Catholic Women Speak by Catholic Women Speak Networks;

Author:Catholic Women Speak Networks; [Edited by the Catholic Women Speak Network]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL010000
ISBN: 4625719
Publisher: Paulist Press
Published: 2015-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

Marriage and Divorce: Telling Our Stories

Traumatic Divorce and Sacramental Healing

PIPPA BONNER

Between 1991 and 1996 I was divorced, my marriage was annulled, I went through the Internal Forum and was remarried. My first marriage lasted twenty years and I have been married to my second husband for eighteen years. During those early years in the 1990s I was looking after three teenage children, working almost full-time and studying part-time for a master’s in theology and religious studies. I now realize I got through the last years of my first marriage with sadness and determination, trying to attend to the needs of my children and also retaining some energy for my job with social work clients.

I had expected to be married to my first husband for life, and I tried to keep everything together. However, his alcoholism and the discovery that he had been spending all our money made me realize that I had to make some decisions for the sake of the children. He was not abusive but his drinking, mood swings, and unreliability meant that his children lost their respect for him, and his capacity to care for them became unpredictable. The crisis came when I discovered that our house had secretly been put up for collateral, and only emergency money from my mother-in-law prevented us from becoming homeless. Also, my children and their friends had amazingly survived a car crash caused by his drunk driving. I believed I had to divorce to protect our children and control enough of the family income to keep us going.

After our divorce I sought and obtained an annulment. A few years later I met my second husband. He was also divorced but, as he was not a Catholic, I could not expect him to go through an annulment. Without this, theoretically I would not be able to receive communion, so I went to a priest to ask about the Internal Forum. This is a private forum of conscience, involving discussion with a priest and absolution. Not many priests know about it. I spoke to the priest about my situation and within an hour he told me that I was free to receive communion. It was a simple but graced experience and a compassionate solution for me. I understand that Pope John Paul II did not wish it to be widely used.

My second husband later decided to become a Catholic and obtained an annulment, as our parish priest at the time required it. Having initially had a registry office wedding and a blessing from my parish priest, after my husband’s annulment we finally had a nuptial mass.

That was many years ago. I believe that, if I had had the confidence, healing, and security I experience now, I might not have gone down the annulment route with all the complications that followed. I might have become one of the one-third of divorced and remarried Catholics who present themselves “unannulled” for communion, in good conscience.1 Or, I might have drifted away from the Church, hurt and with a chip on my shoulder, which left unhealed would have become more painful over time.

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