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TRANSCRIPT:
Episode no. 431
March 30, 2001
BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Coming up, how the Catholic Church declares a marriage null and void.
FATHER PATRICK LAGGES (Archdiocese of Chicago): Were there factors present at the beginning, from the time that these people entered into this relationship, that kept that relationship from becoming what the church means by marriage?
ABERNETHY: And a controversial program for losing weight, with the help of God.
MS. GWEN SHAMBLIN: It's teaching you how to transfer this relationship with the food, and we've got one in this country, to a relationship with God.
ABERNETHY: Welcome. I'm Bob Abernethy. It's good to have you with us.
ABERNETHY: On Capitol Hill this week, tough ethical questions about whether scientists should be allowed to move forward with efforts to clone human beings.
DR. PANOS MICHAEL ZAVOS (University of Kentucky): This is a human right and should not be taken away from people because someone or a group of people have doubts about its development.
ABERNETHY: But scientists opposed to cloning warned of the enormous ethical problems and scientific risks involved, including massive deformities and death.
DR. RUDOLF JAENISCH (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): The conclusion is from a scientific point of view. It is inappropriate and irresponsible to attempt cloning at this point.
ABERNETHY: Several members of Congress are pushing for fast-track legislation that would ban all research into human cloning for reproductive purposes. President Bush has promised to support such a bill.
ABERNETHY: Mixed news this week on the Christian Unity front. The Southern Baptist Convention decided to end 30 years of theological dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church.
Said one Baptist official, "We're not ecumenists, we're Evangelicals committed to sharing the gospel." Meanwhile, Pope Paul John II urged Catholics to work harder to end the inroads Protestants are making among Catholic believers. However, this week, John Paul did welcome leaders of the Presbyterian Church USA as part of an effort to expand ecumenical dialogue.
ABERNETHY: More support for faith-based social services. This time, from one of the nation's largest foundations. At Washington's National Cathedral, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced plans to extend its "Faith in Action" program by giving a total of $100 million in grants to 3,000 local faith-based services. The money will support health care programs for the elderly, the chronically ill and the disabled.
ABERNETHY: Fallout over former President Clinton's pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich continues to provoke controversy in the Jewish community. This week, the American Jewish Congress revealed that Rich's representatives told the group, if its leaders would support the pardon, the group would receive a donation from MR. Rich. They turned down the offer. Several prominent Jewish leaders did urge Clinton to pardon Rich. Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defimation League, and one of those who did, say he now regrets it. But he insisted his support was not influenced by Rich's donations to the ADL.
ABERNETHY: Overseas in Afghanistan this week, foreigners were finally allowed a look at the Taliban's destruction of two ancient mountainside statues of the Buddha. Just last month, this was the world's tallest-standing Buddha statue, dating back to the fifth century. The Taleban movement launched a campaign to destroy all statues in the country except those sacred to Hindu and Sikh minorities, saying the images violate the precepts of Islam. This week, a Buddhist group said it would build a replica of one of the destroyed mountainside statues in Sri Lanka.
ABERNETHY: On our persecution watch, two new incidents in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. A group of visiting U.S. Pentacostal pastors was attacked by a mob, and religious books owned by local Jehovah's Witnesses were burned in a public market. Earlier this month, the mob disrupted a Jehovah's Witness Bible study there, beating several of the members and burning religious literature. Local human rights leaders say the attacks are being instigated by a defrocked Orthodox priest who wants to drive minority religions out of Georgia. The Minority groups say Georgia's government is doing nothing to stop the attacks.
ABERNETHY: Now, this week's cover story, marriage annulment. The Catholic Church has always seen marriage as a permanent bond. Catholics who get divorced cannot be remarried in the church. But in the 1970s, the Vatican made a change. It did not modify its position on divorce, but it did enable more and more divorced Catholics to have their previous marriage annulled. In the 1960s, there were only a few hundred annulments granted in the U.S. each year, but by the mid-'90s, there were more than 40,000 a year. Judy Valente reports from Chicago on the complexity and consequences of annulment. For some it brings healing, for others, pain.
JUDY VALENTE: The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a sacrament, a vocation to holiness, a means of grace in which two people share a love that reflects God's love for the church, that it is a permanent union between a man and a woman.
Unidentified Priest: What God has joined, no one must ever divide.
VALENTE: In reality, Catholics get divorced at about the same rate as everyone else, and half of those, like this man, remarry. Until the mid-'70s, a person who did that would have been expelled from the church. After the second Vatican counsel, in the 1960s, the Vatican made it easier for divorced Catholics to stay in the church, even if they remarried. They did so by more readily granting what are called declarations of nullity, annulments.
FATHER PATRICK LAGGES (Archdiocese of Chicago): Divorce says that this marriage has ended. What the annulment looks at is were there factors present at the beginning, from the time that these people entered into this relationship, that kept that relationship from becoming what the church means by marriage.
VALENTE: Traditionally, the Church has told couples that if they say their vows and consummate the marriage it is valid, and cannot be dissolved. But after Vatican II, the church took another look at the institution and concluded that the intimate partnership between spouses is a crucial and basic dimension of marriage.
FATHER LAGGES: We look at how well they were able to form that intimate partnership of life, or were there things that prevented them from being able to do that? Things like severe personality disorders, addictive disorders, severe immaturity.
VALENTE: In the annulment process, the Church tribunal is asked, "Did both parties have sufficient use of reason to consent to the marriage? When they said their vows, did they understand the lifelong commitment they were making? Did both have the personal capacity to fulfill that consent?"
ELISE RADTKE (Family Ministries, Archdiocese of Chicago): All of us got married with the full intention of being married for forever, but somehow, it doesn't happen.
VALENTE: Because divorce has become easier in this country, there are now more divorced Catholics. And with annulments easier to get, there are more Catholics, like these, who want them.
MS. JEANNE NOVAK: It's like wiping the slate clean, really. Making it right.
VALENTE: For some, it's hard to believe they can get an annulment.
MS. MICHELLE DOYLE: OK, I'm divorced, but I don't have the right to remarry. You know, God -- I can't get passed that -- you know -- it would be adultery.
VALENTE: Do you think Catholics are confused about the annulment process?
MR. BOB CASSIDY: I don't think they're confused. They're just misinformed.
VALENTE: Annulment does not deny the existence of the previous relationship. It does not make the children of that union illegitimate. Nor does it affect alimony, child support, property rights or other matters resolved in civil court.
MS. RADTKE: Your heart's going to hurt. This is hard stuff to go back and look at.
VALENTE: Initially, the petitioners fill out brief questionnaires, then the hard part begins.
FATHER PETER CHAVITZ (Chicago Marriage Tribunal): When you get the large questionnaire, usually most people go "Oh, my God!" So let's practice. "Oh my God!"
VALENTE: It is 10 pages of questions about the personal and family histories of both husband and wife.
(to Father Lagges): Let's look at some of the questions. "Describe your childhood memories, emotional or adjustment problems. Describe any sexually-related problems you've had. Describe your attitude towards sex, sexual tendencies." These are not easy things for people to answer.
FATHER LAGGES: Mainly what we're looking at is for people to tell their story. Not necessarily go into each and every one of these questions in -- sort of as a history test.
VALENTE: But many people are getting annulments who don't have that history of abuse or alcoholism or narcissism.
FATHER LAGGES: I think if you looked at our cases, you might have a different opinion of that.
VALENTE: Most petitions for annulment are successful, but the vast majority of Catholics don't bother getting one because of misconceptions, fear, and the length of the process.
Yet the church can barely keep up with the case loads it has.
(to Father Lagges): How many cases do you personally handle a year?
FATHER LAGGES: Each judge on a tribunal would handle about 150 to 200 cases per year.
VALENTE: Father Pat Lagges is one of eight full-time judges in the tribunal of the Chicago Archdiocese. Some are priests, others are laypersons, including women. There are no courtrooms, just offices like this where the cases are heard via correspondents.
FATHER LAGGES: It costs the Archdiocese about $850. We asked the petitioner to assume as much of that as they can.
VALENTE: All the judges are versed in the canon law of the church. The decision takes about 18 months.
(to Father Lagges): There's a lot in there.
FATHER LAGGES: People's lives are pretty complicated and they -- when they tell their story, their story is always going to be complex.
VALENTE (to Carol Lenz): You wrote quite a bit on seeing ...?
MS. CAROL LENZ: Yes, well I've got an old computer so it's sort of like a toilet paper roll here where it just kind of goes on and on, but ...
VALENTE: John and Carol Lenz had been in marriages of 25 and 18 years, respectably. Each had the previous marriage annulled after they had met, but long before they decided to marry.
MR. JOHN LENZ: I spent long months of nights going through this, taking a look at it, rereading it and trying to really understand and come to grips with the nature of these questions.
VALENTE: The petitioner must also get the testimony of friends, family or colleagues, witnesses to the marriage.
FATHER LAGGES: People who saw what that relationship looked like, and so then those witnesses are also asked to describe the relationship between the parties and what they know about the family backgrounds of each party.
VALENTE: Like divorce, the annulment process can generate pain and bitterness. Jan Leary, who lives near Boston, runs a support group for what are called "respondents," people whose former spouses annulled their marriages. She reads from some of their letters.
MS. JANICE LEARY (Save Our Sacrament): "My two daughters, ages 22 and 18, are questioning the fact that if the marriage should have never taken place, are they a product of a marriage that makes them a mistake? In his annulment petition, he now states it was always a non-marriage. Apparently, I, as a bride, had mental reservations, but he only remembers this after 30 years of our life together. By annulling his first marriage, my father may have erased the marriage, but he also erased all the great moments and experiences along with 'his mistake.'"
VALENTE: Neither John nor Carol Lenz had wanted divorce, but once their marriages ended, they sought annulments because they wanted to start over as far as the church was concerned.
MS. LENZ: To walk into court and five minutes later, you're divorced after being married for 18 years, it's kind of almost like shell-shock. You leave and you think, "How could something that went on for so long be over so quickly?" I felt I needed to do this for closure.
MR. LENZ: The annulment was a very healing process for me. It was all the things you wish you could have said in the civil process, but you know you're never going to in a court of law. So in my journey through this, it was very, very healing.
MS. LEARY: The word is that the annulment process is a very healing process. Well, fine. The petitioner has what the petitioner is out to get. The annulment process is devastating to the respondent.
VALENTE: Leary, who had three daughters from a 25-year marriage, says her ex-husband's efforts to get an annulment were more traumatic for her and her children than the divorce, especially the calling of witnesses to testify about the marriage.
MS. LEARY: I was devastated because friends who I considered very close, worked for my husband. He had them in his pocket and they turned against the marriage.
FATHER LAGGES: Everybody has a right to question whether a marriage was valid or not, and so the tribunal simply exists to help them to understand that.
VALENTE: Do you think this is a healing process?
FATHER LAGGES: For some people, yes. For other people, no.
MR. LENZ: It makes you better prepared to move forward and I think -- I call this the rebirth. Divorce is an end, this is a rebirth.
MS. LENZ: Some people -- sometimes they rush into this for either because they're in a big hurry to get married again, which is a huge mistake, or because they want some kind of vindication, and that's not what this is about. This is about you and helping you move on with your life.
MS. LEARY: The problem is, the Catholic Church's stance on divorce is, it's not allowed. And so, once you're married, you're always married, and the only way to get around this is to say, well, you were never married in the first place.
VALENTE: Leary calls the annulment process hurtful to spouses and children and hypocritical, nothing more than Catholic divorce. She appealed her ex-husband's annulment petition to the Vatican. Many such appeals are successful, but the appellant had better be prepared to wait.
MS. LEARY: The annulment process has stopped. In other words, I still have my sacrament, that they will investigate. Now that was 1997. I have not heard one word from them since.
Unidentified Man: Welcome to pre-Cana II. It's intended for couples who have been married before.
VALENTE: There are now six million divorced Catholics in this country. Many drift away from the church, alienated by the divorce laws or intimidated by the annulment process.
For those who get annulments and plan to remarry in the church, the message is the same as it was the first time.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The love of a man and a woman is made holy in the sacrament of marriage and it becomes a mirror of your everlasting love.
VALENTE: A love that may indeed seem everlasting as the vows are exchanged before a priest. And yet other couples, who once did the same thing, were later judged to have had a relationship, but not in the eyes of the church, a marriage. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is Judy Valente in Chicago.
ABERNETHY: The United States has 6 percent of the world's Catholic population, but three-fourths of all annulments are granted here.
ABERNETHY: Weight loss programs are about looking good and feeling good. There's also a weight loss program that claims people who hunger for food are really hungering for a better spiritual life, and it's caught on, but the diet and its champion have also generated controversy over the diet itself and the theology behind it. Lucky Severson reports.
LUCKY SEVERSON: She doesn't fit the mold of a gung-ho corporate executive or a wealthy entrepreneur or a preacher, diet guru, or best-selling author. But Gwen Shamblin is all of the above, and here's the best part.
MS. GWEN SHAMBLIN: I definitely, you know, look for the saltiest chip in here.
SEVERSON: Her diet called "Weigh Down" lets you eat anything your heart desires. She has a master's degree in nutrition and was frustrated by the lack of success with conventional diets until, she says, she got a calling from God. Now she scoffs at dieters who won't eat salsa and chips sprinkled with lots of salt and religion.
MS. SHAMBLIN: They've been told that salt's evil, they've been told that sour cream's evil, they've been told -- so they're afraid, you know, I feel like God provides a variety for everyone.
Unidentified Woman #1: And I just pray for your spirits to guide this plan and ...
SEVERSON: This is one of 30,000 "Weigh Down" workshops sponsored by 60 different denominations in 70 countries. Gwen Shamblin started the workshops eight years ago and millions have signed up. The bottom line here, gluttony is sinful.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: I've lost 24 pounds total.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: I've lost 12 pounds.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: Twenty-five.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: I had lost 30 at one time.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #6: Twenty.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #7: Fifteen.
MS. GINA GRAVES: A hundred and thirty.
MS. SHAMBLIN: I'm probably going to eat maybe one and a half little slices of chicken quesadillas with a little bit of sour cream.
SEVERSON: That's one of the rules. Small portions. Another is not to eat until you're hungry. New Weigh-Downers are told to fast for as long as 36 hours until they feel their stomach growl.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #7: The first month, it was waiting for the growl. You know, I got that down, that was OK.
MS. SHAMBLIN: You're trying to break your wheel. The Bible calls for us to fast. Why? It breaks you doing what you want to do.
SEVERSON: Gwen Shamblin preaches that Americans are obsessed with food and there is ample evidence. Sixty percent are overweight, 30 percent obese. At the "Weigh Down" workshops, there's more talk of God than food.
MS. GRAVES: Instead of running to that food, you go and run to him and you pray.
MS. SHAMBLIN: I always had some extra Bibles lying around, so I'd hand them a Bible and say, "Here, you go chew on this instead."
SEVERSON: The workshops feature videotapes of Gwen preaching that loving God can make you thin.
MS. SHAMBLIN: It's teaching you how to transfer this relationship with the food, and we've got one in this country, to a relationship with God. And so you don't have to -- you don't have to lose passion, you just transfer passion.
SEVERSON: But there are critics of the program, like Neva Coyle, a born-again Christian who started her own Christian diet program called "Over-eaters Victorious," but after 12 years, she was not victorious, and eventually abandoned her diet.
MS. NEVA COYLE: It is not a smart thing, nor an accurate thing, to attach a person's spirituality to their size. I really feel that in my own case, I went through months of a soul-searching and wondering if I had disappointed God. If I had somehow failed him because I couldn't keep what I had considered a spiritual obligation.
SEVERSON: Gina Graves says not disappointing God is one reason she won't go off the "Weigh Down" diet.
MS. GRAVES: I've gone too far and He's shown me too much and for me to turn my back on all of that, I mean, that scares me to death to think that I would do that after I've seen so much blessing.
SEVERSON: She lost 130 pounds and has kept it off over a year.
MS. GRAVES: This is what I was in and I was packing that in pretty tight. They were pretty tight on me.
SEVERSON: Before she joined "Weigh Down," she says her marriage was in serious trouble. Now her husband has joined "Weigh Down."
MS. GRAVES: You know, just since I've focused on being obedient to God and seeking what He wanted, it just totally transformed everything. He blessed me, he blessed my husband.
MS. SHAMBLIN: We're going to bring up people who have lost 100 pounds or more.
SEVERSON: Gwen Shamblin believes her battle is against sin and gluttony is sin.
MS. GRAVES: I have found through teachings in "Weigh Down" that it really is a sin. It's greed to go after more food so if I were to start doing that again, that would be sin.
MS. SHAMBLIN: The Bible dispels man-made rules as a means of saving us. The now-familiar Colossians II states, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink."
SEVERSON: She states from several verses in the Bible to make her case, but admits that each verse is open to different interpretations.
MS. COYLE: There is not one reference in the Bible to our size. Not one. I've read it from cover to cover several times. I haven't found it. One Christian woman said to me, 'It's like we're all supposed to be Barbies with a Bible tucked under our arm." And that just isn't the reality of our lives, and it's very difficult to feel that, somehow, you have encouraged someone to feel less than acceptable to God, when he is the most loving.
SEVERSON: She's been called a born-again Barbie doll. But how many Barbie dolls have written and published two books that sold well over a million copies? She owns a huge warehouse from which she distributes her books, workshop kits that cost $103 each, CDs and sweatshirts.
MS. SHAMBLIN: I don't believe that God wants us all to look like a monk. I don't believe that that's how He's dressed necessarily and he might drive better cars and wear designer clothes. I have no problem with that.
SEVERSON: She employs about 50 people at her headquarters south of Nashville, and all of them, like Lee Suddeath, take turns manning the phone banks. Lee lost between 60 and 70 pounds, but he is unusual because most "Weigh Downers" are women.
SEVERSON (to Suddeath): A big part of this program is submission.
MR. LEE SUDDEATH: Absolutely.
SEVERSON: And you think that that might have something to do with men, that men are more reluctant to submit?
MR. SUDDEATH: We all are in that same position of submission because I -- even though I'm the leader of my household and my wife submits to me in that position, I have to be in submission to God.
SEVERSON: Gina Graves credits "Weigh Down" and Gwen Shamblin with saving her life.
MS. GRAVES: It wasn't about my weight or appearance. It was about my heart. My life was nothing, it was nothing. I thank God for Gwen.
SEVERSON: Gwen Shamblin believes and preaches one reason that there is so much gluttony and sin is because America's churches are too permissive. Criticizing America's churches was one thing, but then when Shamblin publicly questioned the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity, that God is both one in three, the FATHER, Son and Holy Spirit, she says scriptures teach that Jesus, as the son of God, is not equal in power and glory. Churches were so upset, more than 400 stopped sponsoring her workshops and her publisher refused to publish her third book. Even before the fallout, she and her husband, David, started their own church, called the Remnant Fellowship. She believes that God meant for men to be the messenger, so she is not officially in charge here, although she says, she was called by God to start her own church.
MS. SHAMBLIN: "... so I ate it and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth."
SEVERSON: It's too early to tell if the controversy over the Trinity has hurt the popularity of Weigh Down in a substantial way. Gwen Shamblin is convinced that it hasn't and says she is now branching out to apply Weigh Down principles to other earthly sins.
For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Lucky Severson in Franklin, Tennessee.
ABERNETHY: And finally, another cosmic culture clash in this age of expanding global technology. Here in the U.S., kids are addicted to Pokemon, the Japanese Nintendo game featuring creatures that evolve and become more powerful. The game has spawned cartoons and trading cards, but in Saudi Arabia this week, religious authorities pronounced Pokemon contrary to Islam. They issued a religious edict banning Pokemon, saying the games and cards have possessed the minds of Saudi children. American kids whose parents restrict their Pokemon hours may want to note, violators of the Saudi ban face stiff fines and lashings.
ABERNETHY: That's our program for now. I'm Bob Abernethy. To find out more about RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, logon to pbs.org or American Online, keyword: PBS.
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© 2001 Educational Broadcasting Corporation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Prepared by Burrelle's Information Services, which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce any copy of the material except for user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be reproduced, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any manner that may infringe upon Educational Broadcasting Corporation's copyright or proprietary interests in the material.
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