“We all dream about a beautiful, perfect family. But there is no such thing as a perfect family,” Pope Francis notes.
In his prayer intention for the month of March 2025, Pope Francis called for prayers for all families in crisis.
The Catholic Church has always been an advocate of the sanctity of marriage and family. Pope John Paul II’s “theology of the body” has provided a strong tool and ideal that still guides many people today. And yet some people fail to live up to this ideal.
Beverly Willett, Author of “Disassembly Required: A Memoir of Midlife Resurrection,” tells us her story:
“My ex-husband and I had celebrated our 20th anniversary a few months before he walked out. We’d been married for 20 years. We both had good careers. I had actually stopped working as a lawyer to raise our two children, and I would say basically we had achieved the American dream. And then unexpectedly, one day, right before Christmas, he walked out.”
Divorce was out of the question for Beverly. She fought for her marriage in court, also for the sake of her children. But after years of fighting, her husband finally attained the divorce. Later she wrote a book about her struggle.
“I don’t think until I converted to Catholicism that I really understood what it means to share that burden, what it means to cast that burden on the Lord,” Willett shared. “I really didn’t understand. So part of my healing and everything really was by becoming Catholic, understanding marriage better and really deepening my relationship with God and turning things over to God.”
According to Catholic teaching, a marriage cannot be dissolved. A “divorce,” as recognized in secular law, does not exist in the Church. But if a marriage was not validly contracted, the ecclesiastical court in Rome may pronounce an annulment.
Monsignor Markus Graulich has been working at the Roman Rota for years. He is also the Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts and says the Church has clear criteria for determining whether a marriage is valid by canon law.
“If I want to marry someone, I have to accept him or her,” Monsignor said. “I have to agree that this marriage is forever, not just for a certain time. I have to exclude divorce. I have to accept that marriage has to be open to children. I have to accept that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, that’s the fidelity that marriage brings with it. And I have to be able to understand what I promise, the capacity to understand that, and the capacity to take over the burdens that marriage brings with it. And if one of these things lacks, if I exclude children, if I exclude indissolubility, if I exclude fidelity, or if I am not able to marry, to give the consent, or if I’m forced to marry, then the marriage is invalid, for the consent is not established in a valid way.”
In 2015, Pope Francis had expedited the annulment process. But for valid marriages, divorce and so-called “remarriage” are not allowed under church law. Sometimes, however, a separation may be advisable.
“There are cases in which separation is inevitable. At times it becomes even morally necessary, precisely when it is a matter of removing the weaker spouse or young children from the gravest wounds caused by abuse and violence, by humiliation and exploitation, by disregard and indifference,” noted Pope Francis in his June 24, 2015 audience.
In his audiences, Pope Francis has repeatedly warned parents not to take their children hostage in the event of divorce.
Daniel Meola is the founder of “Life-giving Wounds,” a Catholic ministry to adult children of divorce or separation. His parents separated when he was 11 years old and eventually divorced.
“This deeply impacted me, actually really devastated me,” Meola shared. “I would say still to this day, the greatest suffering that I’ve ever had to face and it impacted my identity. There was a lot of shame, not just being from a divorced home, but just the betrayal and abandonment I felt.”
After pastorally accompanying over 2,000 people, Daniel and his team have identified seven wounds that most children and adult children of divorce tend to deal with.
“The seven things that they struggle with is one, the ability to grieve because it’s been normalized to their identity and their faith. They often have a lot of faith struggles and understanding who they are. Like: I’m the fruit of these two parents, but now they are no longer together. What does that make for me? And having to navigate these two homes… They struggle in relationships, love and marriage. You know, we’re less likely to marry at all. We’re less likely to succeed in marriage. We struggle in our emotional life with anger, anxiety, depression, that’s number four. Number five, we struggle with forgiveness. Six is family boundaries with the dysfunction. And then seven is what I would just say, we struggle to know how to suffer well.”
After all these years at the Roman Rota, Monsignor Markus Graulich finds it worrying that nowadays many couples give up too quickly instead of fighting for their marriage. He is convinced with some effort, many divorces could be avoided.
Mons. Graulich added, “Some years ago – I don’t know if it was an interview or the Autobiography of Cardinal Dolan – and he talks about his parents in Saint Louis. And he said, when my Papa came home from work, we all had to leave the kitchen. Mom and Dad grabbed a beer and talked. Now that’s a good form of preventing. You can also have a tea. You don’t necessarily need to have a beer. But come home, talk, exchange your experiences during the day and so on. But if talking is not working anymore, if you are only together because of the children, you notice that. Get some time off, some ‘couple time.’”
In the meantime, Pope Francis reminds the faithful that families in crisis are not alone:
“Let us pray that broken families might discover the cure for their wounds through forgiveness, rediscovering each other’s gifts, even in their differences.”
Adapted by Jacob Stein
