The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 311: Adultery and Divorce

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

The Catechism goes into detail about offenses against the dignity of marriage. The two topics we look at are adultery and divorce. These sins against marriage are not isolated between the spouses, but affect others including family, children, and society. With this, Fr. Mike reminds us that we live in a broken world, but God is among us, and he is a merciful Father with the ability to redeem. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2380-2386. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast. Where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down to the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 311, we're reading paragraph 2380 to 2386. As always, I am using the Ascension Edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations

of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in a year reading plan by visiting AscensionPress.com slash C-I-Y. And lastly, you can click follow or, subscribing to our podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. As I said today is day 3-11, reading paragraphs 2380 to 2386.

You know, we've been talking in the sixth commandment for the last number of days. Today, we are talking about offenses against the dignity of marriage. We recognize that marriage being a great good, marriage being a great gift, and even marriage being something that was elevated by Jesus Christ Himself to the status of a sacrament. We recognize that there are ways that marriage can be attacked, the ways that marriage can be wounded, ways that we

can offend the dignity of marriage. The two ways we're talking about today are through the sin of adultery and divorce. And tomorrow we'll talk more about other offenses against the dignity of marriage, but these two topics, these two ways in which marriage is offended, I guess, for lack of a better phrase or marriage is attacked are our part of our broken world. And so we recognize that as we talk about these topics, once again, as we talk about all these topics, we are keeping in mind the fact that in this catacism and your community, there are people who have fought, there are people who have fought through the temptation to adultery. There are couples who are listening to this who have been through the reality, the wound

of adultery, and have made it through and are still struggling to be faithful to each other, still struggling to trust each other, still struggling to move forward. There are also couples that have said, absolutely, when it comes to divorce, this is not even a word we're ever going to say. And they have battled through with ups and the downs of marriage. And there are times, of course, where adultery has broken hearts and broken marriages. There are times where we recognize part of this community. Many people in this community have lived through, suffered through divorce and adultery.

And so we recognize, of course, that we're always striving for the goal. We're always striving for the good. And at the same time, we are all walking in this broken world, just like these last few days we've been talking about, whether it comes to yesterday and the gift of a child. It comes to the days before where we talk about faithfulness and fruitfulness and marriage and all the ways in which this gift that God has given us, the gift of human sexuality has been broken, has been twisted, and when it comes to relationships,

from the very beginning, God made the male and female, and in the very beginning, there was this original holiness. And that original holiness has been broken, that original holiness has been broken. That original holiness has been, has been twisted by sin. And so as we find ourselves listening to this and learning more and more about what, what does the church have to say about these two offenses against marriage? We always remember that our God has entered into our broken world. He has entered into our broken hearts. And he's entered into our broken relationships. He has entered into our broken hearts and he's entered into our broken relationships. He has the ability to redeem them, to redeem our hearts, to redeem this world, and to redeem

our relationships. And so we trust in him as we pray. Father in heaven, we do trust you. We do know that even in our brokenness, you are good and you are still God. Even when we fail, you are still God. Even when our hopes and our dreams are dashed to pieces, you are still God. Even when we fail, you are still God, even when our hopes in our dreams are dashed to pieces, you are still God. And so in this moment, Lord God, we renew our trust in you. We renew our trust that not only have He called us to this moment, you've called us, you will never cease calling us, you will never cease holding on to us. Help us to hold on to you in the midst of our pain and the midst of our brokenness and the midst of all the ways that the goodness you've created is attacked. On this day, Lord, God, I ask that you please

be with every member of this community, of the Catechism and your community, be with all of us and give us the grace that we need to get through this day and to get closer to you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen, and the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. This is day 311, we are reading paragraphs 2380-2386. Offences against the dignity of marriage. Adultery. Adultery refers to marital infidelity, when two partners of whom at least one is married to another party have sexual relations, even transient ones, they commit adultery. Christ condemns even adultery of mere desire. The sixth commandment and the New Testament forbid adultery absolutely. The prophets denounce the gravity of adultery, they see it as an image of the sin of idolatry.

Adultery is an injustice. He who commits adultery fails in his commitment. He does injury to the sign of the covenant which the marriage bond is, transgresses the rights of the other spouse, and undermines the institutional marriage by breaking the contract on which it is based. He compromises the good of human generation and the welfare of children who need their parents' stable union. Divorce. The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator

who willed that marriage be indesoluble. He abrogates the accommodations that had slipped into the old law. Between the baptized, a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death. The separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law. If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care

of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense. Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract to which the spouses freely consented to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture. The remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery.

St. Basil stated, if a husband separated from his wife approaches another woman, he is an adulterer, because he makes that woman commit adultery. And the woman who lives with him is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery. And the woman who lives with him is an adulteress because she has drawn another's husband to herself. Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society,

it can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law. This spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and the one who, through his own grave fault, destroys a canonically valid marriage. Okay, there we have it, paragraph 2380 to 2386. We recognize that, okay, adultery, what does adultery refer to? It is refers to a marital infidelity, right? So, sometimes people will broaden out adultery

to mean any kind of sexual acting outside of marriage. That's not the case. Adultery, specifically speaking, means when two partners of whom one is at least married to someone else have sexual relations. So that's strictly speaking out to adultery is. So I bring that up because there are sometimes when someone might go into confession

and they will commit to the sin of adultery, but they don't mean that the person, they're single and the person that they have sexual relations with are single as well. They mean like the sixth commandment, right? Bowshell not commit adultery. They mean they're violating the sixth commandment, not that they've actually strictly speaking committed to adultery. It's important just to give a definition.

The definition is marital infidelity, okay? So we got that down. Now of course, Jesus in the New Testament, he condemns even adultery of mere desire. And again, this is broadened and expanded to any kind of looking with lust on another person, whether they're married or not. That the desire to use another person,

whether mentally, you're like, right, emotionally or physically, that is, that's use. And we recognize that that's the opposite of love. I don't know if you've ever heard this. Maybe you but I think it was John Paul the second who had pointed out He said the opposite of love is not hate He said the opposite of love is use That here we are we're called to to recognize in every individual their personhood and yet what does lust drive us to do? lust

moves us or drives us to simply use a person or to reduce a person to what they can be for me, right? What I can get out of them. And so a person is never meant to be used, but only love. Now, obviously in our daily lives, there's interactions that are utilitarian, right? So you go to the checkout in the grocery store and the only reason you're really talking to that person is because they're gonna check out your groceries and you're gonna pay them and all that stuff.

Now at the same time though, we are called as Christians, we're called as human beings, but of course as Catholics, we're called to not merely allow that moment to be utilitarian. We're called in that moment to rise above the simply use of another person. And actually, this human interaction is meant to be a human interaction, truly human interaction. It makes sense. I know we're talking about adultery and divorce today. But the whole core of this

comes down to persons are never meant to be used and only meant to be loved. And again, when it comes to this brokenness we have in our hearts, lust is the desire to use. And so when we have this adultery in one's heart or lust in one's heart, Jesus says, at every moment, we are called to see other individuals as persons who are deserving of love. So, we have, let's go back to the checkout, we go back to the grocery store, we have self-check out. We have, let's go back to the checkout. We go back to the grocery store. We have self-checkout.

And yes, that is a tool we're using. And you are using this self-checkout as a tool. That ought to be qualitatively different than when there's an actual checkout person. Even though that person in this moment is doing virtually the exact same thing as the tool of self-checkout, there is a monumental difference in the human interaction we're having with that person behind the counter versus just the tool, the machine that you check out your groceries with. In the same way, again, this is just expand this to sexual relations, expand this to the desire to use someone sexually, we recognize that every person is meant to be treated

as a person. I think it was John Paul II. When he talked about pornography and this will come up, I'm sure, in the next couple days, he said that, in this is actually a quote that's been attributed to John Paul II, but I don't know if anyone's ever actually tracked down the quote. He said, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it reveals too little. In the sense that, not that you should see more skin, but the idea behind this being, it actually obscures the person and reduces them to their parts. And something, again, it beg of 2380.

And Jesus is talking about adultery of mere desire. What's happening is, when we have this adultery in our heart or interactions, we're reducing a person to the mere parts. And this is a grave sin, obviously. In fact, it's so grave that the last line in paragraph 2380 says, the prophets denounce the gravity of adultery, they see it as an image of the sin of idolatry. And if you remember the Bible in a year, if you went through that, you remember how many times that that analogy is made between

idolatry and adultery because we're called to be faithful to the Lord God to into exchange that faithfulness to the Lord God to belong to anyone else or any other false God that is like adultery because those who are entering have entered into marriage are called to be completely faithful to their spouse. Okay, we already know this. Now paragraph 2381 highlights something that I think is very profound. We might have mentioned it a couple days ago, but I think it's worth mentioning again. It says adultery is an injustice. This is not simply a, I mean, it's quite a quote, unquote, simply a sexual sin.

Adultery is an injustice. Here is a person who promised, they made a promise to be faithful to their spouse, and they are now breaking their promise. And that is unjust. It's a sin against justice, because one made a promise to another, they owe that thing to the other.

And what did they promise? They promised to be faithful. They promised to be permanent. If they promised to not leave. Let me think about this. Again, let's go back to this. The marriage vows. We talked about this before.

I'll say it again. On someone's wedding day, there is no need for them to promise to love the other person that day. There's no need for them to promise to be faithful to that person on that day. There's no need to promise to be stable and to choose that person on that day. You're making the promise on that day because you know

the day is going to come when I won't feel like choosing this other person. You know the day is going to come when you won't feel like loving this other person. You know the day is going to come when you will want to be unfaithful. What you're saying on that day is when that day comes, I promise to choose you. When that day comes, I promise to love you. When that day comes, I promise to choose you. When that day comes, I promise to love you. When that day comes, I promise to be faithful to you. Adultery is an injustice. It's a sin against this promise that one made it to another.

And again, I just, I hate to repeat myself, but sometimes it's worth it, right? There are two men, C.S. Lewis and another man named Sheldon Venocan. C.S. Lewis helps Sheldon Venocan become Christian. Sheldon Venocan later on became a Catholic. But both of these men have really powerful essays on this reality that we find ourselves in. So for example, Sheldon Venocan has an essay called The False Sanction of Eros. Remember Eros is that love of desire, that romantic love that wants to possess.

The false sanction of Eros. In C.S. Lewis does this as well, but Sheldon and Ockin in this essay, the false sanction of aeros, he highlights this. He says that you will talk to someone, you know, here's Bob and he's talking about how he loves Sally and just Sally makes him feel more alive than anyone's ever made him feel in his life. Of course, Bob is currently married to Jane, but that sense of like, but no, but I feel this new thing with Sally that I never ever felt with Jane. And so what Sheldon and Ockin is highlighting is, there's this, again, he has it parenthetically,

the word false, the false sanction of Aeros, that we can in our culture appeal to, well, I've never felt this way before. I have this Aeros that I feel for Sally that I never ever felt for Jane, or vice versa, you know this whole kind of thing. And that gives us, quote unquote, permission. And yet we recognize that on a just basic level of, yeah, but you made a promise.

That comes undone. This sanctioned that, you know, quote unquote, sanctioned that aeros gives is, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter when it's like, yeah, but you made a promise. And so we recognize that to break this promise, to break this bond, does has a lot of consequences. One, paragraph 23-81, it highlights it says, he does injury to the sign of the covenant, which marriage is.

Remember marriage is a sign of God's love for us. And so we do injury to that. It goes on to say, transgresses the rights of the other spouse. Remember marriage is a sign of God's love for us. And so we do injury to that. It goes on to say, transgresses the rights of the other spouse. That when you made the entrance to that promise with this other person, they were given certain rights. And also it undermines the institutional marriage by breaking the contract in which it was based.

Gozana say, compromises the good of human generation and the welfare of children who need their parents stable union. That you said you'd be here and you're still here. Again, that that that's offended that right that trust that you can have in the other or even for children that trust they can have in their parents is violated. When there's adultery or paragraph 2382, when there's divorce. Again, there's something remarkable about the way in which our culture has said that the idea of no fault, divorce, or even the idea that doors doesn't really hurt anybody. The kids bounce back, etc. that idea, that they'll be okay. And you recognize that I think we've discovered that divorce, the kind of divorce that we've

come to know in our culture doesn't seem to do a lot of help, right? It doesn't seem to do a lot of good. Not only, as it says in 2334, it's a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, even though it can't, right? Because this is a covenant and you can't break a covenant. But also we recognize that in human development, it does something to children. I mean, at the very least, one of the things that does to children is it lets them know that, oh, mom and dad can change their mind. Right. And there's that sense of they say, they let me now, but I know they

can change their mind. And they might say, you know, the moms and dads might say to their kids like, no, this isn't about you. And I get it and you're trying to make the best of a bad situation. But we realize there are some really serious effects. And I don't mean to say this as a pointing of finger, but this is the reality that we have to look at. What does sin do?

Sin never stops with us. It always echoes out, right? There's always consequences of our sins. There's always consequences of our choices. And so I think it's really helpful for us, not to condemn ourselves, right? Not to not to listen to the voice of the accuser, but to allow our hearts to be convicted and say,

yeah, these are the choices that I made. And this is the thing, like, so here I am, who's, I've never been married, clearly. That's kind of, that's kind of obvious. But we're all called to make promises, and we're all called to keep our promises. And when we don't, there are consequences. And I think there's something, something just helpful about acknowledging what are the consequences when I don't keep my promises.

What are the consequences when I said I would do one thing and do something else? So paragraph 2385 says, Dors is a moral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. And so that's one of the consequences. There's this, things are out of order. Goes on to say, this disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse. So the children traumatized by the separation of the parents and often torn between them and because of its contagious effect which makes it a truly truly a plague on

society, I know I I've worked as I've said many times almost two decades with a junior high high school middle school and college-aged students and and there are a lot of they, great young people, really good. And young people who have become adults and are doing really well, sometimes children of divorce and sometimes not, but there's an extra wound. There's an extra wound as a lot of the children of divorce

are entering into marriage age themselves. And this wound is kind of this, well, I don't really believe in love. I don't believe that a person can keep their promises. And that's a wound that can be healed. It can be healed. But again, it's helpful for us to acknowledge, okay, our choices have consequences, and our sins don't end with us.

They, as I said, they echo out into our family, they echo out into our friends, they echo out into society, and it's so important for us to just acknowledge this. Again, not as a condemnation, but as this conviction of, okay, what are my choices? What are the consequences of my choices? Where is it that I need to ask for forgiveness? Where is it that I need to repent? Now, of course, there are times when someone hasn't chosen divorce. It was chosen for them. And that is, divorce is always tragic, I think. But there are times where here's a person who is saying, I'm willing to do anything. I'm willing to fix this. I'm willing

to work on this. And the other party is just like, no, I'm done with this. And keep in mind, paragraph 2386 highlights this. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned and one through his own grave fault destroys economically valid marriage. That's there's a big difference between the in some ways you say that between the one who left and the one who is left. There's a difference there and also you keep in mind the catacasem does highlight the reality that there can be a separation. I know the question comes up all the time, but what if this is a violent place? What is this as dangerous? What if they're not only physically and danger? What if they're financially and danger? All these realities. And FairCuff 2383 says, yep, that can be a legitimate thing. Separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate. In certain cases provided for by Cannellaw going on to say,

if civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, care of children or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense. Same time, realizing that in that separation or even in that civil divorce, the couple remains married to each other. That marriage, that covenantal marriage, if it was a valid marriage that's been consummated, it's unbreakable. It cannot be broken. The only way it can end is in death. And so again, there might be cases where someone for safety's sake or for some other serious reason,

they might need a couple, might need to separate, they are still married to each other. And again, I know this is very serious, but all of this comes back to the reality that marriage is a sign of the Trinity. Marriage is a sign of the covenant between God and His people. And so because of that, there is this high call to marriage that every married couple is meant to be an icon, an image of the very identity of God to the world and the very love of God between him and the church to the world. And so it's the high call of marriage and it's a hard call. And again, I know that as we're saying this, many people are in a place of inspiration.

I guess that's what I want. I want to have, I want to fight against adulterer. I want to fight against divorce. I want to fight from my marriage. It's so good. And others maybe find themselves beaten up in kind of in a place of sadness because like, I was beaten, you know, or maybe I walked away. It was my fault to be able to recognize that

and to be able to take that next step, the next step of, let me go to confession. Let me stop sinning. Let me turn back to the Lord to allow His grace to renew your heart and to give you a new hope. That's what we're praying for today. Tomorrow we'll continue to talk about offenses against the dignity of marriage, but today, please know that I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless. you