Cleveland, Ohio, Aug 3, 2005 / 22:00 pm
An Ohio woman filed an appeal this week with a local divorce court in the latest phase of what she sees as a crusade to reform civil and church divorce laws in the U.S.
Marie ‘Bai’ Macfarlane, wife of a prominent Catholic author, who left her and her 4 children in 2003 and began no-fault divorce proceedings, thinks that civil divorce laws fail to take into account the agreement that Catholic parties make before God and the Church in marriage.
She also argues that many diocesan policies seem to favor marital abandonment and easy annulments. These, she says hurt spouses who may not want the divorce and help to tear apart families.
Macfarlane said in a recent interview for GodSpy.com that, “No-fault divorce makes people think that a marriage just ‘breaks.’ It makes people think they have no responsibility for repairing or working on their marriage. It's the idea that if you decide that your marriage isn't working, or if it's not giving you the satisfaction you expected, it's the normal thing—it's almost the brave or heroic thing—to move along. You can just try again with somebody else.”