Currently, "(the) new head of the [British] Supreme Court is pushing for no-fault divorce. We've gone from a situation where divorce was such a social issue that you couldn't remain monarch and be married to a divorced person, and now we're in a situation where the Supreme Court is pushing for no-fault divorce," he said. "So it's the complete collapse of marriage as we see in America and the rest of the West."
Royals marrying Catholics
Markle attended an all-girls Catholic school in L.A., prompting speculation that she may have been baptized as a Catholic, although she told Vanity Fair earlier this year that she was not raised as one.
Numerous British sources reported that Markle was brought up Protestant, and was baptized and confirmed in the Church of England before her wedding to Harry.
However, if she were a Catholic, this too would have been an obstacle to her marrying into the royal family until very recently. Opposition to Catholics ascending to the throne dates back to King Henry VIII, who broke from the Catholic Church in the 1500s in order to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry another, because he blamed Catherine for failing to produce a son who could succeed to the throne.
The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 allowed heirs to the throne to marry Catholics, among other changes. However, the law still stipulates that the acting British sovereign mustn't be a Catholic.
Catholics and the indissolubility of marriage
The Catholic Church teaches "that marriage is indissoluble, it is literally black and white," Bradley noted.
"It's a bond that cannot be broken, because God respects the promises that the husband and wife make to each other, and he does what's asked. He binds together these two people who are asking to be bound together, it's a respecting of the free will of the individuals," he added.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 1614, states that: "In his preaching Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning permission given by Moses to divorce one's wife was a concession to the hardness of hearts. The matrimonial union of man and woman is indissoluble: God himself has determined it 'what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.'"
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The Catholic Church recognizes as sacramental the marriages between two baptized persons of any Christian community, Bradley noted.
"If there are two baptized Anglicans marrying, the Catholic Church would recognize that as a sacramental marriage," he said, because the Catholic Church recognizes all Christian baptisms as valid.
"If both parties are baptized it's a sacramental marriage, and non-Catholics are not bound by canonical form, so they're quite at liberty to be married in the Church of England, and we recognize that they're being married according to the rights of their ecclesial communities."
However, if Markle's first-marriage were valid, she would not be free to validly marry Harry. An annulment, or declaration of nullity, of her first marriage, would establish that her previous marriage was invalid, Bradley said.
Condon noted that the Catholic Church also presumes the indissolubility of all marriages, whether those be marriages of Catholics, Christians, believers, or nonbelievers.
"The life-long partnership of one man and one woman is part of the natural law and God's plan for all humanity. The Church's presumption of validity pertains to all marriages, including Ms. Markle's," he said.