Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
So says one of the commandments that God handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai a few millennia ago. This is what the law in Michigan commands too, today.
It’s odd that Michigan still lists adultery as a felony crime that deserves punishment up to life in prison. On one hand, from a Catholic point of view,, it shows the legislature’s dignified view of marriage. This is all the more significant when other states have mutated the definition of marriage to include unions between people of the same sex.
However, also from a Catholic perspective, does our Church really advocate such severe punishment? The Church in fact follows the path that our Lord himself practiced when the mob intended to stone the adulterous woman. Jesus and the Church simply admonishes the adulerer(ess) to repent and expects the cheater’s spouse to forgive the penitent adulterer(ess), including even before forgiveness is asked. Tough expectations. Jesus anyway never a bed of roses for his followers.
The Lord’s and Church’s remedy is more therapeutic for both adulterer and spouse than imprisonment. Adultery is a sin against spouse and God. The language of the Michigan law merely looks at adultery as the purely physical act of penetration. Adultery is more than skin deep (no pun intended) but hurts the spirit of the cheated party and the marriage union. The graces that God shall provide the repentant adulterer is far more efficacious for the adulterer’s spirit than penitentiary or the prison warden.
michigan adultery
