While Bill O’Reilly has long blathered on and on about the importance of stable families and traditional marriages, it seems his own divorce and custody fight has turned very ugly indeed. And the Catholic Church, to which he donates a great deal of money, seems to be helping him. Gawker has the details from legal documents filed by O’Reilly and his ex-wife.
Another indication that it has become poisonous: the Catholic Church has gotten involved. Gawker has learned that McPhilmy has been formally reprimanded in writing by her church for continuing to take communion in her Long Island parish despite having been divorced and remarried—a no-no according to the Pope. The reprimand also instructed her to stop telling her children that her second marriage, to the Nassau County detective O’Reilly tried to destroy, is valid in the eyes of God. It warned her that if she didn’t comply, harsher measures may be in order.
Chad Glendinning, a professor of canon law at Canada’s St. Paul University, couldn’t say whether the reprimand was a first step on the road to excommunication. But he did say it appeared to be a first step toward barring her from the sacraments if necessary. “Public denial of holy communion is to be avoided as far as possible,” he said. “Instead, pastors should take precautionary measures to explain the Church’s teaching to concerned persons so that they may be able to understand it or at least respect it. It is possible that the letter you describe is such an attempt.”
There presumably aren’t too many people besides O’Reilly who know what McPhilmy is saying to her children about how God views her marriage. And O’Reilly, who interviewed Timothy Cardinal Dolan last year and donated more than $65,000 to New York Catholic parishes and schools in 2011, according to the tax return of his nonprofit foundation, carries considerable weight in the archdiocese.
While he’s busy harassing McPhilmy for asserting the holiness of her second marriage, O’Reilly is trying to deny the existence of his first: He is, Gawker has learned, seeking an annulment of his 15-year marriage, which produced two children. Null and void. Invalid in the eyes of God. Never happened. This despite his manifest belief in the “stability” that straight marriage brings to the culture and concern at the (purportedly) declining marriage rates in countries that allow gay people to marry one another. If successful, the annulment would presumably render his 2004 escapade with former producer Andrea Mackris, whom he repeatedly and vividly sexually harassed with threats to take “the falafel thing…and put it on your pussy,” retroactively kosher with Jesus.
Bill O’Reilly: Voice of Virtue.
36 comments
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Robert Harvey
March 22, 2013 at 12:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My father, a devout Catholic, died believing he was going straight to Hell because he couldn’t afford the $50,000 that an annulment cost in those days. It’s cheaper now.
tmscott
March 22, 2013 at 12:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So if his marriage is annulled, wouldn’t that make his children bastards in the eyes of the church? Gee, thanks Dad.
Modusoperandi
March 22, 2013 at 12:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
To be fair, O’Reilly is an awful person.
Doug Little
March 22, 2013 at 12:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Marriage’s are created,
Marriage’s are annulled,
Never a miss communication.
dingojack
March 22, 2013 at 12:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So Billo had no idea his prospective wife had been already married when he married her. Whew, how lucky, otherwise one might apportion some blame (from a RCC point of view) on him for marrying her in the first place! (Against the doctrine of his own beloved church).
Dingo
busterggi
March 22, 2013 at 12:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I thought Bill said REAL Christians don’t get divorced – is this evidence that he is a secret Muslim??
doublereed
March 22, 2013 at 12:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I would love it if more right-wing fox news people started taking potshots at him.
dingojack
March 22, 2013 at 12:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Doug Little – wouldn’t that be ‘never a missed communion’
:) Dingo
cptdoom
March 22, 2013 at 12:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@tmscott – From what I remember of my Catholic education, the status of the children depends on the reason for the annulment. From what I remember, annulments can only occur because of mental illness, fraud, adultery or non-consumation (which, of course, leaves the question of children’s status moot).
So, in the case of someone like Newt Gingrich, whose first two marriages were presumably annulled because they occurred in non-Christian (to the Roman Catholics, at least) churches, the children would be considered illegitimate by the Church, because the marriage never happened (which means the sacrament, which is supposed to change the soul permanently, did not occur). OTOH, my cousin’s kids were considered legitimate after their parents’ annulment, because the reason was their father’s extreme mental illness, which was manifest, although not clearly, at the time of the marriage. Therefore, although my cousin made a good faith marriage, her former husband was not capable of doing so, and would have been refused the sacrament if his mental illness had been known.
raven
March 22, 2013 at 12:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Marriages come.
Marriages go.
Can’t explain that!!!
slc1
March 22, 2013 at 12:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have a flash for Ms. McPhilmy. It’s a free country and she is perfectly free to tell the Raping Children Church to go fuck themselves and join another church, of which there are a goodly number here.
Artor
March 22, 2013 at 12:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It was clear to me long ago that O’Reilly is a worthless piece of shit, and I couldn’t imagine my opinion of him going further downward than it already was. Call me surprised, I now realize he’s even worse than I imagined. What a waste of breathing air this worthless little weasel is! You just can’t explain that!
Trebuchet
March 22, 2013 at 12:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Money comes in.
Annulments go out.
Never a miscommuncation!
I can explain that….
lofgren
March 22, 2013 at 1:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If only O’Reilly’s poor children could have been protected from the devastating onslaught of gay marriage.
lofgren
March 22, 2013 at 1:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
OK, that’s not entirely fair. O’Reilly actually supports gay marriage.
matty1
March 22, 2013 at 1:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It doesn’t even make sense, if the marriage is annulled then both of them get out of the consequences of being Catholic and divorced don’t they?
Put another way, if the marriage is annulled then in the eyes of the church Ms McPhilmy never was married to O’Reily, which makes her current marriage her first and therefore fine with the cannon law. Someone isn’t thinking this through. Although in fairness it could be me.
lofgren
March 22, 2013 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
IANAST (I am not a Serious Theologian), but it wouldn’t surprise me even slightly if the Catholic church has some twisted, legalistic definition of annulment that allows one party (the man most likely) to abandon the marriage but continues to enforce it for the other party.
Why would you collect the annulment fee once when you could do it twice?
daved
March 22, 2013 at 1:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But that’s in direct opposition to the position of the RCC — so how can BillO be in good standing with them? Well, I mean, aside from the money.
lofgren
March 22, 2013 at 1:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The same way that politicians who support the death penalty and oppose protections for the poor can be in good standing while priests are told to deny communion to pro-choice politicians.
Jacob Schmidt
March 22, 2013 at 2:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That’s unnecessary. All the church has to do is selectively enforce the marriage. That is, reject the annulment but let O’Reilly continue on his merry way while still enforcing the marriage on his ex-wife..
d.c.wilson
March 22, 2013 at 2:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
His check cleared. Duh.
iknklast
March 22, 2013 at 2:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
When my husband and I got married, we talked about his church as a venue. (He is a non-believer, but belonged to an Anglican church for non-religious reasons). The church would not marry us if I did not get an annullment of my first marriage (which produced a son). He told me that, in spite of the child, the church would annul the marriage if I asked (and, I presume, pay a fee). I asked him if that wasn’t a bit…hypocritical. He laughed, agreed, and we got married by the side of Salt Creek, which is where I wanted to get married anyway.
lofgren
March 22, 2013 at 2:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t get it. Where’s the profit in that?
Reginald Selkirk
March 22, 2013 at 2:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Tsk tsk; what has happened to journalism? I was hoping to read, “God could not be reached for comment.”
Doug Little
March 22, 2013 at 2:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dingo @8,
Ha ha, yes very clever.
naturalcynic
March 22, 2013 at 2:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Billo gets credit for his
bribecontribution. However she doesn’t get credit unless he contributes more. Why not have a bidding war for absolution.Dr X
March 22, 2013 at 3:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Matty1:
Dr X
March 22, 2013 at 3:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Missing a closed blockquote above after the first sentence quoting Matty. Everything after that is my comment.
Moggie
March 22, 2013 at 3:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder how they chose those names?
matty1
March 22, 2013 at 4:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@22 Since when did Anglican churches require annulment, didn’t they effectively invent divorce?
democommie
March 22, 2013 at 5:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“The reprimand also instructed her to stop telling her children that her second marriage, to the Nassau County detective O’Reilly tried to destroy, is valid in the eyes of God.”
Reading this got me thinking…
Just this once I would WELCOME some thuggish cop beating a working journalist within an inch of his life. Okay, I’m just kidding. I know that O’Liarly is not a fucking journalist.
poose
March 22, 2013 at 5:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I was married to a Catholic once. We divorced, and separated.
She found herself a “good catholic boy” and wanted to remarry-so she sought an annulment.
One day, an “interesting” letter from the Diocese shows up-announcing that I’m barred from taking communion, taking a new relationships, participating in church events. etc.
Two things came to mind:
The first was that if I fought this, I could fuck over my ex mercilessly in tying up her plans to remarry. I could have, but I’m a good person, and I let it pass. She has since remarried, and they have a good family life-he’s a good person and gave her what she wanted-a family. He accepts my child as his own.
The second?
I was in my “exploration of alternate religions” period, and at the time was a Pagan. Laughed about it for days, and eventually settled on “none of the above”, with minor satanic leanings (I have a really cool tattoo of him on my left shoulder,,,)
I eventually framed the letter-the Catholics reject me.
Perfect.
Stacy
March 23, 2013 at 2:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No. Her first marriage was to him. That’s the marriage he’s trying to annul. She’s since remarried, and the Church is smacking her on the knuckles for taking Communion while being divorced-and-remarried. But Billo wants to annul his marriage to her–her first–so then maybe her second marriage will be okay. Or not.
Yeah. You need a scorecard.
Samantha Vimes
March 23, 2013 at 4:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
For what definition of valid do they accept non-Catholic marriages as valid?
My husband had to give up his godfather status for his nephew because, irreligious person that I am, we’d done a non-denominational outdoor ceremony. Since it wasn’t a Catholic marriage, the Catholic school where the kid went determined that my husband was living in sin with me and would have to make confession, do penance, take communion, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if the penance was to force us to marry under church law, which would have resulted in me going to counselling with him just so I could thrown something in the face of one of the collared criminals for insulting and trying to blackmail my family. Anyhow, I didn’t have to, because my husband flat out gave the church the finger and told his brother to find the boy a new godfather if we weren’t good enough.
Erp
March 23, 2013 at 6:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@30 Anglican church and annulment
Officially Henry VIII’s ‘divorces’ were annulments (one on the grounds of incest [his first wife was his brother's widow] and one on the grounds of non-consummation [he never had sex with his fourth wife]). The Catholic church wouldn’t allow the first (mostly because she contested and her nephew had a large army right outside Rome) and wasn’t asked on the second (or to be exact his third since he had his second marriage also annulled before executing his, now former, wife).
However I’m a bit surprised that the Anglican church asked for an official annulment (unless it happened some decades ago) since in many countries the Anglican church (the Episcopal church in the US) allow remarriage (they might require a bit more pre-marital counseling and permission of the bishop) or failing that allow a blessing in the church of a civil second marriage (this is what Prince Charles did when marrying his second wife [though that was mostly for reasons other than his second wife still having her first husband alive]). However in the Anglican Communion the ultimate authority is the national church not the Communion or the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Raging Bee
March 25, 2013 at 9:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You gotta give the Catholic Church one thing: they never miss an opportunity to show how vile they can be. This is just one more data-point proving they have no moral authority or credibility on any subject.