by Bai Macfarlane Let’s pray that Pope Leo XIV enforces the protections on marriage emphasized by Pope Leo XIII. In his 1880 encyclical Arcanum on Christian Marriage, Pope Leo XIII says civil magistrates are not to decide cases regarding the contractual obligations of married Catholics. In other words, the state courts are not the proper […]

Separated Faithful Plea to Conclave: We Need to Roll Back Francis’ Loosening of Canon Law. I see cases where the other spouse fell prey to influencers that led them to abandon marriage after having multiple children and years of happy, thriving marriage. Abandoners force a government no-fault divorce on the whole family, and when they eventually petition a Catholic tribunal for an annulment, Pope Francis made it more difficulty for separated faithful to uphold marriage against accusations of invalidity.

At the request of Dr. Stephen Baskerville, I’m spending 5 minutes and writing the President: President Donald Trump The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 I am deeply disheartened by the destruction of families and the undermining of the Constitution that occur daily in family courts and child support enforcement offices. I [...]

Patrick Madrid took a call from a woman who was contemplating filing for civil divorce because her husband says he doesn’t love her anymore. After 30 years of marriage and going through a difficult time–with husband and wife sleeping in different rooms–her husband agrees that she should file for divorce. The caller told Patrick that […]

I recently sat down with Beverly Willet, a retired civil lawyer and co-founder of “The Coalition for Divorce Reform”, to discuss the harsh reality of no-fault divorce—and what we can do about it. Beverly shared her devastating experience of being divorced against her will. She believed marriage was for life, but the State had other ideas. Her husband couldn’t prove fault in New York, so he simply moved to New Jersey, where no-fault divorce made it impossible for her to stop the process.

Catholics are asking the U.S. bishops to drop the divorce mandate where dioceses require parties to be civilly divorced prior to the Church accepting a plea to investigate the validity of a marriage.  In the United States, there are two kinds of institutionally recognized marriage: State marriage and Church marriage. The Catholic Catechism says divorce is immoral and a grave offense against nature and in only tolerable in very limited circumstances.  However, dioceses instruct everyone who wonders if his/her Church marriage in invalid to first get a divorce of their State marriage.