Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lesson Eight
I. FUNDAMENTAL FACTS
For any young man or young woman, marriage certainly ranks as one of the
most important events in life. Upon the manner in which they prepare for
their marriage, and upon the choice they make of a life partner, will depend
much of their happiness in this life. Almost inevitably, their eternal happiness
as well is deeply involved.
The Catholic Church has but one major purpose to assure the eternal
salvation of her members by showing them how to live a happy, meritorious
life. Because marriage is a very serious matter, the Church accordingly takes
great precautions in formulating her laws concerning it in order to assure the
happiness of those who enter into this state. All Catholics are bound in
conscience to observe these laws which, since they come from God, are the
means of procuring their partner’s and their own true happiness.
1) MARRIAGE IS A SACRAMENT
Properly speaking, matrimony or the marriage between two baptized
persons, is a sacramental contract. In this sacramental contract, the
sacrament and the contract cannot be separated. On the contrary, the
contract and the sacrament are inseparable. The contract is the Sacrament.
Any contract consists in the mutual consent of the two parties. Marriage,
however, is a contract of a very special nature. We are free to marry but
because the institution of Matrimony is of divine origin, once the vows have
been pronounced, we can neither modify in any way nor annul the contract.
The conditions are set by God ... not by the parties themselves (See Lesson
7). In marrying we must also accept all ecclesiastical laws governing
Christian marriage and submit ourselves to them. These laws, we repeat,
We understand, therefore, why the Church has always concerned herself with
safeguarding the true status of Matrimony by establishing laws to protect the
moral and physical welfare of the husband, wife, and children, and to assure
the social well being of the family.
In this lesson, the terms “ecclesiastical laws” and “civil laws” are used
frequently. An explanation of the terms might be in order: 1) Civil laws are
laws made by civil authorities. 2) Ecclesiastical laws are laws laid down by
the Church.
The ecclesiastical laws in their turn may be subdivided: a) In the wide sense:
These are the laws established directly by God Himself but which the Church
defines in an exact manner. As an example, Our Savior commands us to
receive Holy Communion. This precept is a divine law. The Church makes this
divine law specific and exact by fixing the time when we must receive Holy
Communion: at least once a year at Easter. This is ecclesiastical law in the
wide sense.
From both the natural and the supernatural points of view, God made the
essential laws regulating Matrimony. However, he left to His Church, the
power (1) to give greater precision to these laws and also the power (2) to
make other laws directed towards procuring the happiness of the individual,
(1) In giving more precision to the essential laws established by God, the
purpose of the Church is to assure proper respect for marriage and its main
purpose: the procreation of children; and to assure also the respect for the
essential properties of marriage: unity and indissolubility.
(2) In addition, the Church, by virtue of the authority given to Her by God,
has added other impediments to marriage. Her purpose in doing so is
directed (a) towards the moral and physical well being of the husband, wife,
and children. (Example impediment of age, crime, etc.); (b) towards the
general well being of civil or religious society (Example impediment of
disparity of cult, of Holy Orders, of solemn vows, of certain relationships); (c)
towards respect for the sacrament and religion (Example: impediment of
Holy Orders, solemn vows, etc.)
II. CONSENT
1) PROHIBITIVE IMPEDIMENTS
There are two prohibitive impediments 1) vows, and 2) mixed religions.
1) Any one of five simple vows prohibits the celebration of a marriage. These
are: a vow of virginity, a vow of perfect chastity, a vow to never contract
marriage, a vow to enter religion or a vow to enter Holy Orders
(subdiaconate, diaconate, priesthood). By a vow is here meant a promise
made to God, whereby one obliges himself to choose a greater good. The law
does not distinguish between temporary and perpetual vows, or between
private vows and vows taken in a religious order.
The principal reason for this impediment is because of the danger to the faith
of the Catholic party and to the faith of the children born of such a marriage
Often a Protestant who marries a Catholic will not manifest his aversion to
the Church and all things religious until after the marriage. Then his wife
finally yields to his insistence and ultimately abandons her faith with great
consequent harm to her own soul and to those of her children!
1) There are impediments by divine law (whether natural law or positive law)
such as a) the marriage bond (a person already actually married), b)
impotence, c) consanguinity to the 1st degree. (Concerning these a
dispensation cannot be granted by the Church because they come directly
from God). Other impediments are due to ecclesiastical law (for the
baptized), or to civil law (for infidels and non-baptized persons). The Church
can grant dispensations from impediments of ecclesiastical right.
1) Age: The law of the Church requires that, in order to contract marriage,
the man be at least 16 years of age and the woman at least 14. What is
required above all in marriage is the ability to give a true consent when it is a
matter of so important an act as marriage which concerns one’s future life.
Consequently, the Church wishing to be sure that the future spouses have
sufficient knowledge, and can freely make a free act of the will (consent to
marriage), has determined the above-mentioned age as the minimum age
for contracting a valid marriage. Dispensation from this impediment is very
rarely granted.
In practice, it is best to declare all relationship, even the most distant, to the
priest who will then ascertain by questioning if there is really any
impediment.
The reasons for these prohibitions are, first of all, physiological: the danger of
begetting crippled children, abnormal children, etc. But there are other
reasons springing a) from the sanctity of the family, which must be safe-
guarded; b) from the respect due to the common ancestors; and c) from fear
of immorality between persons living under the same roof. These same,
considerations hold for the impediments of affinity which will be explained
farther on. Finally, one of the chief reasons why the Church establishes these
impediments of relationship, is to promote universal charity between
individuals and families by encouraging alliances outside a restricted family
circle. The reason for this is of the highest social order. The Church
consequently obliges each of the faithful to seek marriage with a person who
is a total stranger to his own family ties, and to marry outside of his own
immediate environment. The state has copied this pattern in formulating its
civil laws.
This relationship comes from the alliance which unites the husband to all of
his wife’s blood relations. But the husband alone (and not the husband’s
relations by blood) contracts affinity with his wife’s relations; the wife alone
(and not the wife’s relations by blood) contracts affinity with the relations of
her husband.
To find out the degree of affinity of a widower with his future spouse (if any
relationship exists), determine the degree of consanguinity between the
future wife and the deceased wife. (In the case of a widow who is planning to
remarry, proceed conversely.) In the direct line, the diriment impediment of
affinity extends to infinity. In the collateral line, it extends to the second
degree.
The reason for this impediment is not physiological but rather moral and
social to safeguard the sanctity of the family.
4) Crime: Those persons cannot marry each other a) who have committed
adultery together, with the promise to marry when one or the other will be
freed by the death of his or her wedded partner; or b) who have committed
adultery together, with attempted marriage (whether religious or civil); or c)
who have committed adultery together, and one of whom has brought about
the death of his or her spouse (killing of a spouse where there is no
conspiracy nor promise of marriage); or d) who by complicity (conspiracy)
have caused the death of a spouse, but have neither committed adultery nor
promised to marry.
This impediment exists between a person baptized in the Catholic Church (or
a convert to the Catholic Church) and an infidel, that is to say, an unbaptized
person. (N.B. For the reasons for this impediment, see above Impediment of
mixed religion, P. 176.)
These mixed marriages are not celebrated in the church; they take place in
the sacristy or in the rectory. There is no publication of the banns, no
blessing of the ring, no marriage Mass.
Sometimes the Protestant party asks the Catholic party to be married before
a Protestant minister before going to the Catholic priest, or to renew the
marriage vows before the Protestant minister after their marriage before a
priest. This practice is formally forbidden under pain of excommunication.
Father Hugh Calkins, O.S.M., writing in Novena Notes, explains the
seriousness of excommunication: “Excommunication means exclusion from
the communion of the faithful. Which means cut off from the
intercommunication of graces, indulgences, prayers, privileges which
Catholics on earth, saints in Heaven, souls in Purgatory, inter-share.
“The excommunicated loses all rights and privileges: yet he keeps all his
burdens. He remains a Catholic forever through the indelible characters of
Baptism and Confirmation. But he is cut off from Catholic life, an exile from
Christian Society, a stranger in the Family, separated from the Organization.
He must attend Mass on Sundays and Holydays: yet he can’t share the public
fruits of the Mass. He may not receive the Sacraments. Nor may he act as a
sponsor or official witness: nor be an acolyte at Mass. He loses all right to
assist actively at Divine Services - Mass, Vespers, Benediction, Divine Office,
Public Processions. For him, no Christian burial with its powerful prayers. Nor
can he share public prayers.
The reason for this impediment is the safeguarding of public decency and the
honor of the home.
There is a difference between the inability to perform the marriage act and
the inability to beget children: the first case is a case of impotence in the
canonical or legal sense; the second case is that of sterility, which is not an
impediment to marriage.
By Baptism the child receives spiritual life. That is why those who contribute
to the birth of the child into the life of grace, (the layman. or laywoman or
the priest who baptizes, the godfather or godmother who answers for the
child’s faith) contract a spiritual relationship with that child. The Church
therefore looks upon certain spiritual relationships resulting from Baptism as
similar to the ties of parenthood resulting from blood relationship.
10) Holy Orders: He who has received the order of subdiaconate cannot,
from that moment and by that very fact, contract marriage with any person
whatsoever, not only under pain of sin and excommunication but also under
pain of nullity. The Church has added this severe sanction to its law of
ecclesiastical celibacy.
11) Abduction: If a man abducts a woman against her will with a view to
marrying her, he becomes subject to the impediment of abduction. This
impediment flows from the very nature of marriage which requires a free
consent.
12) Solemn Vows: Anyone who has taken solemn vows of religion cannot
validly contract marriage. For very serious reasons the Church sometimes
dispenses from this impediment. These solemn vows can be taken only in
religious Orders (e.g. Benedictines) and are perpetual. Vows, temporary or
perpetual, taken in religious congregations or institutes are not solemn vows.
13) Legal Adoption: In countries where civil law forbids as illicit a marriage
between the one who adopts and the person adopted, the Church also
considers this marriage as illicit (prohibitive impediment). In countries where
1. When should you notify your Pastor of your intention to marry? See your
pastor at least one month before the celebration of ‘the marriage.
2. To whom must you go? To the pastor of your own parish because to him
belongs the right and the duty to perform the marriage.
(N.B. One’s own parish signifies: a) the domicile or the place where one
actually lives with the intention of remaining there permanently except for
unforeseen circumstances; or b) the quasi-domicile or the place where one
actually lives with the intention of remaining there during the greater part of
the year; or c) the domicile or quasi-domicile of the parents if one or both
partners are under 21 years of age (Church law); persons under 21 years of
age have as their legal domicile the residence of their parents even though
in fact they do not live with their parents.) If the spouses belong to different
parishes, both the right to perform the marriage and the duty to make the
preliminary inquiry belong as a general rule to the pastor of the girl.
However, the man’s pastor also, whether of his own accord, or on the
insistence of the man, or on the insistence of the girl’s pastor must make an
inquiry and thus establish the man’s freedom to contract marriage. He must
then send the results of this inquiry to the girl’s pastor as soon as possible.
For various good reasons, however, permission may be granted for the
marriage to be celebrated in the man’s parish or even in some other locality.
Under such circumstances, the duty of making the prenuptial inquiry belongs
to the pastor in whose parish the marriage is to be performed. In any case,
wherever the marriage be celebrated, the future spouses, preferably only
after each one has gone to his own pastor, will go to the pastor of the parish
where the wedding is to take place.
3. What documents must be brought to the pastor? On the first visit to the
pastor in whose parish the marriage is to be performed, it is advisable to
bring the following documents which will have been obtained in advance:
a) Identification papers;
d) In the case of a minor (under 21) written consent of the father and
mother, or of the legal guardian or trustee, in accordance with the law of the
province or state;
4. In what does the prenuptial inquiry consist? The pastor questions the
future spouses concerning:
a) Family name and given names, age, address, date and place of birth and
of baptism, religion, profession or trade of the future husband, names of the
parents;
Normally, the banns are published three times. For serious reasons, a
dispensation from one or two publications may be obtained. This
dispensation is seldom granted for all three publications.
In a divorce action, the civil judge says: “You are married, but I declare that
from this moment the bond of marriage which exists between you is broken
and you are no longer married.” In a declaration of nullity, the ecclesiastical
judge says: “It is evident that you never were married, your union never had
the character of a marriage, regardless of appearances. I therefore officially
declare that your marriage has never existed.”
This is due to the fact that marriage is a Sacrament. It concerns the spiritual
welfare of the spouses. Consequently, the Church takes every necessary
precaution in order that a valid marriage may never be declared null. The
judges of an ecclesiastical court must, before rendering judgment, have a
moral certainty that such a marriage is null, that is, that it has never validly
existed. If the least doubt persists, the validity of the marriage is maintained.
CONCLUSION
We have summed up in this lesson the main canonical principles that govern
Christian marriage. Add to this the views already expressed regarding the
spirituality (Lesson 7) of marriage, and you have an idea of the beauty and
the grandeur of marriage.
Follow the laws of Christ and His Church on marriage, and happiness will be
yours in this world and in the next.