Somebody else is being denied the right to marry. A woman who worked at a Catholic high school was fired because her fiance was divorced.
Doesn’t that just make you feel all warm inside? Our wanna-be overlords of the high priesthood promise us a future of arbitrary regulation of our private lives.
And hopefully that consistency will gradually undermine their power.
Perhaps if he molested a few children the church would have simply offered him a job as opposed to terminating his fiancee?
I’ve always said Catholics are assholes. This is more evidence I was right.
This explains everything:
She said she met again with Cunningham, who explained that his stance wasn’t a personal attack, but rather a reflection of God’s laws, which are non-negotiable.
The magic fairy is in charge so that settles it.
There is absolutely no difference between Muslim terrorists and Catholics. The world would be better off without them.
Well, if ever I decided to re-contemplate my position that the Catholic church is run by assholes for assholes, I don’t think it’d take me long to nix that idea. Sure, there are some religions I think are worse, the Mormons, JWs and a few others.
But they’re just bit players compared to the Catholics. And as far as I can see, at this point in my life, nobody in Christendom does minor, pointless evil on a scale like the Catholics.
Just think, those Catholics just prevented God from being mad so that means that he won’t start an earthquake under indonesia this year. They are saving the planet… from a psychopathic malevolent deity.
The article quotes a lawyer as saying that religious schools are free to discriminate based on religious grounds.
Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot? What sort of third world country are you guys living in?
I think we should praise them for their consistency and urge them to take their beliefs on marriage even more seriously – for example, have them start protesting outside divorce courts and lawyers’ chambers the same way they do outside abortion clinics.
Nothing would turn the rest of society against them faster.
Hey, come on, PZ: so what if the Catholic church denies people the right to marry who they want, covers up molestation of children, and helps keep millions in poverty by campaigning against birth control? You were MEAN to a cracker!
GAZZA: Pretty much. If they can successfully convince the judge that they’re a religious organization, our equal employment laws no longer apply to them.
Kinda funny watching these schools/hospitals argue that they’re secular whenever they have their hand out for money, but then immediately so ‘no, we’re religious’, if there’s an employment scandal.
The principal of that school just displayed how arbitrary and idiotic the Catholic religion is to a whole group of young boys who are just starting to get to the age where they’re really starting to question the whole religion thing anyway.
That’s about the only bright side. The teacher unfortunately probably doesn’t have a leg to stand on given that precedent is that religious institutions can set their own rules and that it’s unlikely that the current Supreme Court would overturn that precedent. I’ll lay odds that the contract she signed had a “morality clause” in it that was vague enough that it would cover this too (SOP for Catholic schools around here anyway). Hopefully she can find a job at a public school – where she has the benefit of legal protection against religious discrimination AND will in all likelihood receive a fairly substantial pay increase (since the Church also likes to underpay their teachers relative to the public system and play on their guilt to keep them from expecting anything more).
Now now… you guys stop being bigots! Leave the poor defenseless Catholic church alone!
Are they going to fire all the teachers that use contraceptives, also?
Think of all the firings if people were honest about spankin’ their monkeys.
Happy Monkey!
“The school’s president said federal law supports the school’s stance.”
So they get tax exempt status AND free reign to ignore the usual employment laws against religious discrimination?
That’s it, I’m founding a religion. But not just any religion, a really true one. One where I’m the pope. Hey Wowbagger, you cool with vice-pope?
Did you all notice the surprise ending? The husband wasn’t actually divorced, he had his marriage annulled (I guess they do this routinely? they had had a daughter together…)
Kamaka wrote:
Well, a couple of months ago I came up with the idea my own religion Scimormontology, but thanks for the offer…
@BobC:
The magic fairy is in charge so that settles it.
Just as Bertrand Russell wrote, the problem with Xians is that they think morality has nothing to do with increasing the sum total of human happiness.
“but thanks for the offer…”
dammit, this idea needs a pope of vice
I humbly volunteer.
Rev BDC, you bloody heretic!
Are you forgetting this honour:
Now, to be fair, I have been shirking my responsibilities as Holy Dead-Alien Infused Father – mostly by trying to find some ladies open to polygamy, and getting that e-meter/magic underwear combo into production – but that doesn’t mean you can run off and join kamaka’s upstart religion.
Of course, I could be open to some sort of merge.
Chimps are certainly qualified to be pope of vice, they have the violence.
Another qualified entity is the whip wielding rabbit. Oh, ummm, that one’s female, isn’t it? Hah, this is a liberal religion, the rabbit can be a , ummm, deacon.
Hey
If you’re scouting for talent for your new religion I offer to be the Mother Superior. A married mother of three can fantasise about a little girl on girl action in a convent now can’t I ? I’ll get Jonh Paul Gaultier to design the habits and all.
You heathens, the PRIVATE catholic school was fully within their RIGHTS to fire this woman who has BLASPHEMED against the Church (whom of which patroning the school) with her HEATHENISH UN-GODLY ways.
I hope these Catholics start following their holy book and bring back stoning of unruly children, then maybe their irk will go the way of the Shakers.
I would call Catholics and their like a bunch of primitives, but that would be insulting to our hominian forebears.
Well… since we’re starting a religion here, who (or what) do we worship? I mean, we can’t start a religion w/o worshipping something… right?
If GodIsLOve isn’t a Poe then I fear my head may explode.
Actually, I think they do deserve points for enforcing their own rules within their own institution. It’s not like they hide them, and the Catholic rules on marriage and divorce are fairly clear. And they also have the right to enforce those rules within a Catholic organisation, such as a Catholic school.
This is as opposed to the times they do NOT enforce their own rules, such as when they cover up sexual abuse by priests.
I find it interesting that the man’s first marriage was actually annulled. In Australia, at least, both partners are actively involved in the annullment process:
“Is the former spouse contacted?
It is a requirement of canon law that the other party be informed of the investigation and given the opportunity to participate in the investigation.” (from the Archdiocese of Melbourne)
@ 24
Not you again… Go Away…
“If you’re scouting for talent for your new religion I offer to be the Mother Superior.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Be authoritarian.
“A married mother of three can fantasise about a little girl on girl action in a convent now can’t I ?”
Ahh, fantasy? Quite nights at the nunnery, a bit of comfort…-
Oh, catlicks. Always good for a larf. I needed that, today.
Let your head explode, the world would be better off without you HEATHENS constantsly trying to undermine our GOD founded, CHRISTIAN nation.
Just on a point of law it almost impossible to get an annullment in Australia. Almost all cases I have ever heard about have involved a major fraud on behalf of one of the parties that involves an intrinsic flaw in description of their self or identity( ie falsifying age on documents etc). It has a very different meaning to annullment under any US state law and has nothign to do with consumating a marriage etc etc. You could I guess ask a church of whatever flavour to give you an “annullment” which ( and I only know the Catholic rules here) would allow you to remarry in a Catholic church but as marriage here is sasecular institution it means fuck all to the government. I’ve actually got a client at the moment who was married for eight hours before his foreigner wife pissed off with her boyfriend. It obviously was all about getting a visa but even that is not “fraud” as to the identity of the person under our law. Yes, she will be prosecuted under the Immigration Act but, unfortunately for my client, he has to wait the obligatory 12 months before he can apply for his divorce just like everyone else.
So in essence their protestations that his previous marriage was being “annulled” are pure rot.
If I may, as Pope-of-vice, I would like to designate
TrollPoeGiL as an enemy of the Church. After all, we need a scapegoatfor whenif we royally f*ck things upThat’s why you need a Killfile. Whether or not he’s a Poe is irrevelant; that he’s a useless, mouth-breathing sack of pig-excrement in human form is.
Killfile his stupid ass, and don’t respond to him.
Jeez GodIsLove
“Let your head explode”
Thats not real Christian of you. Now I’m sure you’re not a Poe, just a fuckwit.
Love the schtick. “Patroning the school” is particularly telling.
We must worship crackers pierced by rusty nails, banana peels, coffee grounds, all in trash cans with pages ripped from the Koran and The God Delusion.
GIL, your god doesn’t exist, which makes all your god blathering insane. If you have some physical evidence for your imaginary deity, either show it, or shut up. Any other action means you lie and bullshit.
GOD IS LOVE:
Thank you for joining us at the time of our founding of a new religion. I doubt you are qualified to be more than a worthless acolyte at this time, but with training, you might prove to be pastoral material. I am, of course, far too enlightened to aid you in your spiritual quest, but the Pope-of-Vice is always available to assist you with your spiritual needs.
This particular Church doctrine, like so many other Church doctrines, is completely stupid. Hopefully such out-of-touch doctrines that are completely out of kilter with the human heart and reality will hurt the church in the end. That the Roman Catholic Church is quite heartless when it enforces its petty rules is good ammo to use against them and any notion that they following a just deity.
But that being said, the Church really does have the right to insist that those who teach in their schools believe in and abide by their doctrines no matter how stupid and irrational. Obedience to the Church is a condition to such employment and they never made any secret of it. The law does recognize the Church’s rights here. Legally the Church is in the right. (Don’t confuse legally being in the right to actually being right on factual, ethical, or moral grounds.)
Hopefully the loss to the Church created by its stupid rule will be the gain of a good secular school.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/warning_proselytization_is_not.php#comment-1259919
James 5:12
I’m just saying…
(I’m pretty sure GodIsLove is fake, given prior comments specifically about Catholics going to hell)
@ Wowbagger, # 36
How would I get such a killfile?
@ Mike Haubrich, FCD, # 38
Hmmm…. “Teh Great Desecration” could be an idol representing what we worship… but we actually need something to worship before we can have an idol… right???
But then again, the pastafarians worship Spaghetti and Meatballs.
@ Kamaka, # 40 (and GiL)
I’m not always available, but I’m sure the Mother Superior would be more than happy to serve in my absence.
# 43
Should say:
@Random: Firefox users can download the Greasemonkey extension and use a killfile produced for it.
I personally use http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4107
I must warn you, things like killfile are actual scripts that run on your machine, only run them if they come from a trusted source. If you’re familiar with Javascript, I would suggest poking through the source code. Being that it’s javascript, there’s only so much that they can do, but, just warning.
a lurker @41,
Care to support that contention by citing applicable law? Because I think the (Christian) Church gets leeway other doctrines wouldn’t, and becaue I think you’re only guessing.
Lately my killfile isn’t really killing the trolls, just dumping the fundie moron backdrop behind their still visible comments. Any ideas?
“Lately my killfile isn’t really killing the trolls,”
But the trolls killed this thread.
Seems one way to ID a true Poe is that they usually spell correctly. Reading GodIsLove’s posts one can just feel the foaming-at-the-mouth, brains-leaking-out-of-the-ears, self-righteous-fingers-pounding-on-the-keyboard, hit-POST-in-rage-before-reading-what-you’ve-typed fear and hatred of rational thought.
Gazza, are you from Australia? Because religious schools are allowed to discriminate on religious grounds here too.
I’m going to be the convent cook for this new religion. Any naughty girls who stick their dirty fingers in the cream will get a spanking with the wooden spoon. And any naughty mother superiors will have to ask me nicely for the keys to the
vodkacooking sherry.Seems daddy is having a hissy fit here as well.
St Vincent de Paul Society ordered to pay $27,500 to president sacked for not being Catholic
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24846448-1248,00.html
I don’t understand why people who’ve been through so much bullshit still give support to their religious organizations. You know those assholes are wrong, so leave them, already. Just like I don’t understand gay Christians, or gay Republicans. Leave them already, and stop supporting their ignorance. Join and support the civilized world.
I have always foudn the RCC stance on divorce to be absurd and to pretend it’s ‘God’s’ idea to make people suffer because of this is really silly. The RCC position wasn’t really enacted until the council of Trent in the 1500’s and the majority of theologians thinktheir position is wrong and that includes many catholic priests.
At least in USA they essentially rubber stamp annulments for the faithful RCC members as they have a virtually 90% chance of succeeding.
Of course is an annullment any more reasonable? One can be married for 20 years and they will say ‘poof your marriage never existed’. Seems to me amore honest position is yeahyou where married and it failed, forgive yourself and do better next time.
I think it would represent a more loving, ‘Godly’ approach. Seriously, could a devil do any worse than the RCC position?
Try 45 years in the case of the couple down the block. Three adult children, one with 2 kids. and poof.
Surely this cannot surprise you — they are, after all, the ones who venerate magic crackers, an effigy of a man nailed to a stick, and a woman with an enchanted one-way vagina. I’m surprised whenever they have a stance that isn’t absurd. If it weren’t a religion, the zombie cannibal cracker cult would be indistinguishable from a Dadaist parody.
GH (my editing),
Amen.
But then, honesty about this one issue would be the thin edge of the wedge. Before you know it, intellectual honesty would be expected, and such is inimical to doga.
I’d done it some times when I was a teenager, you know, only because I was curious. But I don’t do it anymore.
The Church has the rule on no-divorce-only-annulment not so much because the gospels have Christ as being strongly anti-divorce, but more because:
Their stance is that marriages are only valid if God, via the Church, has witnessed and approved it. Marriages that are secular or done in other denominations are not considered valid marriages by the Catholic church.
If they accepted the divorce of Catholics as valid, they would be admitting that marriage was NOT a God-controlled thing, but rather a human institution prone to error. And in doing that, they would lose their ability to blackmail Catholics who wanted non-Catholic weddings; official church annulments; non-Catholic spouses without Church interference. And the loss of control over these things would mean a loss of income.
Money is the true God of the Vatican.
GodIsLove @33
“Let your head explode, the world would be better off without you HEATHENS constantsly trying to undermine our GOD founded, CHRISTIAN nation.”
This is just great! Can we get a series of comics of Jesus founding America from someone with more artistic ability than myself? Think of it:
Jesus slaughtering natives, Jesus killing buffalo, Jesus planting apple trees, Jesus fighting the British.. Jesus with the body of a giant squid sinking British ships in Chesapeak Bay..
I think these would really help illustrate REAL HISTORY to the HEATHENS who just can’t seem to grasp the concept that GODDIDIT!
Coming from Spain, this story does not surprise me.
In Spain all (public and private) grade-schools must offer all their students an elective course on Catholic Religion if at least one student (or their parents) request it. The teachers for these courses are paid by the state, but they are chosen by the Catholic Church, who can hire and fire as they see fit. Every year there are news of teachers (being employed in public, secular schools and being paid by the state with tax euros) being fired for divorcing, being gay, or having children outside of wedlock. They sue, but there is no point: the Church always wins.
Thank you for that. I use greasemonkey, but never thought of doing this.
Personally, I think religious institutions should *generally* retain the right to hire and fire as they see fit. And I retain the right lambaste them for it as I see fit.
Hey, absurd rules like this can do some good. A church being unwilling to marry divorced people is what led to my parents not actively participating in one, which kept me out of the indoctrination cycle.
Now, about this new religion; do you need a “Henchman” or “Flunky”? I’m good at taking action under someone else’s authority while actually lacking any of my own.
Having grown up with a rabid Catholic grandmother, I can totally understand the attitude of the church and the school admin. It seems to be a religion of pick-and-choose your vice/scandal/infraction. Basically it goes something like this: if you do anything that somebody in a position of power disagrees with it goes against the teachings of the church, it’s a scandal and god will get you. If I do something all I have to do is give some money to the church, repeat 10 hail marys, and carry on with whatever, until the next communion.
I want to thank grandma for starting me on the right path – atheism. If she only knew.
This is such a load of BS it’s hard to understand why this woman is upset for any reason other than losing her job. She can go on to teach other equally deserving children and get the same amount of satisfaction. It’s not like the world has run out of children to teach. The only problem here is that ‘these’ children are growing up indoctrinated with the same kind of nonsense as the people who run the school.
That’s not really true. She got married, after all.
Does the school receive public funds? If it does, this story is an outrage. If it doesn’t, well, the woman chose to work for a religious institution, she shouldn’t be surprised that they have some silly rules. That’s pretty much religion’s MO.
If they are firing her for marrying him, she should just live with him without marrying. They couldn’t get upset about that could they – they’ve already set a precedent regarding employees by their accommodation of priests shagging altar boys, and churches are big on precedent.
This story from Canada shows the absurdity of accommodation. Short version: religious employees refused to use a biometric security system installed by their employer because their 9-digit biometric parameter might include the number 666. They were fired, the Human Rights Commission ordered them reinstated and ordered the employer to make reasonable accommodation for their religious beliefs.
More fun Catholic bashing, courtesy of the illustrious Jack Chick.
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1057/1057_01.asp?wpc=1057_01.asp&wpp=b
ummmm
ummmm
Obvious question that seems to be being missed.
As her husband had actually received an annulment, even if he didn’t know, then why does she not get her job back?
Does she not now have a case for suing for wrongful dismissal?
Oh I forgot, they got married in the wrong church…so I guess that would just change the reason for the firing.
Still seems like a strong foundation for the lawsuit.
Hmmm, doesn’t the Catholic Church keep records of annulments? If the school really never bothered to check out the details, surely that is grounds for wrongful dismissal?
It seems that the one reason they had for dismissing her was unfounded and based on unfair questioning about her private life. They asked a question about her fiance which she considered unimportant, but which she nevertheless answered to the best of her ability. If the school never bothered to check whether they actually had grounds for dismissal that would be a failing on their part, not hers.
They’re probably well within their legal rights to fire their employees for any reason they like, as long as they’re not accepting any public funding.
Which is to say: it’s not illegal to be assholes. Just like it’s not the least bit illegal for us to point out that they’re being assholes.
If I were in charge of a school full of teenage boys, I’d concentrate on hiring and retaining the most competent teachers, rather than chucking them based on stupid shit like this. But, then, I’m a godless heathen, so obviously my silly notions of inherent human worth and “doing one’s job for the community” have no place in the venerable Church.
My favorite part is this:
who explained that his stance wasn’t a personal attack, but rather a reflection of God’s laws, which are non-negotiable.
“I’m not doing anything to you; it’s God who’s taking away your job!” You just can’t make this shit up.
If a marriage with children is annulled, do the children become bastards because they are now conceived (and born) outside of marriage? It’s not the kids’ fault, but this is the RCC we’re talking about, being guilty for things you had no control over is pretty standard.
Can I have dibs on the Virgin Mother. I’ve been a virgin lots of times!
Bear in mind that this story comes out of San Antonio. The combination of Church dogma + Texas can’t help but produce painful insanity.
The good news is that a whole schoolful of kids has just had a first-hand lesson about the love and “forgiveness” of the Holy Mother Church which (unlike being beaten with rulers by women in penguin suits) is not going to leave them with a permanent fetish for recurring abuse.
@Leigh Shryock:
Not necessarily. The equal opportunity laws only lose the religious restriction. If she converted to Judaism, this would be a slam dunk case for the school. However, family status is another protected class, and they’re discriminating based on that. It’s a crap shoot who would win.
An Annulment is just another way for the Catholic Church to extort money from the Faithful. In earlier times, only the wealthy could pay the cost of an Annulment. Currently they run about $600. The cost does vary from Diocese to Diocese.
The Catholic Church just HATES it when they miss out on a money making opportunity!
Well, it’s my hometown, and what can I say?
I don’t think it would surprise anyone that a) CCHS is an all-male school and b) the local diocese had to settle a lawsuit against one of the priests for, yes, molesting various students over the years.
Actually, one of the Kennedys who “divorced” this way had a wife who was not happy about it for that very reason. She raised such a stink, that the Vatican reverse the annulment.
Read this farce in all its ignominy over at Time magazine.
This may be an instance of an idiot principal as much as anything. My first teaching gig was in a Catholic high school and my principal was one of the better ones I worked for in my 30 year career. Evil Lution?? No problemo. Not a Cat o Lick?? Never asked. Pissed parents? They had to deal with Sister M.R. first.
As parallel, local bishops differ in their response to catholic politicos who don’t vote the Vatican line. Some ignore, some won’t serve up wine and crackers, some want to excommunicate. In any case, I hope she comes to the Dark Side and joins public education.
I live in San Antonio as well and the Catholic church is huge here.
My ex-wife is Catholic and we were married here in San Antonio. After we divorced (religion was a factor) I heard she went to the Catholic church to get an annulment which had no trouble at all in granting her one because I was an atheist. And it’s not just atheists, the church has no trouble at all granting a divorce to Catholics married to religious non-Catholics. It’s all about keeping the Catholic bloodline pure, you see.
This is totally off-topic but I think it gives an idea of the mind-set of the religious. LifeNews has an article about a disabled man denied help from paramedics:
There’s only one problem with the story… he wasn’t denied help by the paramedics because he was disabled. As every news article on the incident clearly states, the paramedics decided not to treat him as he lie dying on the floor after a heart attack because… ready for this… he had a messy home. It isn’t even clear that they were aware he was disabled because his disability was that he had recently had hip replacement surgery and was temporarily walking with the help of canes.
But why let a little thing like the facts get in your way when you have a point to make.
One of the more glaring and potentially entertaining inconsistencies about Christianity is that that Jesus guy explicitly states that divorce simply isn’t allowed and that divorced couples who get remarried and start having sex with their new spouses are committing adultery which is exactly the sort of thing to get one packed off to Hell. Every church has rejected this idea, even the Catholic church, which has divorce only they call it annulment. When you have long-married couples with kids ending their marriage it’s a divorce no matter what you call it.
You just wait, folks. One of these days masturbation will be a sacrament and we’ll all go to heave together.
Not correct. The sentence is passive as the vast majority of biblical scholars will tell you. Jesus was condemning divorce,not that you couldn’t get one, but that breaking a marriage contract was a sin. It has no bearing on a future marriage when you understand the tense. The work of Olan Hicks, Al Maxey, Rubel Shelly, and bunches of others show this pretty clearly. Otherwise the verses are self refuting.
Hitchens’ law: Religion Poisons Everything.
A free one.
Re: the OP
Whatever happened to, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”? Would the principle care to have his background investigated for transgressions?
Oh, and why is it that the holy rollers always call non believers “heathens”? Don’t they know the difference between atheism and pantheism?
Oh, and why is it that the holy rollers always call non believers “heathens”? Don’t they know the difference between atheism and pantheism?
As a proud agnostic who frequently calls herself a “godless heathen” for fun, I don’t really care whether they see a difference!
I lost my job when I let slip that I didn’t believe in god to a family member who felt I shouldn’t be working for a christian school if I didn’t believe
Slightly off topic, but pertinent:
A few years ago I attended an evening course on Child Safety at my kids’ Catholic school (my ex is Catholic, I’m a Teleologist), the purpose of which is to train parents on the protocols of doing volunteer work (such as teaching Religious Ed) with children. In my naivete, I expected this to be balanced and instructive, but it was really how to protect Mother Church’s image and assets if you volunteers do anything perceptibly incorrect. They even had a video testimony from a poor woman who was “taken advantage of” as a teenager by her Deacon, a family friend; when the woman told her mother of the incident, her mother accused her of being a whore and a liar and ostracized her. I was shocked and saddened; I don’t recall any discussion of the Deacon’s culpability, nor did I notice anyone else in the room acting as if the theme of the evening was unusual or ironic.
P.S. The Boy Scouts have a “Prime Directive” of sorts that no adult leader shall be alone with a boy at any time during a sanctioned activity. Smart rule, but sad that it need exist.
.
Mark 10
2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied.
6 “But at the beginning of creation God `made them male and female.’
7 `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one.
9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this.
11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.
12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
Biblical scholars are categorically full of shit. I believe what my own eyes tell me, not some pedantic twit who swallows Kook Ade.
Posted by: DaveB
Sorry, PZ is spot on here. She is being denied the right to marry, on penalty of losing her job. The school is telling her that she does not have the right to marry her husband, because the new husband of the teacher will have committed adultery by the act of remarriage without annulment(!).
If this is not about the right to marry, then you would have to say that she lost her job on the basis of her husband’s adultery. That would be even harder to justify, I would think.
What the teacher’s employer did was bad, bad, bad, but #4 you are so right: I really can’t tell the difference between what happened to her and, for example, the recent events in Mumbai. Exactly the same.
#90 – Then you need to readup on your translation.
correct, let not is not cannot.
If your eyes would read this correctly you would see it is not a sex act being talked about as marrying then as now was a contract.You can be married minus the sex.
Notice how it says commits adultery ‘against’ her not with the new wife. The sentence as I mentioned is passive. At the time of this writing the word for ‘adultery’had multiple meanings one of which was contract or covenant breaking. Jesus referred to people committing adultery with sticks and stones as well. He wasn’t meaning people where out humping rocks.
No apologists are categorically full of shit, a true lanquage scholar is just that, a scholar. In the original language this passive sentence structure is very plain and obvious. People should not be faulted for being correct. And on this issue the RCC is categorically wrong, as many of the priests admit.
Um, what? Where?
http://concordance.biblos.com/moichatai.htm
What do you mean OUR wannabe overlords? They only have power over Catholics and Catholic institutions. And not as much as they used to.
Dear GH,
Thank you for your explanation which proves my point far better than I ever could have on my own. It is a powerful testament to the human ability to declare that up is down or that black is white and actually be enough of a horse’s ass to believe it.
Owlmirror-
Those say exactly what I am saying. It’s the marriage itself that is being broken. You can also see the proper phrase in some of these translations:
In this case the divorce makes the woman an adulterous, not a sex act. She becomes an adulterous at the time of the divorce as the contract has been broken. You can also see the ancient view of woman as property. Jesus actually prefaced the entire discussion by asking ‘What did Moses say’? In Deut Moses gave instructions on how to properly end a marriage.
Jesus affirms Moses but uses the words ‘putting away’ which is different from a divorce. Proper divorce, as per Moses, required a bill or divorcement. Jesus was angry at men for ‘putting away’ their wives minus this document. Why? Because without it they could not marry again and essentialy would live on the fringes of society. Putting away was a problem as evidenced from extraneous writings.
As an aside this was recently a problem in the Muslim world where putting away is sometimes used by overzealous husbands as a way to control their spouses. They never give them their release. There is much more to this than these few verses which as mentioned are self refuting on their face. You cannot commit adultery with someone you are married to, it’s like being a married bachelor.
Jesus lived in the real world.
#96
You seem to be a deeply unpleasant person. I have no horse in this race but was simply relaying that your take on those passages is considered incorrect. Even from a casual standpoint they are self refuting. If you don’t want to know the reality of these passages no skin of my nose but don’t pretend your casual reading of them gives you insight into a pretty complex issue. You are of course free to form your own opinions.
Um, is GodIsLove a poe?
There appears to be have been two in the past, at least in my opinion. I think one was a True BelieverTM, but the other was a Poe. The joke stopped being funny after one day. The other is just obnoxious.
The Catholic church has always had a major problem with sex. The church denounces contraceptives, premarital sex, homosexuality, masturbation, abortion, artificial insemination, and voluntary sterilization. It also demands lifelong celibacy for priests, nuns, and monks – and all others who never marry.
Occasionally, the church even shows signs of its old opposition to so-called “bad thoughts” about sex (i.e., thoughts associating sex with pleasure), and to marital acts of sexual intercourse engaged in for pleasure rather than procreation. One example is when Pope John Paul II urged husbands “not to commit adultery with their wives by desiring sex for its mere pleasure and the satisfaction of instinct.” This nonsensical comment deserves the response one person gave to the idea of the pope, a lifelong celibate, issuing directives about sex: “You no playa the game, you no makea the rules.”
No, I was asking more specifically the sticks and stones thing that I quoted.
If it is indeed the case that “put away” (or “separate from”, as this concordance suggests is the proper sense ) is different from “divorce”, why would it speak of wives “putting away” their husbands? The whole wife-as-property thing means that she would not have any recognized right under Mosaic law to perform such a separation.
No, the passages in their original context do seem to be advocating a mystical interpretation of eternal marriage from the verse in Genesis, following the plain reading.
Any sort of advocacy for women appears to be casuistry by well-meaning interpreters.
@GH,
I think what Fonda is on about is that it doesn’t matter what the passage strictly, literally says, because most of what we say is implicit and conveyed. For example, if I say “I’m going to the store, do you want anything?” I’m conveying, for instance, that I’m willing to pick up something for you should you request it– even though I didn’t strictly literally say so.
Similarly, even if Jesus strictly literally says ‘to marry someone else after you’ve already been married is adultery’ and does not explicitly say ‘and just to be clear, it’s because marriage is heavily correlated with sex and the sex part is adultery’ nevertheless he means it, and he obviously means it, and he’s laying it on rather thick.
So (if this isn’t Fonda’s critique, it’s mine) the problem with so-called biblical scholars is that what’s plain and obvious to the rest of us, cuz we read between the lines, is opaque to them, because they’re in the business of finding as many loopholes as possible.
I’m semi-not-Catholic — my bio-pop was a good Catholic boy who married outside the faith, then whisked his kids away to be baptized when mum wasn’t looking. So I got the water on the head treatment, but not the upbringing.
This caused problems later, when bio-pop divorced bio-mom, and re-married a nice Catholic lady, and proceeded to procreate with her. Those kids also got the water on the head treatment, but the whole married/divorced/annulled thin reared it’s ugly head when it came time for my little half sister to be confirmed.
Priest insists that marriage two isn’t valid, because the children from marriage one were baptized, meaning that marriage one must have been valid despite not having been a proper Catholic marriage at all. Thus little sister from marriage two can’t be confirmed. Wife Two insists that bio-pop get marriage one annulled so that little sister can get confirmed. Bio-pop refuses to annul marriage one, because then big sisters (me and my full sis) wouldn’t be able to be confirmed to the church if we wanted (we don’t).
End result? Bio-pop and Wife Two get divorced and annulled, which some how makes it okay according to Priest for little sister to get confirmed.
Alyson@70:
“I’m not doing anything to you; it’s God who’s taking away your job!” You just can’t make this shit up.
I know–it reminds me of homophobes’ “hate the sin, love the sinner” schtick: “I don’t hate gays! When I tell them that they’re abominations before the Lord, whose every heartbeat is an obscenity, etc., etc., well, they shouldn’t take it personally.”
Johnson @103 has definitely nailed one point. And I think it’s pretty obvious that GH is absudly distorting the generally understood meaning of marriage to make his case. People get married and the first thing they traditionally do is go off on their honeymoon to start boffing. Marriage has traditionally been a contract between a man and a women to have sex and children and even today marriage without sex is rare (at least at the start, anyway). If Jesus meant what GH says he meant I think Jesus would have been much more explicit and it wouldn’t take biblical scholars splitting hairs and destroying the generally understood meaning of words such as marriage to divine his meaning.
GH can that I’m an unpleasant person but I tend to be less than polite when I think I’m obviously being bullshitted. I guess I’m funny that way.
BTW, I’ve been looking for the quote where Jesus talks about committing adultery with sticks and stones and I’ll be damned if I can find it. Google so far appears to be powerless in this matter.
It’sin there. I’ll have to look it up for you. Says it about idols also.
good question, the answer lies in the actual order of the books. If you look atthe gospels that account for these passages you will seesubtle differences in them. The general thought is the last one, the women to put away a husband was when roman influence had occurred as women could perform that act in roman society.
Except that eternal marriage is a figment of imagination. Jesus specifically said as such to the pharisees. There is no marriage inheaven except to God. Likewise Moses and Deuteronomy specifically lay out how to divorce. There is no ‘plain’ reading on these verses. Hence the confusion and pain being needlessly caused people.
by following the ‘plain reading’ youhave to explain how a woman becomes an adulterous by getting a divorce regardless of any action of her part. Simply put the plain reading isn’t enough. At least with these verses alone.
Perhaps but putting away is culturally and literally different than divorce.
#103
Michael Johnson:
“So (if this isn’t Fonda’s critique, it’s mine) the problem with so-called biblical scholars is that what’s plain and obvious to the rest of us, cuz we read between the lines, is opaque to them, because they’re in the business of finding as many loopholes as possible.”
I’m sorry, I am a professional translator (not of Hebrew!), and this kind of attitude (“we read between the lines”) is, IMNSHO, completely wrong. If you ignore the context of the place/time/culture when/where a given text was produced, you can miss the real meaning of said text; the amount of “linguistic scattering” you can get skyrockets with the cultural and temporal distance between author and reader.
And this is assuming that no translation errors crept in in the first place (and that in itself is a BIG assumption, believe me).
Just for kicks, try reading some expert linguistic analysis of the “plain, obvious” meaning of the Ten Commandments (either the Catholic or the Protestant version), and you’ll find a very good example where the “generally understood meaning of words” is wildly off the mark. GH is not bullshitting at all, as far as I can tell.
#106-
howhave Idone that? Did I deny the above? Your view still doesn’t explain how on a ‘plain reading’ a woman becomes anadulteress when she gets a divorce.
You assume alot. No one is splitting hairs. Jesus affirmed Moses, It’s right there,he said ‘what did Moses say’ and goes on to scold them about putting away. There are other sources for the divorce/putting away concept. I have simply tried to showyou that the RCC reading is considered incorrect by language scholars.
Your not being bullshitted. I was attempting to educate but alas that seems to have failed.
One more time:
Looking at a parallel passage in Mark 10:11, we find that the “adultery” Jesus spoke of is not something committed with the second wife, but something committed against the first wife. There He said, “Whoever puts away his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her.” What is in view in these “divorce passages” is disloyalty against the man’s wife, not sexual sin with the next wife. This is not sexual adultery. What is referred to as “adultery” here is what the prophet called “treachery,” in Malachi 2:14.It is easy to establish that the word translated “adultery” is
not purely a sex word. Just take a concordance and look up all the scriptures where this word occurs. You will find it applied to many things which are not sexual at all. Some scriptures to illustrate this are: Matthew 12:39, James 4:4, and Hosea 7:1-4. Here in Matthew 19:9 it is used in reference to divorcing a mate to marry another. What the sin consists of is stated in the verse.It is unfaithfulness to the vows of marriage.
In Jeremiah 3:8 God said He divorced Israel for many adulteries.If you read the Bible account you find that what Israel did was to break their covenant with God and go to idols. God called that “adultery.” What does the man in Matthew19:9 do? He breaks his covenant with his wife and goes to another one.Jesus called that “adultery.”
The word “adultery” does not have a sexual etymology. It is
from the Latin “adulterio,” and simply means to adulterate in the sense of adding something to the mix. It can be committed sexually but the Bible also uses it of non-sexual acts.
In Jeremiah 3:9 the prophet says that Israel committed adultery with stones and with stocks. In the New Testament Jesus used this word to describe some people who were seeking after a sign (Matthew 12:39). Certainly that is not a sex act. In James 4:4 we read that friendship with the world made them adulterers and adulteresses. And in our text here (Matthew 19:9) we find Jesus using this word in reference to divorcing a wife and marrying another. That is four different meanings given the word in scripture:
1. idolatry
2. sign seeking
3. friendship with the world, and
4. divorce and remarriage, besides the passages where adultery is committed sexually
OK I’m done. Been fun.
While the wriggles are amusing in a sad way, I just want to know why GH can’t spell adulteress, despite quoting it correctly from the bible…
<*eyeroll*>
Fine, fine; I mis-wrote.
“No, the passages in their original context do seem to be advocating a mystical interpretation of life-long marriage from the verse in Genesis, following the plain reading.”
Your argument also does not take into account the other verses regarding divorce. For example: Matt. 19:10 says “The disciples said to Him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” ”
They would have no reason say that if all that Jesus was insisting on was that the husband go through the process of getting a legal document.
Unless you can find a more detailed argument, I think “life-long marriage” is the intent wherever Jesus speaks of it.
Not to get overly involved with a really boring topic but GH is spot on in this discussion.
The plain reading of these verses needs to incorporate alot of other verses and cultural knowledge. They don’t even make sense on a ‘plain reading’ alone.
You are confusing my stance. I never said lifelong marriage isn’t his intent. But likewise ‘sin’ can destroy that concept.
And again He said ‘ What did Moses say’ He was in fact referencing Deut. Also they are referencing ‘putting away’ which is what the entire discussion focused on. The pharisees felt it better not to marry if they had to lose privelege justto get rid of them. Again this occurred recently in the modern middle east. You guys have alot of assumptions.
Typing while watching a 7 month old. Or I simply can’t spell:-)
“Biblical scholars are categorically full of shit.”
What bullshit. You do realize that biblical scholars, like me, are secular academics, rights? We are fact-bases academics like any other discipline. This isn’t theology. You clearly know nothing of what you are talking about.
Then I am not sure what your point is. I thought you were saying that the RCC had misinterpreted what Jesus said about divorce, but it looks like we are all on the same page: Jesus said that divorce was a sin; the RCC sees it as their mandate to prevent sin; so the RCC says “No” to divorce (unless you pay them enough money to convince them call it an “annulment”, but that particular hypocrisy is a different kettle of ἰχθύων).
OK, I was a little harsh about biblical scholars being “categorically full of shit.” but, man alive, I sure have heard and awful lot of shit coming out of the mouths of biblical scholars.
Penny Bright,
Please add that BP and W2 maintained their loving relationship outside the bounds of Catholic marriage. I hate to think of 2 people throwing themselves and their kids under the bus to satisfy some convoluted and logically inconsistent paradigm, made worse by the fact that said paradigm is totally unsupported by empirical evidence of value gained, i.e. does the confirmation permanently increase the level of a person’s holiness, and does this increase enhance the likelihood of making it to heaven? If not, what’s the point?
P.S. I’ve heard that the heavenly reward is spending eternity loudly praising Him. Ugh.
Now I’m getting a headache thinking about this. Another poster wondered if the fired teacher remained a Catholic. I can’t fathom why people tolerate being mindfucked, much less going back for more. I supposed our brains must be heavily programmed to conform to rituals to satisfy our need for patterns.
Jesus wept! Why don’t they fire priests who repudiate Roman Catholic tenets by raping children? Let’s have a little consistency here.
My cousin converted to Catholicism, apparently sincerely, because when he wanted a divorce he got an annullment, saying that 10 or 12 years of marriage had been false and making his three children retroactive bastards, I guess.
Stocks?
Um, no. With the stone and the tree (or wooden thing). You know, stone idols? And Asherahs?
Sheesh. You have to watch out for the KJV; they really mess up some translations.
The Hebrew word used for “adultery” in Jer. 3:9 is the same one used in the 10 commandments. The LXX translation of Jer 3:9 shows that “adultery” is [a form of] the same word used by Jesus in Mark, Matthew, etc.
Oh holy crap. Came on this late, it’s in my backyard – and it’s not surprising although it is intensely sad that people are attacking the woman, including one who praises a Jewish friend who declares he/she will not date outside of their religion.
Ah, good to know the medieval practices of an ancient unbending moral code dreamed up one thousand six hundred years ago and applied inconsistently when somebody’s knickers get in a twist can ferment in so fetid a manner in the heart of what is supposed to be a “tourist friendly” Texas city. Yes, the Catholic Church – friendly, as long as you don’t keep the Bad Things from being swept quietly under the rug to maintain the illusion of moral infallibility. I’m sure she can purchase a Papal Indulgence or similar legal paperwork to smooth it all out again – oh, wait – didn’t people go after Scientology for charging for admission to levels of moral superiority?
Guess we know where they learned it.
Um, no.
I checked both the OED and Lewis & Short at Tufts, and they both agree that “adulter” originally meant, in essence, unlawful fucking around.
I taught first grade at a Catholic school, while I was “living in sin” with my now-husband. The administration knew this. Why didn’t they fire me???? (Seriously, I want to know! I hated that school, but couldn’t afford to break my contract—why wouldn’t they fire me?!?!?!)
But, frankly, I’m more disturbed by the ending of that article: They get married, and (on their honeymoon!!!) her new husband calls his ex-wife (apparently for the first time since he got engaged) who informs him that their married *had* been annulled, but he had no recollection of an annulment.
My brother just spent five years trying to get an annulment from the Catholic Church. It’s a lengthy and difficult process that requires BOTH former spouses to have have several testimonials written (and notarized) as to why the marriage should never have been consecrated. This was not something his ex could have done on her own; he had to have been an active participant. This teacher should divorce him quickly—he’s at best a cad, and at worst a sociopath.
This kind of story shows what types of laws we may enjoy having if our government was not secular. These moronic injustices initiated by a few fools in Rome and upheld by lesser idiots around the globe should hopefully prove to people of all faiths that our government is and always should be secular.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/catholicchurchscandal/
Barbara Westrick is a veteran Catholic school principal and teacher who was fired for exposing duplicity by Cardinal Francis George of the Chicago Archdiocese. She called the police about her boss, Fr. Dan McCormack, for sexually abusing one of her students in 2006 which led to a massive scandal in the Archdiocese. Barbara has worked as an educator for 38 years and had been principal at Our Lady of Westside since 2003. Most of her career was in the Catholic school system. Barbara has Bachelor and Masters degrees in Education and Education Administration and she has completed several programs of Post Graduate work.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/11_12/2006_12_19_NBC5_PrincipalSpeaks.htm
a Jewish friend who declares he/she will not date outside of their religion.
I know a couple who had to deal with being shunned by the parents of the woman because the man isn’t Jewish. They didn’t talk to her for about two years after she got married, and then her brother got engaged to a woman who wasn’t Jewish, and the parents realized that they’d better cut the crap, or they’d never meet their grandchildren.
I find it impossible to fathom the mindset of anyone who could put their religion or other group affiliation above their relationship to their own children. That’s just utterly bizarre.
-jcr
My brother just spent five years trying to get an annulment from the Catholic Church.
Is that more or less work than getting excommunicated?
-jcr