'V/T' to Mark Shea...Earlier this year, marriage advocate, Bai Macfarlane, publicly asked the Arlington Diocese to apply canon law to protect a wife and children in a scandalous divorce situation. Macfarlane sent her plea to Rev. Robert Rippy, the Arlington Diocese Defender of Justice. Fr. Rippy was provided public records showing a professed-Catholic husband impregnated an adulterous partner and was living with her and their baby. The children of his marriage (who are financially devastated with their mother) are forced to spend overnight visits with their father and his adulterous partner.
Macfarlane is the director of Mary's Advocates, upholding marriage in light of no-fault divorce. She says, "When the church in the U.S. remains silent as professed Catholics abandon their families using the civil divorce routine to pursue their individualist goals, the public is taught that the Catholic Church condones the practices of routine civil divorce."
Poor Bai, yet she's helping others while dealing with her own situation!
Her history.
God help her!
This man sincerely hopes that Bai MacFarlane is able to sway some Catholic hierarchical heads to seeing the damage the Catholic Church is doing to marriage, families, spouses and children as it barrels full steam ahead with nullities, via required divorces in a civil(oxymoron here) system that devours all who are forced into it.
ReplyDeleteKind of reminds me of the phrase "abandon hope all ye who enter"!
She has her hands full but she has some notariety, which may help. Nothing will matter, however, unless Catholic clerics and in particular, Catholic bishops, actually listen to what she and many others of us have been saying for many years about the "DIVORCE/ANNULMENT COMPLEX", which is fully operational in the Catholic Church. So many are completely supportive of it and have not the slightest understanding of the evil it is about, in spite of what the Church says. It is DIVORCE CENTRAL.
The innate grave sinfulness of every single divorce has been almost completely negated by the ease of justification for divorce in contemporary society and in particular in the Catholic Church, where there USED TO BE meaning in the marital commitments.
Marriage really means nothing but an attachment to "antiquated sentiments". It is an archaic institution, only utilized "to keep the old folks happy" or "for appearances" but it has few core adherents. Yes, there are some faithful Catholics who still hold to the traditional views, but they are very much in the minority.
Now if things face real difficulties, one or both spouses are gone and the courts step in(with the full encouragement of the Catholic bishops) rearranging all the meaning of what the Church taught and tried to practice for centuries regarding marriage.
Unless The Church starts making heads roll, in defense of marriages, whatever it does in its other ministries will not matter, as there will be fewer and fewer Catholics to live the Gospel.
A Latin Mass is nice, the Eucharist should be respected for the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ that it is, the priesthood should be faithful, male and (in my opinion having lived as a celibate male now for almost twenty years due to divorce) celibate(unmarried) but none of this will matter at all, WITH EVER DECREASING NUMBERS OF CATHOLICS.
If the family is not protected, the Church will decay until it does something about it.
My two bits.
Just another guy.