High in the catalogue of social pathologies afflicting marriage and the family in America stands our system of family law, the central purpose of which is to enforce no-fault divorce. In a letter to the Holy Father and the recent Extraordinary Synod on the Family, almost fifty international scholars and religious leaders joined us in urging the Church to consider the effects of no-fault divorce, along with other barriers to faithful, lifelong marriage.
State laws on divorce began to be implemented in the late 1960s, but today have been absorbed into the legal and cultural mainstream nationwide. The logic of no-fault divorce is that spouses should not be trapped in marriages that make them unhappy, or forced into the expense and psychological trauma of proving “fault” in divorce court. If one spouse wants out, the judge’s mandate is to manage the breakup of the family and to protect the interests of the children.
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