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 Defending Families Against Forced No-Fault Divorce
Unhappiness is no Excuse. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. Acceptable Reasons to quit living together Canon 1153.

President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in the Roman Curia recommends a resource which specifies acceptable reasons for spouses to stop living together.  Whenever a couple is divorced they've stopped living together while the marriage bond still remains.  Divorced couples are truly still married (since they contracted to be married till death) but the civil system no longer recognizes them as having the status of married people.

Blameless, unhappy situations not only fail to constitute reason for suspension of the right and obligation to common life in its sense of solidarity and of sharing, but they also represent cases in which one of the ends of marriage, mutual assistance, must manifest itself in all its width and depth. It is not is the hands of the spouse nor in the power of human judges to suspend an obligation of natural law which has been imposed not only for favorable times, but also for the difficult and painful circumstances of life, when help is most needed from the person who is of the same flesh as the one suffering the misfortune ("[...] to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health [...]" Rite of Marriage 25).  (Full excerpts below) (Code of Canon Law Annotated, Midwest Theological Forum, page 897 ISBN 1-890177-44-X)
According to the above statement, blameless, unhappy situations, such as those described in civil no-fault divorce, are NOT an acceptable reason for separation.

Canon law is written in Latin.  English translations with commentary are available.  In June 2004, the Midwest Theological Forum published an English edition of the “Code of Canon Law Annotated."  His Eminence Julian Cardinal Herranz, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in the Roman Curia, commented about this text: “I know of no other single resource that offers an up-to-date compilation of the complementary norms that have been promulgated by English language Episcopal Conferences." (See quote in context)

The Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts is one of the departments of the Roman Curia.  In exercising supreme, full, and immediate power in the universal Church, the Pope makes use of the departments of the Roman Curia which, therefore, perform their duties in his name and with his authority for the good of the churches and in the service of the sacred pastors. (More Roman Curia)

Excerpts from the Code of Canon Law Annotated, recommended by Cardinal Herranz.
The code is indented and in bold.  The annotations are in plain text.  Latin original text is not show on this webpage, though it was contained in the Code of Canon Law Annotated.  To read an approved English translation of the law itself visit Intra-Text

Title page

UNIVERSITY OF NAVARRA        SAINT PAUL UNIVERSITY
 Faculty of Canon Law                Faculty of Canon Law

CODE
OF CANON LAW
ANNOTATED
prepared under the responsibility of the
Instituto Martin de Azpilcueta
edition by
Ernest CAPARROS, Michel THERIAULT (+), JEAN THORN (+)

Second edition revised and updated
of the 6th Spanish language edition

edited by
Ernest CAPARROS, Helene AUBE
assisted by
Juan Ignacio ARRIETA, Michael A. HACK
Jerome L. JUNG, David MOTIUK
 

Wilson & Latleur Limitee    Midwest Theological Forum
Montreal      Woodridge [IL]
2004

______________________________________________

Page 894
Article 2
Separation While the Bond Remains

Can. 1151 ---- Spouses have the obligation and the right to maintain their common conjugal life, unless a lawful reason excuses them.

    Art. 2 - Separation While the Bond Remains
Separation consists in the suspension of conjugal rights and obligations, although the bond remains. It is an undesirable situation, but it may constitute a remedy for circumstances that are extremely harmful for the spouses or their offspring.
    1151 -- "Convictus" (from convivo) means "life in company," cohabitation; CIC/83, . therefore, is of the same opinion as the C1C/17: it begins the canons on separation with a declaration of the duty of the spouses to live together. It substitutes the expression : "convictus" for that of "vitae coniugalis communionem" (c. 1128 of the CIC/17), so that there might be no confusion with the conjugal bond which, in accordance with the terminology of Vatican II (GS 48), is described as "communitas vitae et amoris."
     Separation does not only involve suspension of common life and of the duty of the spouses to live together, but also entails the suspension of conjugal rights and obligations in general, with the exception of certain aspects; however, the most typical element, and that in which the state of marriage is most clearly shown as separation, is the suspension of common life and conjugal cohabitation.
     What are the just reasons for separation? In marriage, apart from the conjugal rights and obligations in the strict sense, there arc principles that regulate married life, that is, general guidelines for the behavior of the spouses. There are five such principles:
 
   Page 895


 1) The spouses must remain faithful;
2) They must strive after mutual materiel or bodily perfection;
3) They must strive after mutual spiritual perfection;
4) The spouses must live together,
5) They must strive after the material and spiritual good of their offspring.
     Reasons for separation, therefore, are those actions that seriously damage any of these principles. Consequently, the reasons for separation may be reduced to these four headings: adultery, grave bodily harm to the spouse or children, grave spiritual harm to the spouse or children, desertion.

Can. 1152 [concerns adultery]
                                                                                                                                              Page 896


 Can. 1153 --- § 1. A spouse who occasions grave danger of soul or body to the other or to the children, or otherwise makes the common life unduly difficult, provides the other spouse with a lawful reason to leave, either by a decree of the local Ordinary or, if there is danger in delay, even on his or her own authority.
§ 2. In all cases, when the reason for separation ceases, the common conjugal life is to be restored unless otherwise provided by ecclesiastical authority

          1153 -- This canon contains the reasons for temporary separation, that is separation which lasts as long as the reason for it endures. Canon 1131 of the CIC/17 [see Note below] specified these reasons; in contrast, the present law establishes generic types.
          It has bean widely discussed in recent years whether it is sufficient that the reasons for separation constitute a danger, or whether it is necessary that this danger should be of culpable origin, as prescribed in common doctrine. A distinction should be made between separation, which suspends conjugal rights and obligations, and the fact that the spouses no longer live together.  Indeed, blameless danger is sufficient for there to be no obligation to cohabit; more so, there can be an obligation to not cohabit; e.g.,  in cases of very contagious grave illnesses, aggressive insanity, etc. Nevertheless, the fact that the spouses do not live together is not equal to de iure separation, i.e., a suspension of conjugal rights and obligations. Blameless, unhappy situations not only fail to constitute reason for suspension of the right and obligation to common life in its sense of solidarity and of sharing, but they also represent cases in which one of the ends of marriage, mutual assistance, must manifest itself in all its width and depth. It is not is the hands of the spouse nor in the power of human judges to suspend an obligation of natural law which has been imposed not only for favorable times, but also for the difficult and painful circumstances of life, when help is most needed from the person who is of the same flesh as the one suffering the misfortune ("[...] to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health [...]" Rite of Marriage 25).
          In order for the separation to be juridically effective and thus suspend conjugal rights and obligations as well as the objective of mutual assistance, the situations opposed to conjugal life must be culpable, because only guilt breaks the obligation of the other party and one's own right. Of course, the spouse who is the cause of the problem refuses without good reason to cease cohabiting; his or her conduct is in itself a form of culpability.

[Mary's Advocates' Note]
The 1917 Codes provided a more explicit list of legitima causa in Canon 1131§1. Though not enumerated explicitly in the 1983 Codex, canonical discipline continues to refer to this list as the legitimate reasons for a party to separate. Causes listed in the 1917 Codes are:

(1)  The other party joins a heretical sect;
(2)  The other party educates the children as non-Catholics;
(3)  The other party leads a criminal and despicable life;
(4)  The other party threatens great bodily harm to the one separating;
(5)  The other party threatens great spiritual harm to the one separating;
(6)  The other party uses cruelties or other means to make conjugal life excessively difficult (nimis difficilem).

The basic premise of law as enumerated in the 1983 Code of Canon Law is that legitima causa exists if a real and imminent threat of bodily or spiritual harm to the innocent party or to children exists. In an interesting case adjudicated by the Roman Rota (30 June 1928), the Apostolic Tribunal declared that NO separation was granted though the woman allegedly bore the man a “deadly hatred.” The evidence proved the presence of “constant” quarrels, disagreements, and even the use of extremely vile language, but it did not prove that this posed a real and imminent threat of bodily or spiritual harm.