I know this isn't a Catholic forum as such; however, the social issues surrounding marriage have today become so politicized that it hardly seems innapropriate to discuss all the nuances of marriage even from the peculiar perspectives of particular religions.

As many Catholics will know, the Church is preparing a council - a "Synod of the Family" - due to come together this October. It is well known that the issue of divorce and remarriage will be very much on the table. It is also well known that this is an issue wherein some fairly clear lines are being drawn up between conservatives and liberals, between rigorists and laxists.

For the conseratives and the rigorists, there is the understanding that marriage is instituted and regulated by God and not hy human power or agency once entered into. Consequently, they argue that the Church is bound or restricted in accomodating divorced and remarried persons, especially Catholics or, more specifically, those who are safely presumed to have entered into Holy Matrimony as such - that is, a sacramental marriage. Generally speaking, this is also applies to any union entered into by two baptized persons who are otherwise elligible for marriage.

I think the biggest and best issue pointed out by the more liberal side is the sense that in some cases it does seem odd that some souls find themselves in almost impossible situations to rectify apparent defects. Often these unions were entered into long ago during a period of virtual lapse, with only later a conversion occuring. Further, the Church's ordinarily rigorist view of marriage can easily and accidentally cause confusion insofar as those who were not batpized may presume that the ordinarily rigorist and disciplined Catholic view toward sacramental marriages applies equally to any and all marriages whatever. Of course, now that even gay unions are being called marriages, it is obvious that this isn't the case.

There is a sense that in some cases entering into a marriage seems almost to have injured the possibility of some toward salvation, which hardly seems conducive to Catholic thinking generally. Salvation comes first and while marriage is a fundamental reality it is still a temporal instiution in Christian belief. The Catholic belief is certainly that marriage is regulated and instituted by God. Moreover, we are right not to presume that God would, e.g., ever annul or otherwise invalidate a sacramental marriage so long as the spouses both live. However, not every marriage is sacramental, of course. Further, there is the question of priority between salvation of souls and the realization of the kingdom of God on earth on one hand and the moral and natural law as such on the other. Ordinarily and ideally, these two ought to go hand in hand; however, we do at times recognize a priority in God's will toward the salvation of souls, which can liberate people from otherwise ordinarily binding human customs and traditions, which are typically routed in nature or expressions of our nature and are therefor just and part of the moral and natural law.

Now I am not saying there is a contradiction and nor am I trying to draw anything like an opposition between God's law and natural law. Part of the Church's mission is to in fact effect a unity between the two which is part of the Church's mission of redemption and restoration, "But from the beginning it was not so" (Mt 19:8).

The distinction I think that needs to be considered is a difference between natural moral laws insofar as they concern truly and strictly temporal realities and the same as it touches upon things that will not "pass away." For example, while marriage we are taught is something that will pass away, we have no reason to believe -indeed, good reason to deny- that, e.g., our sex as such will; that is, that we will be male or female for all eternity (and here natural defects such as make for, e.g., hermaphrodites can expect a restoration of their proper nature though we should not presume, I think, to know what God will do for each soul in each case). Indeed, one might argue this distinction was the very reason for Moses' permitting divorce in the first place without offending God. This permission, however, must simultaneously be understood to have not been anything remotely like ideal but as the Lord himself says was done in consideration of the 'hardness of hearts.'  We must also never fail to forget that the restoration of the moral and natural law here, in conjunction with the divine, was done in view of the graces that were to now be dispensed. God was also going to be giving all the graces necessary for people to realize their vows in sacramental marriages; further, it acted as a real sign of God's redemption and restoration of man and also, as we well know, the insperable unity between God and His Church. In many marriages, even these latter signs (of restoration, redemption and the unity of God and His Church) are scarcely intelligible - even scandalous to that effect.