Free Republic

A canon lawyer, employed by a U.S. diocese, taught her audience including priests, that because no directives from the bishop have been issued about Amoris Laetitia, the priests should follow Buenos Aires and Malta. In those territories, priests are free to give permission to adulterous partners to receive Holy Communion, even though the couple continues to have sex, and one (or both) of the parties is already married to someone else. This permission occurs after accompaniment and discernment by the priest. MaryÂ’s Advocates is sharing the audio recording, though the person that made the recording said the diocese must be...

U.S. Senate candidate and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore invokes President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan with and added twist. Moore said, “I support President Trump’s agenda of making America great again. But I submit to you that we can only make America great again if we make America good,” Moore’s campaign announcement spelled out what he believes isn’t good: divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage. Moore made the statement in his downtown Montgomery office a day after announcing his bid for the Senate seat previously held by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “I am definitely not establishment,” Moore said with...

The instructions laid out two months ago by the general of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal, on “what Jesus really said” regarding marriage and divorce have not fallen on deaf ears.On the contrary, some among the Jesuits have been the first to apply them in full. To conclude that “once a marriage is dead” Jesus too would allow divorce today.The Jesuit who has drawn this conclusion from the premises set up by his superior general is not a nobody. He is Fr. Thomas Reese, former editor of the magazine of the New York Jesuits, “America,” and a...

A number of online services are charging "divorced" Muslim women thousands of pounds to take part in "halala" Islamic marriages, a BBC investigation has found. Women pay to marry, have sex with and then divorce a stranger, so they can get back with their first husbands. Farah - not her real name - met her husband after being introduced to him by a family friend when she was in her 20s. They had children together soon afterwards but then, Farah says, the abuse began. "The first time he was abusive was over money," she tells the BBC's Asian Network and...

Full (and Fuller) House actress Jodie Sweetin has been ordered to pay $10,000 in retroactive child support, as well as $2,000 a month until her eight-year-old daughter with her second ex-husband turns 18. Sweetin and former husband Cody Herpin married in 2007 and had Zoie Laurel May Herpin in April of 2008. They were officially divorced just two years later in 2010. In her original divorce filings, the actress revealed some of the troubles in her marriage with Herpin, who used to work as a driver and transportation coordinator in the film industry.

The wife of the former Tennessee teacher accused of absconding with 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas wants to end her marriage of 31 years, according to court filings. Jill Cummins, who has pleaded with her husband to bring Elizabeth home, filed the documents last week, citing irreconcilable differences and alleging that Tad Cummins is "guilty of inappropriate marital conduct."

Two years after the star couple separated, a source told People magazine that they “are giving things another try.” They love each other, said another source, and they “really, really love their kids, and those kids love their parents.” For many couples, though, this isn’t enough. Though the divorce rate has decreased since the high point of Baby Boomer splits in the 1980s, it’s still almost 35 percent for couples who married in the ’90s. And frankly, it’s only that low because more and more Americans don’t bother to marry at all. (Cohabiting couples have an even higher rate of...

We’re going to file this one under “Please let this be true.” It’s been nearly two years since Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck announced their split after 10 years of marriage, but according to sources close to the couple, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Garner and Affleck have reportedly called off their divorce for the time being and are working on their marriage together, People reports. Whispers of a reconciliation have been swirling ever since their separation, as the two have been regularly spotted in public together with their three children, Violet, 11, Seraphina,...

SALT LAKE CITY — New research debunking the “ball and chain” myth of marriage for men was released Tuesday. According to a research brief published by the Institute of Family Studies, the idea that marriage creates more unhappiness than happiness for men just isn’t true. Nicholas H. Wolfinger, a researcher at the University of Utah, and W. Bradford Wilcox, a researcher at the University of Virginia, say that more education is needed in order to ensure that people understand marriage and the truth behind it. “Contrary to the notion that marriage is detrimental to men, it turns out that the...

Hi, I'm doing this on a tablet, so I'm probably doing it wrong. I was just wondering, want to know it's time to file for divorce. And I haven't been together for a very long time. I really feel that he ignores me. Which I guess I think is very understandable. I just think if we would be be together, and by that I mean have s*x, we would be closer. And happier. I probably should not have posted this no because I'm tired and it's late and I don't know how much I can answer everybody. But I would...

In Christian life, truth is not negotiable. There is no doubt. However, we must be fair in mercy and not think of faith only in terms of “you can” or “you cannot.” This is what Jesus teaches us. Pope Francis begins his homely in Casa Santa Marta by warning of a hypocrite and deceitful faith when reduced to the logic of classification. Reports radio Vatican: today’s Gospel, February 24 2017, by St. Mark San Marco reads the question “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”. This question was asked to the son of God by the doctors...

In 1930, the Anglican Communion abandoned the universal Christian moral teaching of two millennia, which condemned artificial birth control as a grave moral evil, contra naturam, and destructive of marriage. It did so by allowing the individual subjective conscience to overrule the absolute moral norm that such actions are intrinsically evil and thus allow no exceptions.This was a death knell for Anglicanism as a moral authority. The result has been not only the total independence of Anglicans from their traditional moral teaching but the collapse of religious practice among the laity (except for the African branches of this once vibrant...

The imam of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah warned men against blackmailing their wives and of abusing their right to divorce, according to the Alriyadh daily newspaper. Speaking at his Friday sermon, imam Saleh Al-Bedeir criticized overusing the threat of divorce and deemed such behavior impermissible in Islam. He labeled it a bad habit that Muslims should avoid. The marriage contract obliges couples to treat each other decently; “women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable,” (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:228) the imam cited in the sermon. He said Muslims must be patient, as few...

I currently have 4 nieces/nephews engaged, with weddings planned over the next 2 years, so this news caught my eye:  the average cost of a wedding peaked at $35,000 last year. Wow, that’s a pretty big investment. Especially when there seems to be an inverse relationship between the cost of a wedding and their longevity.Or as Willie Nelson put it: “it would be cheaper if I just found a woman I don’t like very much and buy her a house.” In fact, a tiny house is one of the items the WaPo notes could be bought for the cost of...

Pope Francis’ outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics opens the door to letting them receive Communion, Germany’s bishops declared Wednesday. In a statement, the German bishops’ conference said a document by Francis entitled “The Joy of Love” sets out how pastors can provide “differentiated solutions” to individual cases through a process of accompaniment. That process “opens the possibility of receiving the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist,” the bishops’ statement said. Argentine and Maltese bishops already have issued similar guidelines based on Francis’ divisive 2016 document, which was the fruit of a two-year canvassing of church leaders during two...

Striking differences between the two documents, as well as other papal teachings.Critics of the controversial so-called “Maltese directive” on Chapter Eight of Amoris Laetitia, published Jan. 13, say that it very obviously contradicts previous papal teaching and instruction from the Vatican — not to mention, some add, Sacred Scripture and two millennia of Church teaching. To see just how much this is true, it’s perhaps helpful to put the controversial passages of the directive by Malta's bishops beside these documents. The most striking contrast is with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1994 Letter to bishops “Concerning the...

Complete Headline: Weiner STILL wants Huma back: Disgraced congressman 'asks his wife call off divorce' despite years of sexting other women and derailing Hillary's presidential campaign Huma Abedin announced her separation from Anthony Weiner in August It came after the disgraced congressman was caught sending a photo of his crotch to a woman while his young son was next to him Weiner is spending time with Abedin and their son in their Manhattan apartment He's still waiting to hear if he will face charges for sending sexually charged texts to a 15-year-old girl Weiner went through sex rehab late last...

A married man was convicted Tuesday of murder and kidnapping in the 2007 death of a single mother from Colorado who led a double life as a paid escort. A judge sentenced 65-year-old Lester Ralph Jones to life in prison without parole after the jury delivered its verdict, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. It was Jones' second trial in the killing of Paige Birgfeld. The first ended in a mistrial in September when jurors couldn't reach a unanimous verdict.

General Wesley Clark launched a failed bid for the presidency in 2004 after retiring from the military in 2000 after a storied career Was married to his wife Gertrude for 46 years before filing for divorce in September 2012 Now said to be dating a 30-year-old found of a fashion retail site Son from his marriage to Gertrude is 13 years OLDER than his girlfriend

Cardinal Raymond Burke has insisted that Pope Francis must clarify serious doctrinal doubts arising from his teaching letter Amoris Laetitia, or the Cardinal will be forced to initiate "a formal act of correction of a serious error." In September, four top Catholic cardinals including Burke wrote a private letter to Pope Francis asking him to clarify five serious doctrinal doubts proceeding from his 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) concerning Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, the indissolubility of marriage, and the proper role of conscience. When the Pope failed to reply to the Cardinals' letter,...