New Jersey Religious Divorce Lawyer
An attorney and the courts are only concerned with the legal side of divorce. The first amendment of the Constitution is often interpreted as creating a separation between church and state, meaning that the state will have no power over affairs of faith (organized or not). This includes divorce. However, many religions have formal structures for handling divorce.
Each faith generally handles divorce and separation differently according to their own traditions. The one way in which a New Jersey religious divorce lawyer may be able to help is by including a clause in a marital agreement requiring a religious divorce or annulment between spouses when a legal divorce is complete. To learn more about how a legal professional could help, contact a seasoned divorce attorney.
What is Religious Divorce?
Many people seek religious divorce as they may not be allowed to remarry or even date according to their faith without their prior marriage being concluded. In Roman Catholicism, without a declaration of nullity for a prior marriage, any relations thereafter would be considered adultery by the church.
Two examples of the religious divorce process are the get in Judaism or a declaration of nullity in the Catholic faith. In the get, spouses wishing to divorce will work with their rabbi or a rabbinical court to officially end a marriage allowing each spouse to remarry or date. In a Catholic declaration of nullity, one spouse petitions a religious tribunal for a marriage to be retroactively declared invalid on one of several grounds required at the beginning of a marriage.
As a New Jersey religious divorce attorney could explain, these are all religious processes independent of a court or a lawyer’s purview. However, when there are clauses in a marital agreement or divorce proceedings that would require spouses to cooperate and participate in religious separation proceeding, the court may be able to require their compliance.
This process can be more complicated if spouses come from different faiths. However, even if an individual comes from a faith that does not permit divorce, both parties may still pursue a civil, legal divorce.
In nations such as Israel, legal and religious divorce are synonymous. This means that a religious divorce must be granted in order for legal separation to be completed. The United States will honor and recognize foreign legal divorces, which in cases like Israel, are religious divorces.
Using a Religious Divorce as a Civil Divorce
If the religious divorce process requires both parties to be involved and represented justly, there is a chance that the religious divorce proceedings could be used in lieu of the civil divorce process. In cases such as those, a rabbinical court or religious tribunal may serve as arbitrators of the separation. The use of a religious court instead of a United States court is only made possible by having the matter agreed upon by both parties. To learn more, contact a religious divorce lawyer in New Jersey.
Call a New Jersey Religious Divorce Attorney
While an attorney has no power in religious courts or tribunals, they could still offer counsel to you during your divorce. A New Jersey religious divorce lawyer might be able to guide you through some of the processes involved with certain religious divorces or create a marital contract dictating divorce or separation be handled in religious courts. Call a lawyer today for more information about your divorce process.
