Boris Johnson in marrying as a "Catholic" has annulled his previous marriages and delegitimesed his children - these are the ethics of our current prime minister

[stumbledin]

On one level I dont care either way about this but thought it strange who could get married in a Catholic ceremony. But as ever our resourceful PM has "negotiated" a path that suits him - and insults his formes wives and their children. As someone on facebook said, this is how Etonians learn to rule the world! What an utter w*er!!

" ... Catholic canon law does not permit the marriage of a divorcee whose former spouse is still alive.

However, the church confirmed that as neither his six-year first marriage to Allegra Mostyn-Owen, nor his second 27-year marriage to Marina Wheeler were Catholic ceremonies they are not recognised in the eyes of the church.

... In order to marry in a Catholic church, Mr Johnson could have had his two previous marriages recognised as annulled.

(or) ... his previous marriages, for which he would have required special dispensation from the Catholic church, those marriages would have "had a lack of canonical form" and could therefore be considered invalid. ... "

Interestingly these comments are from a Telegraph article late yesterday www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/29/boris-wedding-did-prime-minister-marry-carrie-symonds-catholic/ which has now disappeared and been replaced with this much less questioning article www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/30/boris-johnson-carrie-symonds-catholic-church-wedding-married/

Wonder if some Telegraph Tory leaders got in touch and said dont be so mean!

As they say, one rule for the rich, one rule for the poor.

There are many more issues of course.

Racism and unjust treatment of immigrants would be near the top of any list of mine.

I can fish out more examples of statements and charity work on other issues which would probably be of concern to many.

Plus issues the RC church speaks about but gets heavily criticised for doing so.

@mathanxiety

“Catholic in patronising perfectly reasonable dissenter” shocker.

I used to attend Mass at a church; a society for young Catholics. Quite a lot of them came across as similarly arrogant. That was a precious crack in my faith, for sure. I just thought to myself: quite a lot of these people just don’t strike me as very nice.

Incidentally; thankfully, one can have a pro-life stance and be a staunch respecter of human dignity without being a Catholic.

*Do you want it to be all powerful or do you want it to be your personal lapdog?”

What an odd, slightly mad question. I’m gonna say - neither?

I am sorry to hear of your experiences of Catholics.

I'm also sorry to see you characterise posting of factual information as 'patronising'.

It’s the tone; not the information. Patronising and rude.

What is it there for? Like, really? What’s it there for?

My puzzling question which you highlighted was in response to yours ^^ in the context of your remark on the huge moral issues facing the UK.

"Do you want it to be all powerful or do you want it to be your personal lapdog?"

What do you want from it?

As to tone - what I post and what you see may well be two completely different things.

It’s the unbelievably misplaced “I’m so much cleverer than you are” attitude about all this. That is the tone of your posts. “It’s this way because I know all the doctrine and you people shouting about unfairness and injustice don’t understand because you’re ignorant and stupid.”

I don’t want anything from the Catholic Church at all. Not now, that I’ve left the faith for absolutely rock-solid logical reasons. Catholics can argue about Canon law all they like but, at root, the fact that someone like Johnson - a liar, an adulterer, a lazy, feckless man has been allowed to marry in the Church just consolidates for me how wrong-headed the whole edifice is.

You’re blithe assertion earlier, as though it’s just nothing of importance: “Of course, in many cases they get [the assessment] wrong.” Just skipping over this as though it doesn’t matter. It does matter because the institution and the people within it who make these decisions are making weighty decisions that have massive impacts on congregants’ lives.

*your

However this is despicable in a man who won’t discuss how many children he has.
How do we know that it was his choice whether he can answer that question? Perhaps it's for the privacy of the mother of one of those children. Maybe she's even got an injunction to ensure that privacy.

I post factual information. You can take it or leave it. I can't help you if you are seeing something that I didn't post. Your feelings are your responsibility.

I can't find the statement you take exception to as you have paraphrased it rather than quoting.

Catholics can argue about Canon law all they like but, at root, the fact that someone like Johnson - a liar, an adulterer, a lazy, feckless man has been allowed to marry in the Church just consolidates for me how wrong-headed the whole edifice is.

I think the element of forgiveness shouldn't be forgotten here. Also, when it's all boiled down, none of us knows anything about his conscience regarding his personal life.

I'm so pleased that other denominations/religions don't allow men who are lazy, feckless, liars or adulterers to marry according to their rites.

It saves women a lot of heartache.

@mathanxiety

I can't find the statement you take exception to as you have paraphrased it rather than quoting.

Here it is. The bit I’ve underlined is the bit that matters. It needs to get the assessment right every time (or at the very least most of the time) and right means applying rules consistently so other people don’t feel they’ve been refused marriages unjustly. There are plenty of examples of people who’ve been married before in other denominations, who’ve been refused the sacrament of marriage in a Catholic Church. The Church is claiming correct and consistent application of Canon law in every case and that simply is not so.

However, the RC church doesn't just marry everyone who rocks up to a church, hires a florist, and pays a fee to the organist. It insists on assessing readiness for marriage of all Catholics. It often gets the assessment wrong of course.

Thanks - I've provided the full quote.

What exactly is your problem with this?

The vast majority of Catholics who do marriage prep ago ahead and get married in the church. Quite often (more in some countries than others, depending on culture and other factors) marriages break down.

The RC church doesn't possess a crystal ball. In the end marriage is created by human beings equipped with the full range of human strengths and frailties. The church assumes all marriages are valid until proven otherwise.

There is the annulment process for that, but that's not good enough either, it seems.

The bit you underlined makes no sense unless attached to the paragraph it came with originally.

There are plenty of examples of people who’ve been married before in other denominations, who’ve been refused the sacrament of marriage in a Catholic Church. The Church is claiming correct and consistent application of Canon law in every case and that simply is not so.

You can't make wide ranging allegations like that without providing extensive documentation of all the multitudes of cases where you think decisions are made on the flip of a coin, or whatever.

Anecdotes are not convincing as evidence either. People get details wrong or misunderstand the legal details. That's not patronising. It's a fact. Matrimonial tribunals operate according to strict rules and their decisions are scrutinised in several processes of verification. Just as in civil law, there are many points of law not clear to the layperson (which is why we hire solicitors and barristers, and why there are judges) and the same goes for Canon Law.

(Also, what I was talking about in that paragraph was the process in which Catholics get married in the church for the first time.)

I provided the full quote, actually.

what exactly is your problem with this?

I’ve clearly explained my problem with this in my previous posts.

The church assumes all marriages are valid unless proven otherwise

So - hang on - Catholic canon lawyers suspect that the Church decided his marriage to Marina Wheeler wasn’t valid because it didn’t take place in a Catholic Church; that’s not right? Johnson had to actually argue it wasn’t valid? I mean, OBVIOUSLY the Church hasn’t actually explained itself, despite the outcry, so everyone’s just going on suspicion here.

I’ve written to the Cardinal about the matter and, true to form, got a really rather patronising and rude response from their Comms person, who didn’t even bother to put a salutation in her email.

As to this thread - I’m out. As usual with devout Catholics, it’s like arguing with a brick wall.

You paraphrased one sentence from a paragraph, and the sentence you underlined and claimed to be the important bit after I asked for the reference made no sense without the rest of the paragraph.

So - hang on - Catholic canon lawyers suspect that the Church decided his marriage to Marina Wheeler wasn’t valid because it didn’t take place in a Catholic Church; that’s not right?

No, that's not right.
It wasn't valid because Boris Johnson, a Catholic, who is responsible to be fully informed of the rules of his religion, decided not to look up the rules, or to ignore or break the rules, and marry outside the church without getting permission to do so. Thus demonstrating lack of interest, knowledge, and understanding of sacramental marriage.

Johnson had to actually argue it wasn’t valid? I mean, OBVIOUSLY the Church hasn’t actually explained itself, despite the outcry, so everyone’s just going on suspicion here.
No, he didn't have to argue it wasn't valid.
He married outside of the church without any reference to the RC church, of which he is a member. That's enough to demonstrate that he had no understanding of what he was doing.

You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick on many points of fact here.

Explanations tend to be characterised as 'partonising'.

This makes explaining difficult.

*'patronising'

I know I said I was out, but we've gone down a rabbit hole of the illogical technicalities of the Catholic Church's rules here. Accepted - I seem to have got it wrong on those technicalities. However, let's not forget, we're all actually guessing about what has gone on in terms of compliance with these fairly subtle and technically complicated rules because, as I say, the Church is so arrogant it seems to expect us all to be well-versed on them without having to explain itself, which patently is not the case, as demonstrated by these letters (just a small sample of a much larger selection).

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/01/mystified-by-catholic-churchs-blessing-for-boris-johnsons-wedding

I definitely do not want to be associated with a Church whose decisions have results like the one we saw on Saturday. I liken the Church's application of those rules to local councils' planning rules; impenetrable and often misapplied.

However, it seems, according to more mad rules, I might never be able to leave, following Omnium in Mentem.

www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/canon-law-means-you-can-check-out-but-you-can-never-leave-catholic-church-1.4580343

However, there's probably some complicated side-rule I've missed in that as well, so I live in hope.

Matrimonial tribunals operate according to strict rules and their decisions are scrutinised in several processes of verification. Just as in civil law, there are many points of law not clear to the layperson (which is why we hire solicitors and barristers, and why there are judges) and the same goes for Canon Law.

Really? Is that why we have lawyers and judges? I didn't know that!

By the way, you should be careful about using a term like "civil law" when actually, you probably should more accurately use the term "state law", to avoid confusion. The laws of jurisdictions tend to be formed from either civil or common law traditions - both of which are state law (if we're going to really drill down into technicalities). In civil law systems, emphasis is on legislation as the primary source of law, whereas in common law systems, judges play a more active role by establishing legal precedents.

(I'm a solicitor).

It wasn't valid because Boris Johnson, a Catholic, who is responsible to be fully informed of the rules of his religion, decided not to look up the rules, or to ignore or break the rules, and marry outside the church without getting permission to do so. Thus demonstrating lack of interest, knowledge, and understanding of sacramental marriage.

So - to cut to the conclusion: a man who demonstrably doesn't care about Catholicism (his own religion) enough to know its rules is welcomed into the Church to get married there.

Bonkers.

I liken the Church's application of those rules to local councils' planning rules; impenetrable and often misapplied.

Without wanting to go down the rabbit hole of local planning rules, there will be situations where if the correct boxes are ticked the council would have little option but to accept an application, even though that seems unfair.

You might think the Church rules are unfair, (and in this instance it’s easy to understand why many are upset) but if there are no grounds to refuse to marry a couple what are the church supposed to do?

So - to cut to the conclusion: a man who demonstrably doesn't care about Catholicism (his own religion) enough to know its rules is welcomed into the Church to get married there.

But as a solicitor you must come across situations like this all the time? The law has to be followed even when it creates situations that seem unfair.