Divorce and Marriage

When [Christ] here promulgated His new law, by which He revoked the power of giving a bill of divorce, and brought back marriage to its primeval institution and indissolubility. 2. Shortly afterwards He repeated the words in private to his disciples. (Mark 10:10, 11, 12.)…Except for fornication. That is, except on account of adultery. For what in those who are free is fornication, in the married is adultery. And this dissolves marriage quoad thorum [i.e. bed and board], though not quoad vinculum [i.e. the marriage bond]. For the adulterer does not keep the faith which he gave to his spouse. Whence he may be put away by his spouse, according to the saying, ‘With him who has broken troth, let troth be broken.

Lapide distinguishes between marital separation, which may be permitted in the case of adultery, and Old Testament divorce, which is never permitted. The translation of “porneia” as adultery is assumed to be correct since it refers to unchastity in general, and there is no reason to believe a Lapide or any of the authorities he cited considered “porneia” in a restricted or limited sense that only refers to consanguinity or similar impediments under a Rabbinic understanding.

The emphasis in the above interpretation of Matthew 19:9 was on the fact that although separation of bed and board (not dissolution of the marriage) was permissible in the case of adultery, it was never permissible to remarry—precisely because the marriage bond still existed.

This interpretation of Matthew 19:9 was always understood as the proper Catholic interpretation of this passage even up to modern times. According to Professor Fr. Dominic Prummer, O.P. (1866-1931), referring to Matthew 19:9:

The indissolubility of marriage was once more instituted by Christ, and therefore the valid marriage of Christians, consummated by the conjugal act, cannot be dissolved by any human authority for any reason (c. 1118). Neither can the following text from Scripture be urged as an objection: ‘He who puts away his wife, not for any unfaithfulness of hers, and so marries another, commits adultery’ (Mt. xix, 9). For God certainly allows a separation from the wife in the event of her unfaithfulness, as will be explained more fully below, but in those circumstances neither of the parties is permitted to contract a new marriage.

And yet, this interpretation flies in the face of the modernist Catholic interpretation of Matthew 19:9, which insists the exception clause was referring to situations that would cause the marriage to be invalid in the first place and no marriage at all. Under the traditional Catholic understanding, Matthew 19:9 assumes a valid marriage was contracted and, therefore, absolutely prohibits remarriage even after adultery occurs.

The Origins of the Modernist View

If one listens to most Catholic apologists today, including Catholic Answers and other popular online priests, the everyday Catholic will be exposed to the modernist view that considers the Matthew 19:9 exception as referring to annulments, and not the traditional Catholic view. So where did this popular, but erroneous, view come from?

It appears a major contributor to the modern interpretation was one Jesuit priest, Fr. Joseph Bonsirven, S.J. Fr. Bonsirven was considered a “pioneer” of a new “philo-Semite” theological movement within the Catholic Church at the height of the modernist crisis in the time of Pope St. Pius X.

Born in France in 1880, Bonsirven criticized traditional Biblical studies and admired modernist Biblical scholars Fr. Marie-Joseph Lagrange and Fr. Alfred Loisy. In 1910, his ideas were rejected by the Biblical Commission, leading to suspicions of modernism and he was banned from teaching by Roman authorities.

After World War I, he petitioned to resume teaching but faced scrutiny for his pro-Jewish approach, and was forbidden to publish by his own Jesuit superior. Despite these condemnations, Bonsirven made important contacts like neo-modernists Jacques Maritain and Fr. Henri de Lubac. He later returned to the Biblical Institute in Rome under Father Augustin Bea’s rectorship, who played a key role at Vatican II for the advancement of ecumenism. Bonsirven died in 1958.

This background sets the stage for understanding how Bonsirven could reach such a novel interpretation of Matthew 19:9—in contrast to the longstanding teaching of the Church.

While he never denied that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church and defended the Church against Protestant attacks, his love for both ancient and modern Judaism penetrated all his work, including his interpretation of the New Testament.

Bonsirven was rightly concerned about defending the Church’s teaching against the Protestants who claimed Matthew 19:9 permitted Christians to divorce if a spouse committed adultery. In his book Le divorce dans le Nouveau Testament (Divorce in the New Testament), Bonsirven examined what was considered “unchaste” (porneia) behavior in the Old Testament, concluding that it referred to sexual relations with close blood relatives (see Leviticus 18:6-18). Thus, as the thesis goes, adultery could not be used to excuse divorce because when Matthew used the Greek word “porneia” in the exception clause, he meant unlawful consanguinity. Matthew used the word “moicheia” in other contexts to denote adultery.

Bonsirven’s argument centers on the Greek word “porneia” mentioned in the exception clause of Matthew 19:9. He claims it refers to “unchaste” behaviors that occurred before or at the time the marriage was contracted. Such immoral actions included incest and other impediments that could nullify a marriage attempt. Therefore, while Christ did not permit divorce, the exception clause refers to marriages that were never valid, which necessarily must be a reference to what we call today annulments.

Comparing and Contrasting Traditional and Modernist Interpretations

The traditional Catholic interpretation agrees with the modernist view that Matthew 19:9 never permits divorce or dissolution of the marriage contract, even in cases of adultery. A validly contracted marriage is permanent.

However, under the long-standing Catholic interpretation, a spouse may “put away,” or separate bed and board without dissolving the marriage in cases of adultery or other unchaste behavior, if permitted to do so under the Church’s canon law. Authoritative teaching and theological opinion never considered Matthew 19:9 in the context of annulment, let alone as scriptural support for the modern annulment culture promoted in today’s post-Vatican II Church.

For example, the Catechism of the Council of Trent (Roman Catechism) states “To the wife, then, who for a just cause has left her husband, the Apostle offers this alternative: Let her either remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. Nor does holy Church permit husband and wife to separate without weighty reasons.”

Obviously, if she can relinquish her husband based on a “failed marriage” and then quickly get an annulment to “justify” her divorce from bed and board after the fact, then the Apostle’s “alternative” is false. In fact, the ubiquitous modernist interpretation of Mattthew 19:9 encourages divorce because if such concepts as “good of the spouses” are essential to validity just as prohibitions against consanguinity – then why would God want you to remain with someone you are “not married to?”

Under the Bonsirven modernist view, now widely promoted and incorporated into the New American Bible, Matthew 19:9 is governed by the Jewish understanding of unchastity under the Mosaic Law, which limits porneia or unchastity to relations with close blood relatives. Such an interpretation opens the door to conclude that Christ was speaking of Declarations of Nullity.  This theory simply ignores the Church Fathers, the Council of Trent, and authoritative Catholic Biblical scholars and theologians in favor of the ideas of one modernist Jesuit priest, whose ideas on Biblical interpretation were suppressed.

I, for one, choose to avoid novelty and stick to the Catholic interpretation handed down to us since the time of the Church Fathers.