Father Dorney's attention was called to the fact that McDonald
probably had left a considerable portion of his estate to his second
wife.
"I suppose he did, but this is a legal matter in which the
church is not interested. Mike McDonald and Mary Noonan
were legally married in the eyes of the law, and the
church, in a Catholic church edifice. We never recognize
divorce. Of course, we know it is impossible at times for
men and women to live together, and the church permits them
to reside apart, but remarriage is impossible as long as
both of the parties are still alive.
"McDonald never remarried in the eyes of the church,
because his first wife was not dead. By his actions with
Dora Feldman he gave great scandal, but before his death
he repented of it. If Dora Feldman followed Mike McDonald
to his grave, she could not do so from an ecclesiastical
standpoint, and in my sermon this morning when I referred
to the wife of the dead man I meant Mary Noonan McDonald,
the mother of his children."