Pope Francis’ recent visit to the United States, including the apparent meeting attended by Kim Davis, the county clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, who chose her religious devotion over following the U.S. Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision, together with the pope’s recent reforms to the Catholic annulment process, remind us that regardless of any Supreme Court decision or constitutional amendment, religion will always play a part in the discussion of marriage. The subject of religion and marriage has been at the forefront of a national debate since before same-sex marriage was even a topic of conversation, but the topic of religion and divorce has largely been left undiscussed.

As the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2071 (2015), and the reactions by the religious community in the United States remind us, while the government has the authority to make decisions regarding marriage that must be followed by government officials, how religious organizations and religious rulemaking bodies decide to adopt to civil decisions regarding marriage will be up to those organizations. As religious divorces such as a get (a Jewish divorce decree) and a Catholic annulment largely operate independently of civil divorces, there has historically been the opportunity for former spouses to be considered divorced under civil law but married under religious law for several more years, if not indefinitely.

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