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The Catholic Church is in manifest error in how it practices what it teaches regarding marriage, divorce, remarriage, adultery and annulments. This is without question a fact. The Church and those who do not know what they are talking about will, sinfully, defend her but she is simply wrong. It is time the Catholic Church listen to those of us who have left her due to her encouragement of the destruction of sacramental marriages.

But she will not and that is that.

Karl

Karl,

If the Church has no idea what it is talking about, then how can you be sure their error is willful and sinful?

After all to sin willfuly presumes a level of knowledge. You do remember the three conditions necessary for a sin to be mortal, don't you?

Dear Burnt,

Chosen ignorance gives greater culpability. That is logical that is what the Church taught when I was growing up.

The Catholic Church ignores the truth WILLFULLY and there is not a single Bishop in the US who will face the facts. Every Mass each of them offers is illicit for their failure to address the annulment issues head on as is their responsibility since they supervise and are directly responsible for their tribunals.

All the bishops are a terrible disgrace. Every last one.

Karl

Now a Former Catholic

Karl

When I feel like you do. I read this article by one of the greatest minds of our time... Hans Urs von Balthasar.

http://www.tcrnews2.com/extremists.html

It reminds me that Christ left the church as the "pillar and foundation of truth." 1 Tim 3:15. He did not leave such stellar minds as yours and mine in charge. In fact Acts 15 is all about how brilliance such as ours is to interact with the church. Basically people like us found a question of doctrine... we are shown that a council is called to discuss this and the sitting pope makes the final call. If we disagree we do not see a new church forming we see...obedience to lesser minds... fishermen (how unthinkable). Anyway 1 Cor 1:10 expresses the importance of all of us having the same mind for Jn 17:20 to come true. I see this entire process over and over as other fellow brilliant minds bring up correct doctrine like polygamy or symbolic eucharist or sat. sabbath or symbolic only baptism... those fishermen left in control continue to be consistent in their uneducated respones.

In Love

when we were one

Karl, even if we assume for the sake of argument that the Church grants annullments in cases where a valid marriage exists (which I by no means accept - I would much sooner believe that a couple who never attends mass and had no intention to change their lifestyle wasn't all that serious in making their vows before the Lord), what evidence do you have that they have "no idea what they are talking about"?

Would it not be the height of arrogance to believe that someone who disagreed with you was necessarily uneducated? Could they not have come to a wrong conclusion in good faith? What evidence do you have that such extreme ignorance was willfully chosen? Would it not be the height of bearing false witness to believe that someone who did not know was willfully ignorant?

To determine that someone was a terrible disgrace would require great insight into that person's heart and mind. To make this determination for multiple people would require greater knowledge of intimate personal dispositions. To make this determination for every last bishop would require an almost supernatural gift of discernment coupled with intimate knowledge of so many people. Can one even claim to have sufficiently deep knowledge to make this determination for so many people (every last bishop) before they even know the names of these allegedly disgraceful bishops?

When we were one and Burnt,

What the Catholic Church teaches and what it practices are very different and therein lies the problem. It is a human institution subject to human frailty, which does not necessarily involve a deliberate choice to do evil. But to see some of the things I have seen done by many clerics, including bishops, would be evil on my part not to take offense at.

If the Catholic Church cared about the truth they would review, with retired Rotal judges, a representative sample (scientifically chosen) of American rotal decisions from all dioceses in the United States over the past thirty years. They would and very well could determine if these reflected, accurately, Rotal jurisprudence. If they did, blanket charges such as mine could be addressed fairly and authoritatively and these data would be welcomed by those of us with both scientific and legal backgrounds, especially those of us also who have become familiar and versed in annulments granted consistantly with Rotal jurisprudence.

The Church will not even address this issue. The bishops of the U.S. throughout his Papacy literally fought with JPII about the state of the American Tribunals. They did not come to blows of course but they had deep disagreements and JPII could not bring himself to act as, I believe he should have. I do not know his reasons, I wish I did, but he had the authority to shut down a single tribunal or even an entire countries tribunal system if he saw fit. He knew, factually, that most of the decisions that were appealed to his court from dioceses in America, which had been found for nullity in the first instance, were overturned by the Roman Rota in 90% of the cases. I believe this was accross the board throughout the entire U.S.. Thus, if this continued throughout his Papacy, which I believe the statistics do show ( and these should be openly made available for all to see by the Catholic Church unless it has something to hide) JPII should have, in my opinion, given each bishop a fixed amount of time to force his tribunal to relect that of the Rota, or JPII should have shut the tribunal(s) down. Instead he left them to grant annulments that should not be granted. This is culpability in my opinion and willful culpability in view of what the known statistics show.

I hope you can understand this is very serious. I do not wish to argue this more because any intelligent person can come up with seemingly good questions based upon anything that is said, which is exactly what you two have done and in my opinion just evaded the truth, like a politician does. To me such responses are an insult.

In our case, which I can address factually, I saw open violations of Canon Law. The Catholic Church absolutely refused (ignored) my allegations without a single investigation in spite of documentary proof of these violations in some cases. That is corruption that is willful. It rests at a bishops door because he heads his tribunals. It also rests at the door of every priest I have related my story to, which are many, and at the door of the Judicial Vicars I have communicated with and the list goes on.

Just as a documentary "lack of form" annulment case is clear "prima facie" ( I hope my latin is correct), my proof in writing was absolute. It should have made a serious impression on any Canonist but none cared. A perjured annulment petition signed by a Catholic priest and my wife, should have resulted in a complete rejection of the petition and Canonical sanctions against the priest and my wife.

Instead I was forced to defend a Sacrament though three separate cases on two continents over a span of just shy of twelve years only to have the Catholic Church find that our marriage IS a Sacrament, which is what I stated from the begining when I begged priests to intervene to heal a breaking marriage but instead they told my wife to divorce me, to get it on with her lover, to invite her lover into the Catholic Church, to civilly marry him and to have children with him.

I know what I am talking about. I know the corruption I have seen. I know the bishops who refuse to believe me because it seems so incredible.

That is why I have formally defected from the faith and will remain outside the Catholic Church until the Catholic Church changes what it is doing. What it teaches is NOT what it is doing.

I have no desire to mislead anyone. Nor do I wish anything but good for the Catholic Church. I will join no other Church because that would be adultery in my eyes but I am forced to step away from a Church so thoroughly corrupted that it is totally blind to what it is doing and willfully so. It is indeed completely willful since not a single of my allegations have been investigated and prosecuted and the Church Canon Law requires that such allegations are thoroughly investigated in a timely manner. I have been making these allegations since 1991.

Many priests and bishops in the U.S. and in Rome know of my allegations. They do nothing. The corruption is without question pervasive and without question willful, unless one wants to waste time with useless philosophical meanderings about meaningless trivia instead of saying "If these allegations have been made why are they not being addressed?" "If they are false this man needs to retract them and repent." "If they are true we need to address them"

Thank you.

Karl

I am so sorry to hear your more detailed pain. From your account it certainly seems that inconsistency abounds. As one blogger has posted here, somewhere, at one time or another, and I don't know if this is a fabrication* (The story goes that JP2 was told that >50% of Catholic women were not being informed by their priests that the pill they were on could be leading them into mortal sin. JPII correctly noted that the women then would not necessarily goto hell but their lax priests would instead.)

It also reminds me of St. Augustine answering concerned parishoners. They noted that their priest was a (sinner of you name it). And they were concerned that their Sacraments (any) were not valid due to his depraved hands. Augustine writes back..."When Simon Peter baptized, Jesus Christ baptized. When Judas Iscariot baptized, Jesus Christ baptized."

You may have run into a gaggle of Judas', Karl, but you have answered yourself. "a human institution is subject to human fraility." So you note humans make mistakes; Therefore you won't rejoin until they stop making mistakes? Uhhh when will that be my friend? When are they not gonna be human? You would hold yourself from Christ in the true Eucharist because of lousy priests and an adulterous wife? Dude? do you still have your nose? I just heard some dude cut off his nose to spite his face... wonderin if that was you Karl!

In the story of the prodigal son, many "righteous" children don't get the twist at the very end. The father forgives the prodigal son to the anger of the loyal son. The story ends with the prodigal son invited into a banquet of his father's will. The loyal son has chosen to remain outside the banquet out of self righteousness...or does he enter later when he ponders his fathers grace. The story does not say. But I think you get my point. Satan will use our humanity to keep us from God's grace in the sacraments. I have a friend that won't goto Mass anymore because he is offended by the pedophiles in the priesthood. Granted this is high scandal but you get my drift. If it wasn't this or that I know I could find a weakness to run from any priest. Rom 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

The way I see it, Satan is using this horrible situation to keep you from the banquet. Remember Karl the note to the loyal son!"..."My son," the father said, "you are always with me, and everything I have is yours." Lk 15:31.

In Love

when we were one

I meant to write "(scientifically chosen) of American TRIBUNAL decisions" in the second paragraph, sorry for the mistake. What I wrote was "American rotal decisions"

Karl, are you saying that you are doing to your Church what your wife did to you?

If what you say is true, then the priests may have indeed committed the crime of "spiritual murder". But if that is the case, are you not guilty of "spiritual suicide"?

Dear Burnt,

Good question!

Just as adultery violates the marriage and the Catholic Church teaches that it is licit for an innocent spouse to divorce an adulterous spouse, particularly if the adulterer refuses to repent, so it is licit for a Catholic to "divorce" an adulterous Catholic Church, which is exactly the case here.

Since it is illicit to take up with another spouse, so I cannot join another Church, particularly since all other christian churches are adulterers already by their existance, including the Orthodox.

I have separated myself from the Church just as an innocent spouse MUST separate themselves from an adulterous spouse or they become part of the ongoing adultery and guilty themselves.

Since I am objectively not in union with the Catholic Church, I cannot receive Communion.

The Catholic Church has real problems regarding these issues and has failed to study what these issues mean deeply, theologically and in terms of its own mission to be just.

I understand that some situations present very difficult choices but if the Catholic Church can reach a conclusion that our marriage is a sacrament and accept an adulterous couple living together while remaining active in the Church there is something Rotten There!

It is one thing to use the Church membership to heal the Sacrament over time, it is quite another to encourage the murder of a sacramental marriage by supporting those who violate it as unrepentant adulterers do on a daily basis.

Regarding spiritual suicide I have a different take on this. I would agrue that my wife, her lover, the Catholic Church and all who support unjust divorcers are "murduring" the marriage and the abandoned spouse.

Medically, divorced spouses have long and conclusively been shown to suffer many health problems up to and including sudden death, from the trauma in the short and long term. Spritually and physically, marriage has as a coequal end "the good of the spouses". this clearly means the Sacramental spouses, not the adulterous spouses. When the Catholic Church, or whomever calls themselves Catholic, works to the detriment of that Sacramental union, FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER(the favorite reason for adultery which is OK with the Church is for "the good of the children of the adultery" even though that means doing evil(violating a marriage vow of fidelity and perpetuity and openness to children with the Sacramental spouse) for the sake of good(the children of adultery who are innocent of the adultery that created them) which is FORBIDDEN in Catholic Moral Theology), they are defying what is taught by the Catholic Church.

So my "death" is not "suicide" but really is "murder", sanctioned by and supported by the Catholic Church even in the face of Sacramentality.

I see no way around it for an honest person. There are few, if any, honest priests or bishops.

Yes, this is a tough problem. but it has a solution. Accountability, period. You walk out on your marriage unjustly and you will be excommunicated, period! If a priest counsels the same, he sould be excommunicated, period. This should apply up through and including the Pope himself, period.

This is not a call for vengeance, not at all. It is a call to justice and truth and forgiveness and reconciliation.

If this is really what the Catholic Church wanted, I assure you this is what it would do. It is very, very, very, very simple.

The annulment inquiry itself very frequently shows what happened in a marriage and as such shows a way to heal it. Rather than act upon this, the Church drops the ball. It is tragic and scandalous, both. But since rank and file Catholics want that new person to sleep with and to still falsely call themselves Catholic, to assuage the remnants of their consciences, and we do not have clergy with the courage(or numbers these days) to throw them out on their ears if they refuse to repent and reconcile justly(not vengefully) we have and get what we want, a screwed up system.

That is how I see it.

I do not want to die outside the Catholic Church, institutionally. I do believe that I am part of the Catholic Church because I am acting in an entirely Catholic manner in defense of Catholic Teaching. I am telling an errant institution, which I know does not even know that I exist or care, that I put my soul entirely in the hands of Jesus Christ, because I love the Catholic Church enough to act in its best interest when it refuses to. This I am obliged to do as a Catholic, just as I remain faithful to my vows to a woman who does not give a hoot what her actions do to me and she is tragically advised to do this by Catholic priests to this day, not a single one of whom has spoken to me about any of this. This I must do completely alone or I become an adulterer as well. I already have too many sins to fathom without adding formal adultery to them.

Pray for me. How much I want a Bishop to understand what THEY are doing to spouses like me and the pressure that THEY ARE PUTTING on abandoned spouses to find another spouse, just to keep going, rather than dying of lonliness, which really and truly kills, quite literally. These clerics do not know what they are in for when they face their particular judgement. They CHOOSE to ignore seeking the TRUTH about these issues because they have convinced themselves they are doing the right thing--- by deliberate chosen failure to pursue the facts and the truth.

karl

Karl

Even if you are correct on all of your points, are you not compelled to respect the pastoral decisions of the Church?

I mean upon stoning the adultress, Christ intervenes. The Jews were right by the law... lets say that again The Jews were right by the law to stone the adultress! Christ rules pastorally. The Church has been endowed with the privilege to do such pastoral adjustments as terrible as it may have resulted for you 1 Tim 3:15. Did the husband of the adultress get justice to the letter of the law? Did Christ do wrong?

In Love

when we were one

Karl,

Your pain comes through, loud and clear very palatable - very real. No doubt that you are uber educated on many matters Catholic and rightly observe that the Tribunals are not always perfect when it comes to examining these matters (do they claim infallibility?).

However, I for one rejoice that the Annulment process is available because there are so many of us non-Catholics who are being drawn to Church - and ultimately want to receive the Sacraments.

Many folks in my position had no idea of the Catholic Church's teachings on Sacramental Marriage. We entered our first marriages without proper formation AND in many cases having come from homes broken by adultery, divorce, and remarriage. To add further insult to the injury we received as children of divorce, the very clear Scriptural teachings on these matters where twisted by parents and protestant clergy to justify the remarriage.

In fact, after well over a decade of studying the various Protestant "positions" on marriage/divorce/remarriage, I've come to the following conclusion:

Only the Catholic understanding and of marriage raises the very defintion of marriage to the level commensurate with Christ's teaching on divorce and remarriage. That is, with the Church's position on the indissolubility of a valid marriage is an underlying standard for entering marriage in the first place.

It is this standard that provides at least an opportunity for mercy and justice!

Dear When,

In the past, had I not gone through my annulment experiences, I would have accepted a pastoral decision from the Church but those days are gone for me.

Although I am now separated from Rome I will continue to listen to what comes from there as I listened to my own father after I became an adult. I will continue to pray for the Catholic Church and to love it as best I can, considering I believe it has turned from Christ nearly irrevocably in its present form.

No one should accept bad decisions. That acceptance only enables the abusers among the clergy and hierarchy. I see that blind acceptance now as part of the problem that traditional (not traditionalist) Catholics have brought upon themselves. I realize the danger in such a position (we know it is how the vast majority of, especially liberal leaning, Catholics practice their faith) but it is our Church also and our responsibility to hold our clergy accountable with our attendance and monetary as well as voting support. We are heirs to the Holy Spirit as well, provided we adhere to the revealed truth.

Rome is in manifest error. There is no discussion that is warranted other than "how soon do we bring our tribunals into submission to the Rota's jurisprudence or how soon do we shut them down" or we can kiss the Catholic Church adieu; for as a beacon of truth all else will follow in decay as goes the family and to deny justice to those who have already been wronged (because the Catholic Church is treating us like abandoned triage patients left to die because we are in hopeless situations when you look at them with mere mens eyes)is criminal. In fact the hierarchy (all guilty clerics and layment too)should be prosecuted under its own canons by courageous canon lawyers, none of whom exist, which says much about our Church. I would file a brief myself but the men who sit on the court should recuse themselves and let laity judge the cases for the most part. Fat chance for that. It is a hopeless situation because the clergy will not demand of themselves what they demand of us. They are cowards, plain and simply.

No, I will never again accept any Church decision as I did before through trust in the better judgement, guided by the Holy Spirit, of our clergy. Never again! I would also never marry in the Catholic Church again because I know how very little it regards a Sacrament. Not until every single unjust divorce, not only remarriage without annulment, is answered by a requirement to repent and if that is refused, an excommunication, would I consider marrying in the Church. What we have now openly encourages the violation of marriage on a routine basis.

If Jesus heard this case he would sit down, separately, with my wife and her lover and with true charity remind them of their obligations regarding justice and their obligation to repent and sin no more. I do not know how anyone could refuse but if they did He would remind them of His enduring love for them and for all involved and His desire for reconciliation among the Sacramental spouses with a concern for what it truly good for all and, I believe, ultimately in the face of stubborn refusal he would gently remind them that His will must be followed to enter Heaven, he would again remind them of His love for them and He would leave their presence in such a manner as to viscerally leave them aware of what the absence of His presence means.

This in practical terms can very readily be done by the Catholic Church in specific situations such as this when the matter has been so intensely studied as our marriage has. This is what should be done as the standard of practice once this annulment process has resulted as it has in our case.

That this is NEVER done IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM.

No, actually the BIGGEST problem is that a cleric or bishop or the Pope would not even listen to such a proposal much less impliment it.

Karl J Wengenroth

Karl, no one is suggesting the clergy should not be held to account for any perceived wrongdoings. Tribunals can and do make mistakes. I do not have sufficient information to make a judgement in your case. You probably do and have every right to ask for justice.

But even if the Lord's shepherds have done you a disservice and failed you miserably, they remain Christ's appointed leaders. From them and them alone can you receive the sacraments. (If you think Catholics are soft on divorce, you'll have little respect for the Protestant position).

If you are indeed innocent in this matter, you still have the right and duty to receive the sacraments from Christ's chosen even if they are in a state of mortal sin. The faithful have endured scandalous conduct from the highest ranks of the clergy numerous times in the past. Yes, they had every right to call the clergy to holiness. But they also knew they had the duty to do so as faithful communicants in a state of grace.

The article, A Crisis of saints has often put things into perspective for me.

One final question: do you refuse to rejoin the Church because you feel you have a moral obligation to remain outside?

Dear Brian,

Here is a link to the website of an honorable retired Roman Rotal judge whose writings will inspire any faithful Christian regarding marriage. I would urge you to check it out. He was the lead judge in the Tribunal in Rome that concluded our marriage is/was a Sacrament.

http://www.cormacburke.or.ke/

He is a world class Theologian as well as a retired Top Canonist.

I completely agree with you regarding the necessity for annulments provided the process respects marriage and is designed to heal broken marriages as well as find for nullity if that is indeed where the facts lead.

Presently it is a very bad system in need of huge adjustment(s)or it should be shut down. Rest assured the the system will be left in its destructive state and will change only slowly with complete disregard for the injustices it has already resulted in.

If anyone wants the truth they should take their case to the Rota, period.

Monsignor Burke is somewhat a hero of mine so I am biased but if you read and think about what he says you will see what real marriage is supposed to be. God be with you on your journey in Catholicism.

Pray for my soul.

Karl J Wengenroth

Thanks Karl,

I certainly will pray for you. I looked over Monsignor Burke's site. Is your case reviewed there? (I read node/466 with a respondent named "Karl"). The depth and integrity of analysis here is really fascinating.

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