After Kleimer left the rectory, Father Koesler stood silent and still, watching the prosecutor bound down the steps and into his car parked at the curb. The priest felt as if he had betrayed a friend merely by truthfully answering questions. He knew he could not have done otherwise. But he felt bad regardless.
Mary O’Connor was surprised when Koesler asked her to hold all his calls. He scarcely ever did that.
Koesler went upstairs to his study. The room’s one small window admitted little light to brighten this gray day. He chose to sit in the gloom and think.
This matter of marriage, divorce, and remarriage was handled differently in various faiths. For one whose marriage had disintegrated, this could easily be life’s lowest point. And divorce, depending on whether and how it was contested, could be brutal.
To Koesler, this was the moment when an understanding, solicitous, forgiving, and welcoming Church was most needed. He was embarrassed to admit that his Church, the Catholic Church, was perhaps the least helpful of any major faith in this respect.
Koesler had friends who were priests, ministers, rabbis, so he knew something of their procedures.
Among Orthodox Jews, the bill of legal divorcement is enacted by a husband giving a “get” to his wife. There is no trial, or precise laws that must be observed. A rabbinical court finalizes the “get” by making cuts in the paper bearing the decision. This “cut” is a statement that the case may not be reinstated. It is final.
According to Jewish law, a husband may divorce his wife at will, with some restrictions. That the husband must approach the rabbi precludes such whimsy as dismissing the wife over, say, breakfast. However, the wife needs the permission of her husband to seek a divorce. Which may be another definition of “fat chance.”
One further indication of the wife’s standing is that a wedding cannot be witnessed on the Sabbath. One cannot conduct business on the Sabbath. The connection being the perception of a wife as comparable to chattel-property.
Reform Jews, with whom there is a current tendency toward more traditional practices, are, by and large, not in the divorce business. Things are pretty much up to the individual rabbi. In this, there can be a good bit of shopping for the right rabbi, since it is perfectly possible for the one rabbi, for reasons of his own, to refuse to witness a specific marriage.
The Conservative wing of Judaism is somewhere between the Orthodox and the Reform.
So, unless one is the unhappy wife of an Orthodox Jew, it seems not all that difficult to be remarried in the Jewish faith.
The Episcopalian Church in the United States of America is far more structured than Judaism.
Until the mid-seventies, in this branch of Christianity, it was not canonically possible for a divorced person to be remarried. Then, in the convention or synod of that time, the U.S. Episcopal Church altered its stand to permit remarriage in the Church.
The responsibility for the care of these cases falls to the parish priest. In fact, the total response for all Episcopal marriages is in the lap of the parish priest.
The process begins with a parish member in good standing. He or she is a communicant of a given parish. The communicant approaches the parish priest and the process begins.
There is a minimum of sixty days or a maximum of six months notice given. During this time there is a studied preparation. This requirement is meant to remind all those involved that this will be a union as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. If one-or both for that matter-is a divorce or divorcee, the priest may ask that person to express what happened in the previous marriage, why it happened, and what was learned.
Whether or not the marriage includes a divorced person, there are informational forms to be filled out. If there has been a divorce, the form will inquire into the care of the children, if any, of the prior marriage.
Finally, if a divorced person is involved, a letter must be sent by the priest to the bishop, asking canonical permission to witness the vows.
Rarely would that permission be denied. For one, almost all the time the bishop has no way of knowing the people involved. He relies on the priest’s judgment. The bishop’s attention might be piqued if one of the parties were a celebrity or, perhaps, notorious.
If a priest were to exercise atrocious judgment, the bishop might well level a punishment-in effect, denying the priest permission to function as a priest for a given time.
In the Episcopalian Church in the United States of America, attention certainly is given to the existence of a prior marriage. Steps are taken to learn from the past, and an attempt is made that a sad history will not be repeated.
“Shopping” for a sympathetic priest seems fruitless, at least in the directives of Episcopal Church law, since the communicant is directed to consult his or her parish priest.
But such restrictions, rubrics, processes, and laws fade into a mild attentiveness when compared with Roman Catholic law regarding marriage, nullities, dissolutions, sanations, privileges of the faith and remarriage.
Give the Catholic Church this: It has been around a long time to build up these laws, or canons. And the Church has used this time assiduously.
Koesler pulled a huge volume from his bookcase. The Code of Canon Law-a Text and Commentary. These 1,752 canons, published in 1983, comprised Catholic Church law.
He switched on the overhead light and returned to his seat with the book. He pulled a pen and a pad from his desk.
He’d never thought of it before, but now he decided to tabulate how many of these 1,752 laws applied to marriage and remarriage. After a few minutes of counting, he came up with 146 laws.
Perhaps the pivotal law is Canon 1060, which states: Marriage enjoys the favor of the law; consequently, when a doubt exists, the validity of the marriage is to be upheld until the contrary is proven.
This is at the hub of remarriage after a civil divorce. Remarriage, by definition, indicates there is a prior marriage. There is no doubt about the validity of the first marriage until and unless one or both parties want to marry someone else. At that point, if the second marriage is to be in a Catholic ceremony, the party or parties must prove, not that the previous marriage was a failure, a bad but sincere effort, a mistake, etc; but that the previous marriage was null from its inception. It must be proven that only some ceremony took place, but that nothing happened.
Koesler considered the most simple example: Church law requires that for a valid marriage, among other things, the Catholic wedding must be witnessed by a priest and two other witnesses. What happens if the Catholic is married, say, by a judge? Obviously, the marriage is invalid, since it was not witnessed by a priest. Thus, the Catholic is free to marry; since no valid marriage existed, there is no valid marriage to block another marriage.
However, that first marriage, according to Canon 1060, “enjoys the favor of the law.” In order to remarry, the Catholic must challenge the validity of the first marriage. That is what created the “doubt.” Now the Catholic must “prove” the first marriage was nothing from its inception.
This, while it can be a serious problem depending on circumstances, is still one of the easiest cases to process. Koesler had handled several over the years. One first secures a recent copy of the Catholic’s baptismal record. Recent, because when a Catholic marries, the fact is noted in the baptismal record. Now, the fact that the record is issued without notification of marriage indicates that the Catholic has never contracted a Catholic-i.e., valid-marriage.
Next, one secures a copy of the marriage certificate signed by the officiating party not a priest. Finally, both parties of the first marriage are questioned, and both testify that they were married in civil law and that the marriage was never convalidated. Additionally, there may be a demand that witnesses be called to testify to the truthfulness of the parties.
But … there it is. The simplest of all Catholic marriage cases. After that, it goes steadily uphill.
Many, perhaps most people, assume that Catholic laws on marriage and remarriage affect only Catholics. Not so. Good old Canon 1060’s “Marriage enjoys the favor of the law …” applies, in the eyes of the Church, to everyone. So, for instance, two Protestants marry and divorce. Later, one of them wants to marry a Catholic and, since the previous marriage involved no Catholics, assumes there will be no problem. Then, the surprise: Church law assumes that Protestant, Jewish, Islamic, whatever, marriages are valid. The non-Catholic will bear the burden of proving to the Church’s satisfaction that the previous marriage was invalid-null-from its very inception.
There are countless variations of these processes. But the point is: It’s not simple.
Of the matrimonial court procedures of the Roman Catholic Church, there are those who say it is a “healing” process that helps people learn what went wrong and how they might improve.
Others claim it is the “shark in the pool syndrome.” As in: A motel resident goes to the pool and finds a shark in it. He complains to the manager, who explains that the shark is quite benevolent. The resident insists it has nothing to do with benevolence; there should not be a shark in the pool.
Father Koesler felt that the Church should not necessarily be in the business of granting or withholding annulments. After the misery of a divorce, the Church should be in a welcoming, not a judgmental mode.
He flipped pages until he came to Canon 1141: A ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death.
At last, something that endures until death do we part.
By “ratified” is meant mutual consent, freely given between baptized persons and with no impediment blocking validity, to be followed by sexual intercourse.
The Catholic Church considers all marriages indissoluble to a certain degree. Only the ratified, consummated marriage is absolutely indissoluble.
It seemed this was the sort of marriage had by Brad and Audrey Kleimer. It was this sort of marriage that Father Carleson seemed to have dismissed in witnessing the subsequent marriage of Lou and Audrey Schuyler.
To witness the Schuylers’ marriage, Father Carleson would have to be, in effect, ready to flush 146 laws down the drain.
Father Koesler was left disheartened. Could Brad Kleimer be right? Was Father Carleson willing to brush aside any law he judged inapplicable? Even the law against murder?