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.

Recently, I had a bizarre conversation with a graduate from the canon law program at Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.  The canon lawyer, whose name I’m keeping private, told me 90% of marriages are invalid due to immaturity. I find this ludicrous because marriage is not that complicated. Parties marry who can choose straightforward things:” […] “The Dean of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota says canonists are “lax” who claim that “insufficient human maturity understood in a general way” is proof of invalidity of marriage (source).  Furthermore, a great point is made by Cardinal Edward Egan,

From Nov. 13-15, the Archdiocese of Atlanta hosted the “What God Has Joined” retreat. The retreat was organized by Catholics for Marriage Restoration (CFMR), a group that “assists unjustly abandoned or reluctantly separated men and women who remain faithful to their marriage vows as they hope for reconciliation.”