The idea of divorce becoming an easy escape from marriage is quickly changing the fundamental ideals of some of the world’s largest icons.

With powerful figures such as Pope Francis allowing annulments, divorce services are becoming easier and cheaper for the public.

An annulment is a statement that says a marriage never happened.

Divorce is becoming too much of a commodity in today’s society, with things like “divorce selfies” and the pope changing the fundamentals of the oldest church in the world. They are quickly making the idea of marriage and healthy relationships a mockery to the common person.

Newly divorced couples take selfies, featuring the divorce papers, that “commemorate” their split. Something that is supposed to be a devastating and heartbreaking situation is being described by reporters such as Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post as happy and full of life.

Divorce parties have also become a thing. These parties glamorize the split from a spouse, the person you said you would spend your whole life with. These parties and selfies are making a joke out of the statement “Until death do us part.”

I remember my grandmother constantly telling me stories about when she was young, and how it was stressed at that time if they chose to get married, they had to stick with it unless there were dire consequences of staying with your spouse. 

Not only was it a norm, but I strongly believe that the society we had back then really did value trying to work out difficult situations opposed to running away from them.

Our society has allowed its people to run away from their problems. Not only are these trending topics ruining the sanctity of marriage, but the Catholic leader’s actions are attempting to do the same thing.

Delia Gallagher, senior editor for “Inside the Vatican” magazine, and Daniel Burke, religion editor for CNN, said Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has begun to radically change the way Catholics may receive an annulment.

Many in the church consider the old way of filing for an annulment long, tedious and quite costly, but isn’t that the point? The purpose for having the process being troublesome is to prevent the amount of impulse annulments stemming from marital spats.

The purpose of marriage isn’t what it used to be. The leader of one of the most influential establishments in the world is essentially going against a huge fundamental ideal of the church he runs, which is to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

The act of divorcing should be seen as a sad, and maybe even a depressing act, but it isn’t viewed as such anymore with current trends like divorce selfies and influential figures like Pope Francis changing the idea of how easy it should be to get out of a marriage. Our culture has made healthy relationships seem like a distant reality and presented us with a divorce society.