark of defense de-fense against the encroachments of assion or self-interest, self-interest, or anything else that weakens the foundations founda-tions of hurii;;n society. "The State has no rights in so far as the essence es-sence and indissolubility of marriage are concerned any more than it has a right to release men from the commandment to to lie or to kill or to steal or to commit adultery. For by divine declaration 'if a man put tot h away his wife and marry again he committeth adultery j "And when we know that there is something in the stability of marriage that makes men faithful faith-ful and ashamed in the presence of infidelity and vice, and that repeated divorce prepares them for the shamelessness that puts sensuality in honor and degrades womanhood to the lusts of the slave buyer, the mystery is how courts of justice or legislatures or church conferences can oppose divine wisdom and stand unmoved in the presence of an evil that has destroyed wherever it has been tolerated, and instead of building up and strengthening the barriers that hinder it, vie with one another in try ing to make loopholes and pretexts through which those who have grown tired of-duty and who plan to violate their plighted vows may be assisted in their perfidy. "St. Ignatius Martyr and Justin and Tertullian and Augustine and the early fathers of the Church did not hesitate to denounce as adulterous marriages mar-riages which the State permitted, and when virtuous vir-tuous and God-fearing men and women, in our day I earnest and honest interpreters of the divine law ---learn to call things by their right names, when j adultery shall have no more honor than forgery, or robbery or murder or drunkenness and such like and this new leprosy shall be banished like an unclean un-clean thing from society then will divorce become, more unpopular and marriage attain to the permanency perma-nency and place of honor which in God's plans was intended. i "I do not care to go info the objection generally I raised by non-Catholics about the exception made j in the Gospel of St. Matthew by which it is claimed that adultery on the part of either of the married couple is a valid reason for releasing the innocent party and allowing him or her, as the case may be, to marry again, except to say that the Cath- t olic church interprets this exception, to apply to that clause in the sentence which refers to a man leaving him wife; it names infidelity as the only legitimate reason, but it does not give any right to marry again. St. Mark makes no exception whatever to the condemnation of remarriage. St. Luke is equally sweeping in his denunciation of it. St. Paul absolutely precludes the idea by saying that if the married wife leave she must remain unmarried un-married or be reconciled, and that a wife shall be called an adultress if she be with another during the life of her husband. His disciples clearly understood un-derstood him to make remarriage impossible for the man who put away his wife, even for fornication, fornica-tion, because they said if that was the law it was expedient not to marry at all. "There are two ways of dealing with passion one is to give it rein and the other is to suppress it altogether. In this matter of interfering with the integrity of the marriage tie, the Church has set herself with unyielding firmness against every indulgence to passion and meddling of self-interest. "She admits of no contingency in which the dissolution of the marriage tie is permitted she forbids it absolutely makes it impossible from her interpretation of divine law either for her children j or for herself. I "It is the way of reason to stifle passion by-leaving by-leaving it without hoj)e of lawful gratification; to make it sinful even to desire the things that we may not have. If you allow men to think vain thoughts, to give. full play to the imagination, to dwell upon' forbidden desires, to long for the ideal I instead of the reality they possess, to believe that old ties are not binding and that new ones are possible, pos-sible, it will not be strange if dislike and disguist for present conditions do not find food in the little. lit-tle. differences that are inevitable in every family. - The yoke will soon become galling. Little things., instead of going unnoticed, are magnified. "For those who want release there is no purpose pur-pose in preventing trouble. If lack of friendship . or congeniality is reason for divorce, more aversion is more reason. , "To those who want to be free and who may without sin think and plan about future alliances the difficulties of their present position are the very reasons for their release according to the prevailing I idea. "Even when adultery is made a pretext for divorce, di-vorce, those who grow tired of one another can trade in it. and meditate it and commit it, all in the sinful sin-ful hope that their own infidelity will become the means of their release. . "As soon as you make adultery or anything else a cause for divorce you put a premium on crime. -::- "Divorce opens the door to every kind of conjugal con-jugal sin. It excites and lends fuel to strife and bitterness and domestic trouble. It lessens mutual affection. It hinders human life by preventing childbirth and for the unfortunate offspring of such unions it takes them from their homes to transplant them in new and strange surroundings, and often makes them victims of new fathers and mothers who have no love for them and no interest in them. - "But when the law stands and no exceptions are made, and no change in health or sickness or poverty pov-erty or personal appearance or anything else can (Continued on Page 3.) . FATHER iENNISJlDEMNS DIVORCE (Continued from Page One.) be made a pretext for breaking the marriage tie; Avhcn men learn that the laAv is of divine origin and is supported by divine sanction, that to desire the unlawful is Avrong, then human passion, left Avithout hope of unlawful indulgence, becomes calm and homes are in peace. "In AA-hat I have said I must not be understood as saying that the Church neA-er allows married people to separate; that she compels them to liA-e together when all Ioac is gone, when the unfaithful Avifc or husband has forfeited all rights, Avhen to live together means such enmity and discord that souls are endangered. For grave reasons separation separa-tion is alloAAed, but neA-er remarriage. "The Church has stood for the inviolability of marriage from the first condemnation of free loA'e in the Council-of Jerusalem to her condemnation of the comtnunislic and Mormon principles of our day. She makes no distinction for prince or slaA-e. The centuries toll the story of her position; rich and poor, subject and king are treated alike. From Pope Nicholas, resisting the insolence and sensuality sensu-ality of Lothaire, to the imprisoned Pius VII hurling hurl-ing back the threats- of Napoleon Bonaparte, we lune illustrious examples of how the head of the Church has defended womanhood against the lust and intrigues of royalty, as avoII as from the brutal lust of the somi-ciA-ilized. "The Protestant Avriter. Von Mueller, Avho certainly cer-tainly cannot be accused of partiality to the Catholic Cath-olic cause, says in speaking of the debt of humanity to the Sovereign Pontiffs: 'If the Popes could hold up no other merit than that Avhich they gained by protecting monogamy against the brutal lusts of those in poAver. notAvithstanding bribes, threats and persecutions, that alone aa-ouM render them immortal immor-tal for all future ages.' "The policy of the Church is as fixed as the eternal hills it has been tried out and it. works. It. is the fulfillment of divine law, and. judged by its ' results, it vindicates its Avisdom. The world outside is Avrestling with opinion and 'doubt. Abandoned Aban-doned to itself, it is '-roping in the AA"ay alone. Unaided Un-aided human reason has committed it to a policy that has multiplied conjugal troubles by trying to escape them, has multiplied di-orce until society is threatened by the ruin it inevitably brings. "The Church has stood like a Avail of adamant for the sanctity and stability of marriage and the consequence is that diA-orce is almost uhknoAvn among Catholics. . There is greater permanency in the home, race suicide is not the problem that it is elscAvhere. In this way she has kept the Avell springs of society pure and unsullied, and by 'making avo-man avo-man secure in her marriage relations'has lifted her to the dignity which makes her a helpmate and an equal instead of a tool and a slaA-c." |