"Unhappily, you bring before me a question in which neither the least nor the greatest of the church--neither bishop nor pope--has the slightest discretionary power. The indissolubility of marriage is not a matter of church discipline; it is a law of divine institution. Christ’s own words bear no other meaning. ’What God hath joined together let not man put asunder.’ He declared that in restoring the indissolubility of marriage he only reëstablished what was from the beginning, though Moses because of Jewish hardness of heart had tolerated a temporary departure. No consent that I could give, Mr. Kimberly, to a marriage such as you purpose, would in the least alter its status. I am helpless to relieve either of you in contracting it.
"It is true that the church in guarding sacredly the marriage bond is jealous that it shall be a marriage bond that she undertakes to guard. If there should have been an impediment in this first marriage--but I hardly dare think of it, for the chances are very slender. A prohibited degree of kindred would nullify a marriage. There is nothing of this, I take it. If consent had clearly been lacking--we cannot hope for that. If her husband never had been baptized----"
"A Christian could not contract marriage with a pagan--such a union would be null."
"Would a good Catholic enter into such a union?"
Kimberly shook his head. "Then she would not. If she had been a disgrace to her religion she might have done it. If she had been a woman of less character, less intelligence it might be. If she had been a worse Catholic," he concluded with a tinge of bitterness, "she might stand better now."
"Better perhaps, as to present difficulties; worse as to that character which you have just paid tribute to; which makes, in part, her charm as a woman--the charm of any good woman to a good man. You cannot have and not have. When you surrender character a great deal goes with it."
The archbishop’s words sounded a knell to Kimberly’s hopes, and his manner as he spoke reflected the passing of his momentary encouragement. "There is nothing then that you can do."
"If there be no defect--if this first marriage was a valid marriage--I am powerless in the circumstances. I can do nothing to allow her to remarry while her husband lives."