Since this week's Sunday gospel looks at the wedding feast at Cana, the first sign of Jesus recorded in John's gospel, it seems a good time to look at marriage and divorce. As many priests will tell you, no Catholic family has not been touched by divorce today. These legal terms are out of place in speaking about the sacrament of marriage. Civil divorce, however, does affect church law, since it affects marriage. 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.
John Doerfler, a judge on the diocesan tribunal, says the church, however, does recognize that there are situations where it is actually dangerous for spouses to remain living together. These include mutual lack of understanding and the inability to enter into interpersonal relationships. It would be very wrong to judge divorced persons or to say that they are not welcome in the church - or to make them feel unwelcome in any way. It is a remarriage outside the church after a civil divorce that does separate one from the church's sacramental life. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law.