June has been considered the traditional month for marriages as far back as ancient Rome. It’s also a banner month in the Catholic Church calendar for celebrating martyrs for marriage.
On June 22, the Church celebrated the feast days of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher; on June 24, it commemorated the birthday of St. John the Baptist.
Respect for marriage has plummeted, however, with few Catholics speaking out about the one law that has done more to harm marriage in America than any other for more than five decades: no-fault divorce.
It wasn’t always this way. Until 2010, the influence of the Catholic Church in New York was so strong that legislators couldn’t obtain sufficient votes to enact the law. But the Church lost its foothold. The bill passed both chambers of the state legislature (albeit the Senate narrowly) and was signed into law by Gov. David Paterson.
Gov. Ronald Reagan had signed the first no-fault divorce bill in California in 1969. By 1985, every state except New York had followed suit. In all but two states, the laws are unilateral — one spouse can divorce the other merely by claiming, without proof, that the marriage is irretrievably broken or irreconcilable. The defendant spouse is not permitted to contest this assertion. (Only Mississippi and South Dakota require joint decisions.) In my home state of Georgia, divorces can be granted in as few as 30 days, no matter the length of the marriage or whether there are children or not.
These laws clearly violate the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment by depriving defendants of their day in court and all the protections that come with it. Before no-fault was enacted, divorce actions required cause — such as adultery, cruelty or abandonment — just like any other lawsuit.
Despite all of that, research demonstrates that marriage is the gold standard when it comes to the well-being of spouses and children.
For more than five decades, these laws have wreaked havoc on the lives of tens of millions of American families, producing enormous emotional, physical and financial suffering. This includes higher rates of poverty, suicide and depression, for example. Children of divorce also endure higher rates of alcohol and substance abuse, incarceration, teen pregnancy, juvenile delinquency and more. These heartbreaking facts are well-documented by years of social-science research and academic studies. And the empirical evidence has been acknowledged by our nation’s bishops.
Today, the marriage rate is at its lowest point in recorded history, while cohabitation, single-parent households and out-of-wedlock childbirth have been rising.
Divorce rates skyrocketed after enactment of no-fault divorce. According to a recent poll, polygamous relationships in America have increased from 5% to 25% in only a decade.
By their very nature, no-fault divorce laws violate Scripture and Catholic doctrine, explicated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Marriage is a sacrament, established by the Creator himself, integral and foundational to his plan, with the well-being of human and Christian society “bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life.” Marriage is not only unequivocally indissoluble, but is a mirror “image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man.”
Marriage is a contract, too. And as with any contract, Paragraph 1662 recognizes that mutual consent is a mandatory element. Unilateral no-fault divorce laws vitiate the essential element of mutual consent where it has already been given and sealed in holy matrimony. This applies even where there has been no violation of the marital contract, allowing divorce for any reason whatsoever. Yet, tribunals require civil divorce as a prerequisite to filing an annulment petition.
Moreover, family-court judges are required by law to endorse only one spouse’s opinion that there is no hope for the marriage. But Christians are people of hope. During 2025, Catholics are celebrating the Jubilee of Hope. We probably all know couples who have reconciled, but research also confirms this unequivocal fact.
Throughout his tenure, Pope Francis reiterated the grave problem of the disintegration of the family. At the start of his papacy, he reminded bishops, “The family is the fundamental cell of society,” remarking that “marriage and the family are in crisis.”
Twelve years later, he ended his papacy with the same focus. His prayer intention for March 2025 called for prayers for families in crisis.
Among his final acts, he recognized the martyrdom of five Franciscan friars murdered in 1597 in missions along the Georgia coast. A local, baptized Guale leader, in line to become chief, requested permission to take a second wife. When denied permission, the friars were clubbed to death for defending the indissolubility of marriage and are the first American martyrs for marriage. In 2026, they will be officially beatified in the Diocese of Savannah.
Less than a month into his papacy, during a June 1 homily in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV quoted from Humanae Vitae, acknowledging that the marital love between a man and a woman renders them “one flesh … in the image of God,” adding that “families are the cradle of the future of humanity.” Speaking about couples who had been beatified and canonized, he said: “By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies.”
These forces are strong and ever-present in the U.S., with none so pernicious as no-fault divorce.
Less than two weeks after his June 1 homily, Pope Leo XIV announced the canonization date for Papua New Guinea’s first saint, Peter To Rot, who died defending Christian marriage against attempts by the Japanese during World War II to revive the practice of polygamy.
Despite clear messages from our popes, Catholics have become followers instead of leaders when it comes to defending the institution of marriage in our culture. Marriage and annulment statistics in the Church track the culture. In 1969, there were more than 426,000 U.S. Catholic weddings. Today, those numbers have dwindled to under 100,000. The annulment crisis within the Church is well-documented.
In 1968, U.S. annulments totaled fewer than 350; by 1988, they had risen to 70,000. Although the numbers have declined recently, they remain high and have decreased in conjunction with the number of Catholic marriages. In some dioceses, nearly all formal annulment cases result in a declaration of nullity.
Nearly a year after a historic retreat in Atlanta for those standing for their marriages, no other diocese has scheduled a similar retreat. Neither is divorce reform anywhere on the roster of issues being addressed by Catholic organizations.
Catholics can only help restore God’s plan for humankind by helping to restore healthy marriage in our culture. Indeed, as Catholics, we are the natural guardians of marriage.
The U.S. Church has officially closed out its three-year Eucharistic Revival. Why not a revival for marriage, kicking off in June 2026 to coincide with the feast days of Sts. Thomas More, John Fisher and John the Baptist and the 2026 beatification of the Georgia Martyrs?
When we show our country and the world the beauty of marriage, we will also show them God.