Divorced Catholics: A Plea for More Pastoral Care

Abstract

There is a bottomless gulf between the Church’s teaching on marriage and the reality on the ground. The Church conceives of marriage as an indissoluble bond between a man and a woman or a union which becomes eternal as soon as the spouses swear to love each other for the rest of their lives. Yet, rates of divorce among Catholics increase every year. Instead of looking for efficient means of preventing divorce, the Church suffocates divorced Catholics with unrealistic laws. We suggest the Church to go the other way round; that is to improve her pastoral care of the divorced and invest her energies in adequately preparing young Catholics for marriage.