Fr. John Hardon: The Catholic Church in the United States will survive only....

So many people marrying nowadays, “marrying” do not really enter into an indissoluble union. For one thing, they must want children. Another couple, same thing, I was asked to talk to them. Same thing my council lasted about a month. Same thing they found somebody else to continue - she was Catholic and he had no faith. So we talked and I said, “You know, to be validly married you must want children.” “Oh, we do want children eventually.” “What is that eventually?” “Well, several years.” And they were both from well to do families. So I did everything I could to discourage them. Evidently I did not succeed. But we are living in a world where an indissoluble marriage is a dream. It is not even an ideal - it is unrealistic.

And among professed Christians this was the key premise for the separation of the Eastern Orthodox from union with Rome. Starting from the seventh and finally standardized in the thirteenth century. All kinds of annulments the Eastern Bishops were giving their people. The Pope kept telling them, warning them, but they wouldn’t listen. He would remove a bishop, then the next bishop would do the same thing. The Catholic Church in the United States will survive only, “solo” in Latin, only where there are still parishes and diocese where Catholics believe that once they enter a sacramental marriage and that marriage is consummated by natural intercourse no power on earth, no bishop, no conference of bishops, no pope, can dissolve that union.

Sacrament of Matrimony Series: The Unity and Indissolubility of Marriage

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