Catholica: Let no man put asunder

Yesterday was a momentous day in my life so much so that this morning I've slept in and have been rushing to get this bulletin out. It's been a sleep of deep peace and relief. The sort of sleep one has after some gruelling physical activity like taking part in a City-to-Surf Marathon.

My "marathon" has lasted since 1969 — a few weeks before humankind first "walked on the moon". Yesterday I finally received a letter from the Tribunal of the Catholic Church informing me that my petition for a declaration of nullity on my marriage in 1969 had been granted. The process still has one stage to go so it's not quite the end but receipt of the letter I received yesterday might be likened to the process in a civil court where one attends to hear the judgment. There might be further stages to go like a separate hearing for the awarding of costs or perhaps an appeal to a higher court, but the receipt of that initial judgment is always a tension-filled moment.

Interestingly this morning when I cast a quick glance down the forum to see what had been happening during my sleep I came across a moving post from Gail. Her penultimate paragraph stood out to me like the proverbial dog's what's its...

I do have this enormous sense of "freedom" this morning. But also a certain sadness.

Most of the older members of this community are already familiar with the broad circumstances of this tragedy that happened in my life. My marriage broke down irreconcilably early in 1992. It was a casualty in a much larger drama going on at the time involving my wider family. That wider tragedy is also totally unresolved — and in fact can now never be resolved this side of heaven (or wherever else) because many of the principals in the drama have already now passed to their eternal rewards. (For those interested, and it may be useful for a fuller understanding of this Tom's Take, you can find a brief overview of the drama in a post I've archived on my own site from the CathNews discussion board at: www.viastuas.net.au/Reflection/78166.html.)

Let me share with you firstly some of the deep sense of joy that has been my blessing in the last 24 hours...

Some of you are also aware that I met my fiancé through these discussion forums. This news I received yesterday helps "clear the way" for what might yet be the first wedding that owes its origin to CathNews!

On Saturday just gone my fiancé and I, together with her young niece went up to Jenolan Caves. We ended up getting a private tour of the Cathedral Cave where we are considering having our wedding. In recent weeks these caves, about one and a half hours further West from where I live, have been in the news. Recent carbon dating has shown they are 340 million years old. Two hundred and forty million years older than the Blue Mountains where I live. We both want to have our wedding at that location and it is truly awesome. The Cathedral Cave has been consecrated as a place for weddings and about a dozen a year are held there. The acoustics of the place are just out of this world largely because it is natural with no standing waves which we always tend to get in man-made structures such as concert halls and cathedrals. (That's the former acoustic engineer in me still speaking.) Joan Sutherland and a lot of other famous "stars" have sung in there. The floor space is actually pretty limited and it only holds about 75 total for a wedding. The only hesitation we have is access for the elderly, particularly my fiancé's mum. There are about 430 steps up and down to get into it and some are quite steep and one has to stoop. My fiancé told her Mum on the phone though and she's keen to give it a go. We've still got a while to think about it. Officially (i.e. under the Church "rules") we can't actually make any formal arrangements until the decision I received yesterday becomes "absolute".

What I'm really deeply joyful about is that my application has actually been granted "on the evidence". Before I made the application I took plenty of advice from others who had gone through the process and also from a couple of priest friends who are very knowledgeable about the canon law legal process. Their "advice" was basically in the form of "you just say this, and this and this and don't volunteer any extra information and that's the way to get an annulment with certainty". It's really quite cynical I thought and pretty much like how the secular legal process works.

In other words, if you want a certain result you only present certain evidence, and even exaggerate that evidence, to suit your case. And you definitely leave out any evidence that might harm your own case. After weighing everything up I chose to ignore all of that advice and played the whole thing with a straight bat simply endeavouring to "state the totality of the case" as honestly as I could. My argument in fact was that even though I was the petitioner I personally had no grounds for an annulment as at all times I honestly had believed there was nothing invalid in our marriage. Without seeking to blame, or hurt, my former wife I invited the court to examine though whether there were grounds from her side. Fortunately my former wife has been cooperative through the whole process and evidently jointly our arguments have fulfilled the criteria for a positive response to my petition.

I do know of one case personally where the petitioner was turned down because the respondent was uncooperative in the whole process. He was a really good person and the last time I heard of him he had been accepted into Holy Orders in a monastery. Anecdotally I've heard of other cases where the application has been declined and Barry (a member of our community here but presently on holidays somewhere in outback Oz) has certainly indicated that these decisions are not automatic. I have long had an appreciation that the Church Tribunals do endeavour to take their work seriously and I have long respected the integrity of this process.

I also carry with me a certain sadness. In fact, it is still a very deep sadness. Despite this annulment process there has been no reconciliation at the personal level with my former wife. I pray that at some stage she still might be able to talk with me again — even to be able to share the great joy we both continue to derive from our now adult children with whom we both have a very beautiful and deep relationship.

My sadness derives from this: somewhere in the good book it says: "what God has joined together let no man put asunder". I believe we did have "a marriage made in heaven". For most of our long married life of 24 years I am sure my wife also believed, and lived that. Our marriage was literally shattered in a few short months by "a man". It was shattered, you may not believe this, by the power of words. It was shattered by defamation. As a wordsmith I appreciate the power of words. They can actually pack "more kick" than the power of a nuclear explosion — or the power packed by a terrorist's bomb in a Bali Restaurant. That that one man, through his ill-chosen but highly destructive "opinions" could have shattered in so irreconcilable a way that bond that existed between my former wife and myself — and we had endured many tragedies including the death of some of our own children, my own infidelity, and enormous challenges in our personal and business life — continues to leave me simply gob-smacked.

Always be extremely careful with the words you use. They pack more power than what God uses to create the stars in the night sky.

The only photo I have of my complete "immediate" original family.
My brother Brendan (the bearded one on the right) has lived in Nova Scotia since 1970 and we were rarely all assembled in one place for a photograph.

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