Faith and law: Does a civil petition align with Catholic teaching?
The couple wed at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church in Greenville, Delaware, in a Catholic-Jewish ceremony. Catholic doctrine holds marriage to be indissoluble, but the Catechism allows that civil divorce can be tolerated when it is the only means to secure essential legal rights, protect children, or preserve inheritance—while the sacramental bond remains unless and until an ecclesiastical tribunal grants an annulment. Thus, a civil filing can coexist with Church teaching under specific conditions, though remarriage in the Church would generally require an annulment. Vatican USCCB
Does “long-term marriage” change the rules? A California-vs-Pennsylvania-vs-Delaware snapshot
- California labels marriages of 10+ years as “long-Term-Marriages” for spousal-support purposes, allowing courts to retain jurisdiction over support potentially indefinitely—a bright-line rule that often shapes negotiations.
- Pennsylvaniauses equitable distribution and alimony factors without a fixed 10-year threshold; length of the marriage is an explicit factor, but there is no automatic long-marriage rule. Outcomes turn on the 23 Pa.C.S. factors and the case facts. Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Delaware also considers the length of the marriage in dividing property and, for alimony duration, sets a notable benchmark: eligibility generally cannot exceed 50% of the marriage’s length, except that marriages of 20 years or longer have no time limit on eligibility (still subject to all statutory factors). For a 13-year union like Biden–Krein, the 20-year threshold isn’t reached; if Delaware law applied, the outer eligibility window would be up to ~6.5 years—again subject to the court’s factor analysis. Justia Law
Because this petition is filed in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania law governs the divorce, support, and property division—though parties sometimes consider choice-of-law concerns for discrete issues (e.g., contract interpretation for a prenup). The core takeaway is that duration matters in all three jurisdictions, but California’s “10-year” effect is not mirrored in Pennsylvania and only partly reflected in Delaware via its 20-year alimony rule.
