A THEOLOGICAL
STUDY OF CONJUGAL LOVE IN HUMANAE VITAE
nn. 8-12
BY
MUOGBO MICHAEL
IZUCHUKWU-ZIMIFE
SSPP/THEO/18/0734
BEING
AN ESSAY SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY, SEMINARY OF SS. PETER AND
PAUL, BODIJA-IBADAN, IN AFFILIATION WITH THE PONTIFICAL URBAN UNIVERSITY, ROME,
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN
SACRED THEOLOGY.
BODIJA,
IBADAN
JUNE,
2021
CERTIFICATION
This is to certify that this Essay
titled: A THEOLOGICAL STUDY OF CONJUGAL
LOVE IN HUMANAE VITAE nn. 8-12,
submitted to the Department of Theology, Seminary of Ss. Peter and Paul,
Bodija-Ibadan, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of a
Bachelor’s Degree in Sacred Theology, is a record of original research carried
out by MUOGBO MICHAEL
______________________ ____________________________
Date Moderator
Rev.
Fr. Daniel Koumah,
Lecturer,
Theology Department,
Ss.
Peter and Paul,
Bodija-Ibadan
DEDICATION
This work is dedicated to Our Lady of
Perpetual Help, Ifesinachi Muogbo, and all Partners who make sincere effort to
uphold the dignity of the Matrimonial Sacrament, Partners who trample on the
dignity of marriage, broken marriages, and all misinformed couples.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
My gratitude belongs to
God, my Primary Helper, and gratefully do I give it to Him. I thank Chekwube, Most Merciful Jesus for his
graces and mercies upon my life throughout my years of seminary studies, and I
am most grateful to Mmesoma, my own
never-abandoning Mother of Perpetual help, My Lady of Good Counsel and My Lady
of Good Studies who have always been behind my success.
I speak today, but my
voice cannot carry the tongues and lips that gave it words; if this is the hour
for me to lift my lantern, it is not my flames that will burn therein. I am
grateful to all who made me (if not, empty and dark shall I raise my lantern),
and much more grateful am I to my dear friends who left their plough in
mid-furrow to bandage my wounds; those that watched and help me crawl from dark
caves to rocky heights. I thank especially Mrs. Lucy Muogbo, Mrs. Mary Obieluo,
Engr. R. I. John, Mrs. Victoria Soyanwo, Mr. Ikechukwu Okafor, Mr. Innocent
Okoji, and Mrs. Ukamaka Onyioha.
I express my
appreciation to my beloved family; I thank my Mum, Mrs. Lucy Muogbo for her
shoulders, my Grandma, Mrs. Mary Obieluo, my Siblings, Kosisochukwu, Ifesinachi
and Chidubem. Your support and unwavering trust is both a gift and a blessing.
I sincerely thank my
wonderful Moderator Very Rev. Fr. Daniel Koumah for taking his time to direct
and guide me on the course of my research. I gratefully appreciate the prayers,
support and guidance of Fr. Izuchukwu Ifem, Fr. Gerald Efobi, Fr. Tochukwu
Onyeagolu, Fr. Charles Anene, Sr. Miriam Perpetua Mmaduaghosi OSB, and Sr.
Maria Daniela Ngalumonwu IHM.
I thank my beloved Congregation;
the Society of St Paul for all the years she allowed God to guide and direct
the course of my vocation through her. I thank my Superiors, my Formators, my
classmate Obumkaneme Valentine, and my junior brothers. I thank the great
seminary of Saints Peter and Paul Bodija for all she taught and all I learnt on
her hallowed ground. I’m ever grateful to you.
I thank all who have
graced me abundantly; while I can’t name you all, I’m truly grateful to every
individual who left a positive mark on me. I am grateful to all who have
accompanied me on this journey and those who taught me to discover who I am in
the simple and profound ways. ‘Nke
ọnye chiri, nya zelụ’. I
pray the good Lord to bless you all and reward you abundantly for your good
deeds. Amen.
I assume responsibility
for any probable mistake, typographical and otherwise, that may be found in
this work.
Muogbo
Michael Izuchukwu-Zimife
June,
2021
ABSTRACT
The
discourse on the characteristic nature of marriage springs from the fact that
the sacrament of holy matrimony is hinged on the union that exist between
Christ and his bride, the Church. For the baptized persons, Marriage invests
the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, in as much as it represents the
union of Christ and of the Church. Marriage by its essence is not an effect of
chance, neither is it a product of an evolving consciousness, it is rather an
institution that realizes in mankind the design of love commissioned by the
creator.
There
had been attacks on conjugal morality since the promulgation and release of Humanae Vitae. This is not as a result
of a lack of attention to the traditional teachings of the Church on conjugal
love but rather it results from the attempts to justify practices that are
against the natural law, and contrary to what the Church teaches and proposes.
This
work is to aim at the Theological Study of Conjugal Love, highlighting the
magisterial teachings, the doctrinal principles in Humanae Vitae, some arguments and practices against the Church’s
stand on conjugal love and, in a rather unique way, without compromise,
reemphasizing the doctrinal principles of conjugal love which include
cooperation with God in the contest of our modern world.
TABLE
OF CONTENT
Title
Page……………………………………………………………………………..……i
Certification…………………………………………………………………………….…ii
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iii
Acknowledgment…………………………………………………………………………iv
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...vi
Table
of content……………….…………………………………………………………vii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….xii
0.1 Statement
of Problem………………………………………………………………..xv
0.2 Aims
and Objective………………………………………………………………….xv
0.3 Scope
of the Study…………………………………………………………………..xvi
0.4 Methodology………………………………………………………………………...xvi
CHAPTER
ONE
CLARIFICATIONS
ON THE DIFFERENT NOTIONS OF MARRIAGE
1.0 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1
1.1
Marriage As an Institution…………………………………………………………….1
1.1.1
As a Social Institution………………………………………………………..2
1.1.2
As a Divine Institution………………………………………………………3
1.1.2.1
Old Testament ………………………………………………………...5
1.1.2.2
New Testament………………………………………………………..6
1.2
Marriage As a Sacrament……………………………………………………………...6
1.2.1
Material Cause of Marriage……………………………………………….8
1.2.2
Formal
Cause of Marriage………………………………………………...9
1.2.3
Efficient Cause of Marriage……………………………………………...10
1.2.4
Final Cause of Marriage………………………………………………….10
1.3
Marriage As a Vocation……………………………………………………………...11
1.4
Classical Concepts of Marriage……………………………………………………...13
1.4.1
Heterosexual……………………………………………………………..13
1.4.2
Monogamous…………………………………………………………….14
1.4.3
Exclusive………………………………………………………………...15
1.5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...15
CHAPTER
TWO
THEOLOGY
OF MARRIAGE
2.0
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..17
2.1
Christ-Church Relationship Model…………………………………………………..18
2.2
Magisterial Teachings………………………………………………………………..20
2.2.1 Arcanum
Divinae Sapientiae (1880)…………………………………….21
2.2.2 Casti
Connubii (1930) …………………………………………………22
2.2.3 Gaudium
et Spes (1965)………………………………………………..23
2.2.4 Familiaris Consortio (1981)……………………………………………24
2.2.5 Amoris
Laetitia (2016)…………………………………………………25
2.3 Essential Properties of Conjugal
Love……………………………………………….25
2.3.1 Unity…………………………………………………………………..26
2.3.2 Indissolubility…………………………………………………………27
2.3.2.1
Intrinsic Indissolubility……………………………………….28
2.3.2.2
Extrinsic Indissolubility………………………………………28
2.4 The Place of Conjugal Love in
Marriage ……………………………………………28
2.4.1 Act of
Self Giving………………………………………………………29
2.5 The Ends of Marriage………………………………………………………………..30
2.5.1 Primary End……………………………………………………………..31
2.5.2
Secondary End…………………………………………………………..32
2.6 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...32
CHAPTER
THREE
DOCTRINAL
PRINCIPLES IN HUMANAE VITAE
3.0 Introduction……………………...…………………………………………………34
3.1 General Over View……………...………………………………………………….34
3.2 God’s Loving Design………………………………………………………………36
3.3 Characteristics of Conjugal
Love…………………………………………………..39
3.4 Observing the Natural Law………………………………………………………...43
3.5 Union
and Procreation…………………………………………………………….. 45
3.6 Responsible Parenthood…………………………………………………………….47
3.7 The
Reception of Humanae Vitae………………………………………………………….48
3.8
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...49
CHAPTER
FOUR
SECULAR
TRENDS AND CHALLENGES AGAINST CONJUGAL LOVE
4.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………….50
4.1 Arguments Against the Church’s
Stand………...…………………………………...50
4.2 Violation of Conjugal Love………………………………………………………….53
4.2.1 Infidelity…………………………………………………………………53
4.2.2 Contraception……………………………………………………………55
4.2.3 Abortion…………………………………………………………………57
4.2.4 Divorce…….……………………………………………………………58
4.2.5 Homosexual Unions………….…………………………………………59
4.2.6 Pornography……………………………………………………………..61
4.3 Erroneous Practices…………………………………………………………………..62
4.3.1 Cohabitation……………………………………………………………..63
4.3.2 Surrogacy………………………………………………………………..64
4.3.3 Willful
Single Parenthood………………………………………………65
4.3.4 Artificial
Methods……………………………………………………….66
4.4 Socio-cultural Pressures on
Conjugal Unions………………………………………67
4.4.1 Male Child Syndrome…………………………………………………….67
4.4.2 Barrenness………………………………………………………………...68
4.5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...69
GENERAL
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………70
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………74
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The
family is the most important unit of the society; it is the cradle of birth and
initial education of every individual. Creating a family is entering into a new stage of social
advancement. However, the importance given to the family in the social
parlance is based on the fact and reality of marriage which consist of conjugal
union of love. Marriage starts a family life; when marriage is validly
celebrated, a new and independent family is established. Thus, marriage lays
the foundation of the family. In other words, ‘there cannot be a family when
conjugal love has not existed’. Marriage, which includes the coupling of two people
possessing different interests, desires and needs, is a special association
given shape by social rules and laws and significantly affects individuals’
development and self-realizations. The institution of marriage, quite like that
of the family, is universal.
Marriage
as a union of life and love is a divine creation and is ordered by the law of
the same. It begets a relationship nobler than blood ties. Thus a man and a
woman come together and become one body. The Catechism of the Catholic Church,
drawing from the 1983 code of the canon Law and Gaudium et Spes, defines this act of mutual self-giving as the
“matrimonial covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a
partnership of whole life”. It added that it is by its nature ordered toward
the good of spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. This
covenant has been raised, by virtue of Christ’s institution, when it happens
between two baptized persons, to the dignity of a sacrament (CCC 1601). This
brings to bare the nature and purpose of conjugal love, and places a
sacramental seal on it between two baptized persons. Christ Our Lord has
abundantly blessed this love, which is rich in its various features, coming as
it does from the spring of Divine Love and modeled on Christ’s own union with
the Church (GS, 48).
The
covenantal union by its nature is based on the free and personal act of mutual
exchange of consent by the spouses, surrendering themselves to one another for
life; this includes the conjugal love where the sexual union between the
spouses is divinely ordained towards fruitfulness. Thus, “be fruitful and
multiply” (Gen.1:28). The purpose of marriage, based on its nature, is not just
the loving union between husband and wife, which can be summed up as companionship,
but also in the begetting and upbringing of children.[1]
Conjugal unions, the family and the resulting gift of offspring and their
education are of much importance to the Church as it is to the society. Thus
the Church protects the family as an institution, ensuring firstly that things
work out well in matrimonial unions. In this light, Pope Paul VI, in his Humanae Vitae, offers us loving, moral
pastoral guide on conjugal love, pointing out to us that our capacity to
express love needs to reflect God’s own love for us; a love that is total, a
love that is generous, a love that is life-giving and fruitful. Humanae Vitae is remarkably adept at
incorporating a fuller understanding of conjugal love than previous documents.
Its central
feature is an affirmation of the Catholic teaching that the marital embrace
should always be about love and life: unitive and open to new life. Among the social
developments which the encyclical recognizes with some appreciation are the
insights into the value of conjugal love within a marriagerelationship, and the
important role played by conjugal acts in the expression of this love (HV 2).
The encyclical defines married love in part as “not confined wholly to the
loving interchange of husband and wife; it also contrives to go beyond this to
bring new life into being” (HV 9).
The teachings of Humanae Vitae should not be put aside or
ignored. “The Church has a body of teaching on life and love that is neither
repressive nor legalistic, but it is good news about human dignity, human life,
beauty, truth and love of human sexuality. And far from being ashamed of it or
putting it in brackets for fear that it will not be accepted, this is something
we need to proclaim and bear witness to.”[2]Christian Marriage is
life-long and indissoluble, reflecting the unbreakable bond between Christ and
the Church. The venerable Pope Paul VI states that marriage “is in reality the
wise and provident institution of God the Creator, whosepurpose was to effect
in man His loving design.” Thus marriage was instituted specifically so that
the spouses may perfect each other and generate new life (HV 8). Spouses are
bound to ensure that the “use” of their marriage complies with the Divine Will.
0.1
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Marriage is an institution evidently present in every human
society across the different cultures and religions of the world. However above
the social conception of marriage, the Church gives keen importance and care to
marriage as an institution with a sacramental dignity, and modeled on the
relationship between Christ and Her bride the Church. This relationship is the
prototype on which conjugal unions are hinged. In its sacramental form, a man
and a woman come together and become one body in Christ. Therefore, marriage is
not an effect of chance or the result of the blind evolution of natural forces.
Nevertheless, ignorance and the trending contemporary practices have made us to
relax or disregard to considerable extent the dignity of marriage as a noble
institution. These practices have equally triggered a whole lot of
misconceptions about marriage and conjugal ethics. Even though with the
exchange of consent a man and a woman enter into a contract of mutual and total
self-giving, Marriage and conjugal love have the ethics that guide it and must
not be dismissed under the canopy of contemporary innovations.
0.2
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This study is aimed at a theological study of conjugal love,
drawing generally from the social conception of marriage and particularizing it
in the context of the Church, with specific references to the Magisterial
Teachings consummated, for our purpose, in the doctrinal principles of Humane Vitae. It would equally concern
itself with the challenges of conjugal love in our contemporary society which
are resulting consequences of erroneous practices and trends of contemporary
innovations.
0.3
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
It is imperative to state here that this study does not
pretend to be an exhaustive study of marriage. It would be over assuming to say
that marriage in its fullness is consider in this work. Therefore this work
does not consider marriage in its entirety, but is narrowed particularly to
conjugal love, with a primary concern on the theological study of conjugal love
in Humanae Vitae with specific
reference to articles 8-12 of the same document.
0.4
METHODOLOGY
It is pertinent to state that this work is not an appraisal,
and does not seek to exhaustively treat the subject matter. To ensure that the
aims and objectives of this research are achieved, we shall adopt an
expository, practical and theological method. However, where necessity
dictates, my sincere contribution would be given. This is with the view to
facilitate an easy understanding of the subject matter of this work. To this
regards, this work shall be in four chapters.
The first chapter shall focus on the Clarification of the
Different Notions of Marriage; as an institution, sacrament and a vocation,
alongside the classical concepts of marriage. The second chapter shall expose
The Theology of Marriage, firstly considering it in the light of Christ’s
relationship with the Church, and secondly exposing the Magisterial Teachings,
considering particular documents on marriage, and then the place of conjugal
love in marriage and the ends of marriage. The third chapter, which is the core
of this essay, would consider the Doctrinal Principles in Humanae Vitae articles 8-12. The fourth chapter would take into
consideration the challenges of conjugal love and then a conclusion;
reemphasizing the Teachings of the Church on conjugal love.
CHAPTER ONE
CLARIFICATIONS ON THE DIFFERENT
NOTIONS OF MARRIAGE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
This
chapter aims at clarifying the meaning of marriage as a background to
understanding the subsequent chapters of this work. This is necessitated for
the purpose of clarity in order to avoid all forms of ambiguity, because of the
fluidity of words to take on varied meaning especially in this modern era where
individualism, subjectivism and relativism are exalted at the scorn of objectivity,
in a way that concepts becomes defined by arbitrary will of individuals. In
this regard, marriage as an institution has been so unfortunate in experiencing
distortion of meaning. In the light of the above, for the purpose of this work,
an extrication of the working understanding of marriage as employed here from
possible concomitant variations becomes a necessity. I shall therefore examine
marriage as an institution, a sacrament and a vocation, and the classical
concepts attached to it.
1.1
MARRIAGE
AS AN INSTITUTION
Marriage is the union
of a man and woman as husband and wife, which becomes a foundation for a home
and family.[3]
As an institution, it is a legally and
socially sanctioned union, usually between a man and a woman, that is regulated
by laws, rules, customs, beliefs, and attitudes that prescribe the rights and
duties of the partners and accords status to their offspring (if any). The
universality of marriage within different societies and cultures is attributed
to the many basic social and personal functions for which it provides
structure, such as sexual gratification and regulation, division of labour
between the sexes, economic production and consumption, and satisfaction of
personal needs for affection, status, and companionship. “Perhaps its strongest function
concerns procreation, the care of children and their education and
socialization, and regulation of descent”.[4]
1.1.1
As a Social Institution
Marriage as a social institution is with different
implications in different cultures. Its purposes, functions and forms differ
from one society to the other, but marriage is present everywhere as an
institution. It is a
universal phenomenon developed over the time. The biological makeup of every
individual person necessitates some urges and in order to carefully satisfy
these urges, and maintain order and peaceful coexistence among individual, the
society worked out certain rules and regulations, most probably as a measure of
social discipline and as an expedient to eliminate social stress due to the sex
rivalry in the primitive human society. The growing sense and sensibility may
have necessitated the acceptance of norms for formalizing the union between man
and woman. Hence marriage is one of the
universal social institutions established to control and regulate the life of
mankind. It is closely associated with the institution of family.[5]
Marriage
in the social context is a result of human civilization. It admits men and
women to a formal relationship of love and life, with the implied purpose of
parenthood and establishment of a family. Hence, marriage is a socially
approved way of establishing a family by procreation. It is indicative of a
man’s entry into the world of emotions and feelings, harmony and culture. As an
institution it involves certain reciprocal rights and duties. The specific
patterns of rights and duties distinguish the marriage institution in different
societies. The importance of marriage is recognized everywhere by the
ceremonial rites established in this concern. Therefore it is a legally recognized social contract between two
people, traditionally based on a sexual relationship and implying a permanence
of the union.
Marriage is a unique
relationship different from all others. An essential characteristic of marriage
is the biological fact that a man and a woman can join together as male and
female in a union that is orientated to the generation of new life. The union
of marriage provides for the continuation of the human race and the development
of human society. The precise difference between man and woman makes possible
this unique communion of persons and the partnership of life and love which is
marriage. Male-female complementarity is intrinsic to marriage; naturally
ordered toward sexual union in a faithful and committed relationship as the
basis for the generation of new life. The true nature of marriage, lived in
openness to life, bears witness to how precious is the gift of a child and to
the unique role of parenthood.[6]
Thus, marriage is the institution concerned with the reciprocal social
relations and cultural behaviour of a man and a woman who publicly signify
their union for the implied purpose, among other possible objectives.[7]
1.1.2
As
a Divine Institution
Man
and woman were made for each other, not that God left them half-made and
incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons in which each can be
helpmate to the other, for they are equal as persons (bone of my bones) and
complementary as masculine and feminine (CCC 372).The intimate communion of
life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the
Creator and endowed by Him with its own proper laws. God himself is the author
of marriage. The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and
woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not purely a human
institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the
centuries in different cultures, social structures and spiritual attitudes (CCC
1603).[8]
Marriage as a divine institution is evidently drawn from the
purposes of marriage, which is basically companionship and procreation. In the
Genesis account (Gen. 2:21-22), when no animal could make a suitable companion
for man, God created a woman out of a man’s rib to give him companionship
(companionship), and in the same book of Genesis (Gen.1:28), God required of
them an imperative: ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (procreation). The above lay the
foundations of marriage as a divine institution.
The Book of
Genesis shows us that man and woman are created in the image and likeness of
God; they recognize that they are made for each other (cf. Gen 1:24-31;
2:4b-25). Through procreation, man and woman collaborate with God in accepting
and transmitting life: ‘By transmitting human life to their descendants, man
and woman as spouses and parents co-operate in a unique way in the Creator’s
work’ (CCC, 372).[9]Having found for man a suitable
helpmate like unto himself (woman), God then shows forth by his command that
their togetherness is not for the sole purpose of companionship, but to share
in his work of creation. After creation, God did not just entrust man with the
responsibility of caring for the earth, God made man and woman in their union “mini-creators”.
They were to be henceforth companions in bringing forth new life through the
love that they share. Jesus himself teaches that marriage is
between a man and a woman: ‘Have you not read that from the beginning the
Creator made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ (Mt
19:4-6).[10]
1.1.2.1
Old
Testament
Marriage is a
creation of God; it occupies a prominent place in the plan of God. This is
evident in the first and second chapter of Genesis, and the Church has
continued in this line in Her teachings. On this, Richard McBrien avers that,
“the Church’s understanding of the sacredness of marriage is rooted in the
creation narrative in Genesis.”[11]
Therefore the highest honour paid to marriage in the Old Testament is applying
to it the symbol of the Covenant between Yahweh and Israel (Hosea 2; Isaiah
54:4-5; Jeremiah 2:2; 3:20). The divine foundation of marriage is underscored
in the two accounts of creation, and the Genesis accounts of marriage were
further developed in some other parts of the Old Testament. A key element in
both creation accounts is that, from the beginning, God has destined and
blessed the living together of a man and a woman as husband and wife. Thus,
this divine approval and blessing made the first marriage to be the prototype
of all married life.[12]
The Old Testament
writings speak of marriage in the context of Covenant. Covenant here from the
Latin word ‘fidere’ means to trust,
to have faith in, to entrust oneself to another. This portrays a relationship
of mutual trust and fidelity In fact, the Hebrew prophets described God’s
covenant with Israel as a marriage. The prophet Hosea for example, saw God’s
faithfulness to Israel and preached the covenant relationship of Yahweh and
Israel within the context of his own marriage to his harlot wife. Hosea loved
his wife, Gomer, despite her repeated infidelity ‘even as the Lord loves the
people of Israel though they turn to other gods’ (Hos.3:1). From Hosea we
understand that Yahweh is faithful and that marriage is not only the loving
union of a man and a woman, but also it is a prophetic symbol by which humanity
continues to proclaim and make visible the steadfast love of God. Thus Lawrence
Mick remarks that “prophets after him (Hosea), including Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
Second Isaiah, kept alive the tradition of seeing the relationship of God and
the people in terms of marriage”.[13]
1.1.2.2 New Testament
The
New Testament teaching on marriage is a development and a deepening of the Old
Testament’s. The teaching of Christ on marriage is based on the original
meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the
beginning. In the words of Richard McBrien, “Jesus deepens the Hebrew concept
of marriage, insisting on the oneness that exists between the man and the
woman”.[14]
Essentially, the
starting point for understanding marriage in the New Testament can be seen in
the gospels according to Mark and Matthew where the Pharisees came to Jesus to
ask him about the lawfulness of divorce. Jesus’ answer is in a rather
nonconventional way; not in juridical and legal manner, but an ontological one:
“from the beginning God made them male and female. For this reason shall a man
leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become
one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has
joined together, let no one separate (Mk. 10:6-8; Mt. 19:4-6).” With His
answer, Christ reemphasizes that marriage is a monogamous and an indissoluble
union between a man and a woman.
1.2
MARRIAGE
AS A SACRAMENT
Marriage
in the Christian context is first and foremost a mystery; where one plus one,
as against arithmetic agreement, equals to one. The Christian community as a
whole is sacramental. For the baptized persons, Marriage invests the dignity of
a sacramental sign of grace, in as much as it represents the union of Christ
and of the church. The love of husband and wife is recognized as a foundational
social reality in societies and religions in every part of the world.
Acknowledging and affirming the respect due to the institution of marriage, the
Catholic understanding of marriage adds a new ‘dimension’; it is a special
blessing because of Christ. Marriage is a sacrament, a sign of God’s love. It
mirrors the love of Christ for his Church. Marriage is a total communion of
life and of love with God of the married couple in their family life raised to
the dignity of a sacrament by Christ. “Through the help of the grace of the
Sacrament, God consecrates the love of husband and wife and confirms the
indissoluble character of their love, offering them assistance to live their
faithfulness, mutual complementarity and openness to new life.”[15]
The love of God
is eternally faithful and reliable. Married love seeks to reflect that love as
a faithful, unbreakable relationship. Because it is a sacrament, marriage
brings about and deepens the love it reflects. With the couple living the
sacrament of marriage, their children are enriched by their sharing in God’s
love. Married couples also fulfill a sacramental mission, making God’s love
visible and tangible for each other and for the whole community.[16]
Christ’s active participation at the wedding of Cana shows his approval for
Marriage. Marriage as a sacrament implies that God gives a tangible proof of
his divine action. It is a sacred sign that God’s activity becomes visible to
us all in faith.[17]
Thus Pope Leo XIII said
Marriage, moreover, is a sacrament, because it is a
holy sign which gives grace, showing forth an image of the mystical nuptials of
Christ with the Church. But the form and image of these nuptials is shown
precisely by the very bond of that most close union in which man and woman are
bound together in one; which is nothing else but marriage itself. Hence, it is
clear that among Christians every true marriage is, in itself and by itself a
sacrament…[18]
Since
marriage establishes the couple in a public state of life in the Church, it is
fitting that its celebration be public, in the frameworks of a liturgical
celebration, before the priest (or a witness authorized by the Church), the
witnesses, and the assembly of the faithful (CCC 1663). A coming together of
two baptized persons that is not properly or legally, according to Church’s
stipulation sealed as a sacrament, lack some joy; an unfathomable joy of which
Tertullian spoke,
How can I ever express the
happiness of a marriage joined by the Church, strengthened by an offering,
sealed by a blessing, announced by angels and ratified by the Father?...How
wonderful the bond between two believers, now one in hope, one in desire, one
in discipline, one in the same service! They are both children of one Father
and servants of the same master, undivided in spirit and flesh, truly two in
one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one also is the spirit (CCC 1642).[19]
1.2.1
Material
Cause of Marriage
The material cause is that from which a thing comes to be.
The material cause of marriage is the spouses. “The Lord God said, ‘It is not
good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” (Gen
2:18). The marriage relationship, and the family unit as the product of such a
relationship, is not a human idea. God ordained, in his ultimate wisdom, power,
knowledge, and, of course, grace, the relationship that would ensure
purposefulness in life, companionship, faithfulness and stability in the
permanency of this bond.[20]
Partners within the marriage
relationship are equal before God because both were made in his image. Together
they fully reflect the image of God. They are both bearers of the personality
of God; both present the distinctive aspects of the character of God. However,
husbands and wives received different roles. Within the context of the
Christian marriage, as presented in Ephesians chapter five, partners are called
to lovingly submit to one another. In light of that mutual submission, wives
are specifically exhorted to submit to their husbands and husbands are
specifically exhorted to love their wives. Husbands and wives are compared to
Christ and the Church, thus giving this relationship a special purpose and
meaning, a unique place in the range of biblical relations, presenting it as
meaningful, authoritative and vital.There certainly are some limitations to the
cultural aspect of the roles; however, the comparing of this relationship to
Christ and the Church gives the roles within the marriage an eternal,
culturally transmittable value. Christ will always remain the head of his
Church and will always love his bride, and the church will be forever called to
submit to him and respect him.[21]
1.2.2
Formal
Cause of Marriage
Formal cause is the pattern, the
account of the essence of a thing. The formal cause of marriage is the
essential elements of marriage. The essential elements in marriage include: a
man and a woman, prolife, partnership of whole life, good of the spouse, and
education of offspring. These are the essential element of marriage that
constitute the formal cause of marriage, anything against any of the above
mentioned renders marriage invalid. These elements give marriage a distinctive
firmness. The formal cause of marriage is given credence in canon 1055 of the
1983 code. Partnership of whole life implies that there should be a union of
both mind and body; a life-long union, cohabitation and conjugal relationship.
Procreation and upbringing of children implies that while the couples are open
to life, they don’t have the right to it, but they both have right and duties
to conjugal acts in a human manner. Human manner here supposes freewill;
absence of force, absence of contraceptives and the use of the right organs. It
is not sufficient to procreate, it is necessary to educate. Thus procreation
cannot be separated from education, both physical and spiritual education. At
least the minimum affordable education that is necessary for the child to
realize himself as a member of the society.
1.2.3
Efficient Cause Of Marriage
Efficient cause is the source of the
primary principle of change or stability. In marriage the efficient cause is
the manifestation of consent. The consent consists in a “human act by which the
partners mutually give themselves to each other”, this consent that binds the
spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two “becoming one flesh”
(CCC 1627). A
marriage is brought into being by the lawfully manifested consent of persons
who are legally capable. This consent cannot be supplied by any human power
(canon 1057). Marital consent is one of the things the church cannot supply.
The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to
contract marriage, who freely expresses their consent; to be free means not
being under constraint, and not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law
(CCC 1625). The matrimonial consent is an act of the will. This is why
irrational persons cannot contract marriage because they cannot make efficient
use of their real power or, it is subject to manipulation.
The Church holds the exchange of
consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that “makes the
marriage”. If consent is lacking there is no marriage (CCC 1626). Marriage
therefore is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is, on their
will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually and definitively, in order
to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love (CCC 1662).
1.2.4
The Final Cause of Marriage
The final cause is the end, that for
the sake of which a thing is done. Christian marriage has a dual purpose: the
mutual love of the spouses and, the procreation and education of the offspring.
Quoting Isidore of Seville, Miriam Perpetua Egbuna states
There are three reasons to take a
wife. The first is for offspring, as it is read in Genesis: And he blessed
them, saying: Increase and multiply (Gen.1:28); the second reason is
assistance, as it is likewise said in Genesis: it is not good for man to be
aloe; let us make him a helpmate similar to himself (Gen.2:18); the third
reason is incontinence: whence the Apostles says that he who does not remain
continent should marry.[22]
The ends of marriage has been
categorized under primary and secondary ends, but with equal importance; not
giving one priority over the other. Conjugal love expresses
the unitive meaning of marriage in such a way as to show how this meaning is
ordered toward the equally obvious procreative meaning. The unitive meaning is
distorted if the procreative meaning is deliberately disavowed. [23]The
unitive and the procreative purposes are meant to be inseparable. In this way,
the procreative requires the unitive, just as the unitive is ordered to the
procreative. These are two connected meanings of the same reality. For the sake of the structure of this work, we
will elaborate this in the subsequent chapters.
1.3
MARRIAGE AS A VOCATION
We
are all called to give the gift of ourselves to God. Our vocation is the means
through which we give this gift. Vocation is a calling based on God’s purpose and grace.[24]
Every Christian has the universal call to holiness, a vocation that is common
to all. However, individuals are called by God to live out this vocation in
different ways either through priestly or religious celibate life, single life
or married life. To this regards, marriage is a vocation because it is not an
achievement, but a way of life ordained by God. A Christian marriage is a true
vocation; the destinies of the couple are intertwined and must endure ‘in good
times and in bad times, in sickness and in health.[25]
Marriage in the proper sense is a vocation because it is a calling to grow in
union with God, it is the human avenue where new life is brought forth into the
world and nurtured[26],
thereby becoming the sacrament by which the couples share in the creative power
of God. In
marriage, a woman and man promise love and fidelity to each other, for the rest
of their lives. Not knowing what lies ahead they nevertheless make a commitment
that they will continue to love each other whatever comes. While we know that
their commitment may break down and know also the sorrow that this can bring,
we also recognize that many couples live that marital commitment faithfully.
This committed, married love provides a stable and nurturing environment for
children. It is here that children receive the most important and lasting
education of all. They learn how to be a member of a family and of society.[27]
John Paul in his Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris
Consortio number 16 called out on married people to acquire a clear sense
of the dignity of their vocation.
From a
vocational context, Christian marriage can be defined as “the vocation of baptized
man and woman to the state consecrated by the sacrament of holy matrimony,
devoted to the service of new life in Christ which involves specific perfection
of the spouses as a way of life”.[28]
Spouses, therefore, are fortified and, as it were, consecrated for the duties
and dignity of their state by this special sacrament; fulfilling their conjugal
and family role by virtue of this sacrament, spouses are penetrated with the
spirit of Christ and their whole life is suffused by faith, hope and charity; thus
they increasingly further their own perfection and their mutual sanctification,
and together they render glory to God.[29]
The marital vocation is not a private or merely personal affair. Yes, marriage
is a deeply personal union and relationship, but it is also for the good of the
Church and the entire community.
1.4
CLASSICAL CONCEPTS OF MARRIAGE
The classical concept of marriage is
the underlying elements intrinsic in marriage as an institution based on divine
principles and the law of nature, and disregarding all contemporary trends
against the divine and natural laws of marriage. The classical concept of
marriage include that it is heterosexual, monogamous and exclusive. Therefore a
married union is inherently between two individuals of the opposite sex, between
two partners and not more (a man and a woman), and a personal relationship
between the partner in and within themselves. The classical concept of marriage
traditionally guard marriage against some things: the heterosexual concept in
marriage guard marriage against same sex unions, the monogamous concept in
marriage guard marriage against polygamy and polyandry unions, and the
exclusive concept in marriage guards marriage against infidelity.
1.4.1
Heterosexual
This is the traditional union in a
marriage relationship; between individuals of the opposite sex. This implies
that marriage is traditionally gender sensitive and that is what it supposed by
the rule of nature. Going by the purpose of marriage, individuals of the same
sex cannot achieve this purpose naturally. This is because on the one hand,
people of same sex cannot complement each other because each of them have what
the other has, and lack what the other lack, but individuals of different sex
can complement each other because each lack what the other has and coming
together they can complement for the lack inherent in the other. On the other
hand, there is no possibility of procreation in a union of individuals of same
sex. They can’t naturally give birth to a new life by their biological make-ups;
Male-female
complementarity is intrinsic to marriage. It is naturally ordered toward
authentic union and the generation of new life. Children are meant to be the
gift of the permanent and exclusive union of a husband and a wife. A child is
meant to have a mother and a father. The true nature of marriage, lived in
openness to life, is a witness to the precious gift of the child and to the
unique roles of a mother and father. Same-sex unions are incapable of such a
witness.[30]
The Genesis account was clear enough in its terms of marriage; ‘male and female
he created them’, and in the Gospels Jesus was clear when he said therefore ‘a
man and a woman…’ not a man and a man or a woman and a woman.
Marriage,
this clinging together of husband and wife as one flesh, is based on the fact
that man and woman are both different and the same. They are different as male
and female, but the same as human persons who are uniquely suited to be
partners or helpmates for each other. The difference between man and woman,
however, cannot be restricted to their bodies, as if the body could be
separated from the rest of the human person. The human person is a union of
body and soul as a single being. Man and woman are two different ways of being
a human person. While man and woman are different, their differences serve to
relate them to each other. They are not different in a parallel way, as two
lines that never meet. Man and woman do not have separate destinies. They are
related to each other precisely in their differences. The differences between
male and female are complementary. Male and female are distinct bodily ways of
being human, of being open to God and to one another, two distinct yet
harmonizing ways of responding to the vocation to love.
1.4.2
Monogamous
This is the practice of being
married to only one person at a time, and by implication involves having one
sexual partner. This concept permits one partner at a time. Monogamous
pairing ensures that both of the mates will contribute to care of their
offspring and to mutual defense and education. This is implied in the
common saying of an individual when he finds companionship in a person: ‘I have
found my missing rib’, not missing ribs. Therefore in marriage one seeks a
complementation which a one true partner can provide for him or her.
From
Genesis 2:21-24 it becomes clear that marriage took place between one man and
one woman. The repeated use of singular nouns and pronouns in the passages is
noteworthy: God decides to make “a helper” for “the man” (2:18); He selects
“one” rib from “the man” (2:21), and fashions it into “a woman” whom He then
takes to “the man” (2:22); “the man” says that “she shall be called woman”
(2:23); thus, “a man” leaves his parents and is joined to “his wife” (2:24).25
In this distinct way the original marital form can be seen to be monogamous.
1.4.3
Exclusive
Marriage is a commitment to a unique
kind of communion; exclusive and not inclusive. Consequently, in marrying, a
man and a woman form an exclusive union, whether it is a sacramental marriage
or not. It is exclusive for the spouses alone without the involvement of a
third party in the affairs proper to marriage. For instance, the love a husband
should have for his wife should be an exclusive one, especially and
specifically for his wife alone and vice-versa. This concept basically makes
marriage a closed relationship and not an open ended one. This concept of
marriage is with special regards to the conjugal acts proper and reserved to
the married couples alone.
1.5 CONCLUSION
Marriage is based on the truth of
its divine institution, the anthropological
fact that man and woman are different and complementary; the natural law
that reproduction depends on the coming together of the biological make-ups of
a man and a woman, and the social reality that, formally, children need a
mother and a father for their upbringing. This chapter did not simply expand
the existing understanding of marriage, but agrees with and reemphasizes it,
both as a divine institution, a social institution, a sacrament anda vocation,
in addition with the traditional concept with which marriage is defined which
includes the terms heterosexual, monogamous and exclusive.
CHAPTER
TWO
THEOLOGY
OF MARRIAGE
2.0
INTRODUCTION
The
mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and
life. It is the mystery of God Himself. It is therefore the source of all the
other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most
fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith”
(CCC 234). Down the ages, God has shown us his selfless love. In espousing
himself to the Church in sacrificial, life-giving love, Christ reveals the
Father’s love in the power of the Holy Spirit; laying bare the inner life of
the Holy Trinity, a communion of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Marriage and the family life is a communion of persons that shares and reflects
the Trinitarian life and love. This relationship among the Persons in communion
simultaneously distinguish them from one another and unite them to one another;
just as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinctly who they are
only in relation to one another, so a man and a woman are distinctly who they
are as husband and wife only in relation to one another. At the same time, in a
way analogous to the relations among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which unites
the three Persons as one God, the inter-relationship of the husband and wife
make them one as a married couple.
Marriage
is first and foremost a mystery; through the Sacrament of Matrimony, married
love not only is modeled on Trinitarian love but also participates in it. Like
all sacraments, Matrimony draws believers more deeply into the Trinitarian life
of God. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops writes
As we learn from the mystery of the Trinity, to be
in the image and likeness of God is not simply to have intelligence and free
will, but also to live in a communion of love. From all eternity the Father begets
His Son in the love of the Spirit. In the begetting of the Son, the Father
gives himself entirely over to the Son in the love of the Holy Spirit. The Son,
having been begotten of the Father, perfectly returns that love by giving
Himself entirely over to the Father in the same Spirit of love. It is because
He is begotten of the Father, and loves the Father in the same Spirit, that He
is called Son. The Holy Spirit is then acknowledged as the mutual love of the
Father for his Son and of the Son for his Father. This is why the Spirit is
known as the gift of love. Here one can see that the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit give themselves entirely to one another in a life-giving exchange
of love. Thus, the Trinity is a loving and life-giving communion of equal
Persons. The one God is the loving inter-relationship of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.[31]
Marriage is the
communion of love between co-equal persons, reflecting the image of the
Trinitarian persons who are co-equal, beginning with the love of the husband
and wife, and extending to the members of the family. The saintly Pope John
Paul II teaches in his Familiaris
Consortio number 18 that The family, which is founded and given life by
love, is a community of persons: of husband and wife, of parents and children,
of relatives. Also just as the Trinitarian is a life-giving communion of love,
in relation to themselves as co-equal and in relation to the whole of creation,
the married couples share in the life-giving communion of love by the procreation
of children in conjugal act of love. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote “while angels
are, strictly speaking, higher than human beings by nature, the ability to
procreate in love makes human beings, at least in one way, more in the image
and likeness of God than the angels, who are unable to procreate. In human
beings one finds a certain imitation of God, consisting in the fact that man
proceeds from man, as God proceeds from God”.[32]
2.1CHRIST-CHURCH
RELATIONSHIP MODEL
Likening to the Old
Testament storyline of God creating woman out of man, Lloyd Pulley remarks that
“Like Adam, Jesus’ side was pierced, and out of it came His bride, the Church.
This is the great mystery of the Church and also the holy blueprint for
marriage.[33]
The Scripture continually draws parallels between Christ and the Church and
marriage. Christ is the bridegroom and we (the Church) are the bride.
Christ-Church relationship provides us with a model for our own marriage. In
his Letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Be subject to one another
out of reverence for Christ. Wives be subject to your husbands as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church,
His body, and is Himself its Savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let
wives also be subject in everything to their husbands” (Eph. 2:21). Paul is
seeking to highlight the unity and mutuality with which husbands and wives are
to live. Christ and the Church exist in a reciprocal and unified relationship.
The Church is dependent upon Christ for its wellbeing and life, and the Church
does Christ’s work on earth.[34]
Likewise, husbands and wives are to be unified and reciprocally loving toward
one another. Therefore, the analogy between the relationships of Christ and the
Church and husbands and wives is found in the idea of source and unity, rather
than the commonly interpreted idea of hierarchy. The simile of the relationship
of Christ and the Church and husbands and wives would cease to be analogous if
there were not significant differences between them. However, the distinction
and differences between the Christ-Church and husband-wife simile are often
lost or denied. When this occurs, the idea of mutuality within marriage is
lost, and husbands are often made out to be the “saviours” or “spiritual
leaders” of their wives. Such an understanding denies women a fully free
relationship with God.[35]
The marital union of
Christ and the Church does not destroy but, on the contrary, accomplishes what
the conjugal love of man and woman announces in its own way, what it implies or
already realizes, as regards communion and fidelity in effect, the Christ of
the Cross accomplishes the perfect oblation of Himself that the spouses desire
to accomplish in the flesh without, however, ever coming to realize perfectly
He accomplishes in regard to the Church He loves as his own body what husbands
should do for their spouses, as Saint Paul said. On his part, the Resurrection
of Jesus in the power of the Spirit reveals that the oblation He made on the
Cross bears fruit in this same flesh in which it is accomplished, and that the
Church loved by Him so much he would die for it can initiate the world into
this total communion between God and men from which it benefits as the Spouse
of Jesus Christ.[36]
2.2
MAGISTERIAL TEACHINGS
Even before any theological reflection on marriage itself
can begin, the Church is defined as the sole conveyor and authority over the
Sacraments. The Church understands marriage to have a character
which is salvific. The Magisterium teaches that
Christian marriage is a union between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all
other persons. With regards to conjugal love, the Church sees marriage as
cooperation with the Creator in the procreation and rearing of children. In the
teaching of the Church, the end of marriage is both companionship and
procreation.
There is some disagreement in how
one should interpret the development of marriage theology over the course of
the twentieth century. In considering the history of the five major magisterial
documents on marriage, the question often becomes whether the teaching of the
Church has remained continuous over the century, or whether there was a radical
reorientation at the time of the Second Vatican Council.[37]
This survey will instead focus on how each document addresses marriage in
response to the questions of the day.
2.2.1Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae (1880)
Modern
magisterial teaching on marriage begins with Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae,
although it should be situated within the greater theological trends preceding
its promulgation. Some three centuries before, the catechism of the Council of
Trent had actually reversed the order of Augustine’s goods of marriage.
Following the Council’s teachings, the spouses were seen to marry primarily in
order to help each other through the hardships of life, creating a supernatural
bond between them and opening the possibility of mutual assistance on the way
to salvation.[38]
What followed was a remarkable period of marital spirituality in Roman Catholic
thinking. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, the debates of the
Enlightenment inhibited further theological reflection on the spouses as a
spiritual unit; while increasing Puritanism through the nineteenth-century
removed what little spiritual understanding had developed.[39]
Faced with the increased civil legislations allowing for divorce, and the
rising use of contraception, the Church adopted a defensive position which once
again emphasized the importance of children in the definition and moral
understanding of marriage.[40]
The question of divorce
is the major concern in Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae.The opening sections (art. 1-15)
seeks to prove the divine origins of marriage as a social institution and sacrament,
as well as the Church’s unique and divinely ordained authority over it. Entire
histories of the benefits of marriage for human society, as well as the evils
which arise when God’s plan for marriage is abandoned by a civilization, are
enumerated. The greatest theological energy is spent on proving that the Church
is the sole authority over the single Truth of marriage, resisting the role of
civil authorities in the strongest terms. Set against this criticism of civil
divorce, it is not surprising, then, that the first description of marriage
given in Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae is its quality of permanence in
unity between the spouses. Through a re-telling of the Creation narrative,
marriage is characterized as having a divine origin as the foundation of the
human race and even of human society. As part of this claim, the original
marriage is said to have manifested chiefly two most excellent properties:
unity and perpetuity.
2.2.2Casti Connubii (1930)
Casti Connubiiarrived at an interesting moment in
theological discourse. The Encyclical was the first Magisterial Teaching on
marriage to fully appropriate Augustine’s three goods or blessings of marriage;
procreation and education of children, mutual aid of the spouses, and
sacrament. Following as closely as it did after the Lambeth Conference, in
which the Anglican Church assented to limited use of contraception within
marriage, the Encyclical is often popularly understood as a direct response
from the Catholic Church and affirmation of procreation as the primary end of
marriage. Indeed, the Encyclical is popularly cast as a type of stepping stone
in early 20th Century Theological discourse, enshrining the
hierarchy of the ends of marriage already encoded in Arcanum Divinae
Sapientiae and the 1917 Code of Canon Law, and leading directly to the
pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council.[41]
Along with the many social and
cultural changes which had occurred between 1880 and 1930, admittedly including
the development of the Lambeth Conference, Pius XI was forced to deal with the
discovery in 1920 of predictable periods of fertility and infertility during a
woman’s menstrual cycle.[42]
He resolves this within in the article 59 of Casti Connubii by
recognizing that sexual activity serves the relationship of the couple beyond
the practical consideration of procreation. Thus it states
Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the
married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of
natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be
brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights
there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual
love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden
to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as
the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved.[43]
2.2.3 Gaudium et Spes (1965)
This document Gaudium et
Spes is
reflective of the renewing energy of the Second Vatican Council. Its interpretation has
become bound up in the overall debate over continuity with or departure from
the Tradition. As with the history of the Vatican II itself, the theology of
marriage presented in Gaudium et Spes can be presented as either
conservative or revolutionary, depending on the views of the theologian reading
it.
The Constitution was the first Magisterial
Document to do away with the language of ‘ends’ in discussing marriage. With this
shift in vocabulary, it is claimed, came a shift in the teaching on marriage.[44]Thus the assertion that
Vatican II removed any understanding of a hierarchy of the ends of marriage,
placing both in equal importance and allowing for a truly new understanding of
the marriage relationship. While there is no explicit language of primary and
secondary ends, the section on marriage certainly upholds an orientation
towards procreation and education as the foundational premise. Children and
their well-being are at the centre of the constitution’s teaching. The family
here understood as having a very specific purpose: the development of
individual persons, in their unique need for life with dignity. To this end,
marriage is cast as the incubator for the child, but with little attention paid
to the continuing development of the spouses themselves. A continued emphasis
on children as the purpose for marriage influences the teaching that Gaudium
et Spes presents on sexuality within marriage. The marriage theology presented
in Gaudium et Spes marks another turning point in Roman Catholic
marriage theology, subtle but important to the theological reflections which
occur afterwards. The pastoral constitution is the first magisterial document
which refers, not to marriage, but to marriage and the family.
2.2.4 Familiaris Consortio (1981)
The close connection between marriage and the
family as a single subject for reflection is again present in John Paul II’s
post-synodal apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio.The main statements
on marriage theology specifically occur in a short section entitled “The Plan
of God for Marriage and the Family,” placed at the beginning of the exhortation
following a description of the blessings and challenges around family life in
the modern context. The section on marriage theology opens with the statement
that God created humanity through love and in order for persons to live for
love. Included in this exposition is a remarkably open dialogue on the
importance of the body and human sexuality in the experience of true love and
marital spirituality. In particular, as a unity of body and spirit, the human
person is called to live the vocation to love through the proper use of the
body: either through the expression of sexual love within the context of a
valid marriage, or through consecrated abstinence as part of a vow of celibacy
or of virginity (n. 11). The function of marriage, then, is to provide the only
proper context within which sexual love can be expressed properly. By building
on a relationship of commitment and mutual self-giving, the spouses enter into
the unique relationship of which sexual expression is the proper sign.
The only “place” in which this self-giving in its whole truth is
made possible is marriage, the covenant of conjugal love freely and consciously
chosen, whereby man and woman accept the intimate community of life and love
willed by God Himself, which only in this light manifests its true meaning. [45]
2.2.5 Amoris Laetitia (2016)
The final
magisterial document dealing directly with marriage is the recent post-synodal
apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. The driving purpose of the
document is a recognition of the lived experiences of people and families,
particularly the struggles they must face in the contemporary world, and the
best ways for the Church to give a pastorally-sensitive response. Eschewing the
more defensive tone of earlier documents, Amoris Laetitia provides a
model of the “responsible and generous effort to present the reasons and motivations for choosing marriage and the family”.
The document as a whole
presents a number of remarkable insights into the family. Pope Francis takes a
great care to describe the myriad realities and struggles of family life,
including insights into the surrounding culture, with an incredible depth and
nuance. The sections exploring the meaning of love in the family and a
spirituality of family life are examples of a compassionate application of
theology to lived reality. The nuptial theology of this exhortation also
affirms the greater tradition of binding marriage to family in such a way that
the spouses are seen primarily as parents.
2.3 ESSENTIAL PROPERTIES
OF CONJUGAL LOVE
The essential properties of marriage are those
characteristics God intended for marriage and without which there can be no
marriage. Partners contracting a sacramental marriage must be open to these
properties or no valid marriage is contracted. A person does not have to
consciously embrace the essential properties, but if he or she rejects them in
such a way that this rejection “determines the will” then the union is invalid
from the very beginning. Church has always seen marriage as a natural
covenantal partnership between the baptized, and as a sacrament. This means
that the natural reality of matrimonial covenant has been elevated to the
supernatural order as an effective sign of grace. The essential properties; the
unity and the indissolubility which are proper to natural marriage obtain a
special firmness in Christian marriage. These properties are also important for
Christian and non-Christian marriages because they arise from the very nature
and essential purpose of marriage. The Christian tradition and the doctrine of
St. Paul teach that these two properties reflect the unique and indissoluble
bond of Christ and the Church. The 1983 Code of Canon Law affirms in
clear terms that “the essential properties of marriage are unity and
indissolubility; in Christian marriage they acquire a distinctive firmness by
reason of the sacrament” (canon 1056).
2.3.1 Unity
The
unity of marriage, distinctly recognized by our Lord, is made clear in the
equal personal dignity which must be accorded to man and wife in mutual and
unreserved affection. Polygamy is contrary to conjugal
love which is undivided and exclusive (CCC, 1645).Unity
is one of the essential properties or characteristics of every marriage whether
Christian marriage or natural marriage. The Unity of Marriage can be understood
from the fact that marriage is designed by its very nature to be monogamous and
practiced exclusively between one man and one woman, that is, the two forming a
new and unique heterosexual relationship.[46]
In other words, the unity of marriage consists in the joining of one man to one
woman in matrimonial union which takes its root in the bible (Gen. 2:25; Mt.
19:6; Mt. 10:8). This is called monogamy as opposed to polygamy (polyandry: one
woman with several husbands and polygamy: one man with several wives).[47]
Therefore the unity we are talkingabout
here means oneness that cannot be extended to embrace a third party.[48]In the unity of the two,
‘man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist side by side or
together’, but they are also called to exist mutually one for the other.
2.3.2 Indissolubility
Indissolubility is the joyous affirmation that
nuptial love is not at the mercy of spouses’ moods, nor of the unforeseeable
good or bad circumstances spouses may face, nor of the changing ideas or
perceptions they may have of the “intimate communion of life and love” they are
given to live. That the spousal love of a man and a woman is indissoluble means
that love can continue to grow and spouses can be faithful through all the
vicissitudes of married life.[49]
The indissolubility of marriage which is often referred to
as the permanence of the marriage bond is dependent on an outcome of the mutual
consent between a man and a woman. Marriage is a perpetual relationship. The essential property of
indissolubility means that a validly constituted matrimonial bond cannot be
dissolved. With this in mind, it is evident that a valid matrimonial bond
fundamentally excludes all possibilities of dissolution through divorce. This means that the contract or
covenant of marriage cannot be dissolved at will, or with the consent
of the contracting parties. This indissolubility in marriage is a demand of the dignity that
is intrinsic to marriage. Marriage thus is ‘till death do us
part’. This is to say that the marriage
relationship endures throughout of the life of contracting parties and cannot
be effectively dissolved by any human power.[50]So the Church teaches that from a
valid marriage there arises a bond as a result of the “mutual surrender” of the
couples which by its nature is perpetual, exclusive even when no children are born
of the union.[51]
However, the indissolubility in marriage comes in two different categories:
intrinsic and extrinsic indissolubility.
2.3.2.1 Intrinsic Indissolubility
Intrinsic indissolubility means that
it is impossible for either one or both of the spouses to dissolve the bond of
Marriage. This is the category where the husband and wife cannot dissolve the
marital bond but the Roman Pontiff can. The Church does not recognize the power
of civil authorities to dissolve marriages. On this basis it is also called
relative indissolubility. Allmarriages
whether Christian marriage or not or whether the couples are baptizedor not, are intrinsically
indissoluble once they have been validly contracted.This means that by its nature, marriage enjoys
indissolubility because it is not only
asocial pact or contract but it is also a covenant, a divine
institution.
2.3.2.2 Extrinsic Indissolubility
Extrinsic indissolubility refers to the impossibility of
dissolution of the matrimonial bond by any human authority, including the
ecclesiastical authority. This affirms the absolute permanence in the character
of marriage and based on this, it is also referred to as absolute
indissolubility. This is the category of indissolubility that states that as
long as a marriage is valid, ratified and consummated, both the couple and any
other authority cannot dissolve it. A marriage is extrinsically indissoluble
when it cannot be dissolved either bythe
intervention of external authorities or by the realization of certain condition.
2.4
THE PLACE OF CONJUGAL LOVE IN MARRIAGE
Marriage as the partnership of whole
life is by its nature ordered towards conjugal love. The
spouses’ mutual promise of lifelong love and fidelity provides this act with
the clarity of an explicitly stated intention that enables the language of the
body to be spoken. It is the intention of both spouses to cling together for
life as one flesh, in a completely mutual self gift that gives the language of
the body its voice. In each marital act, this intention is signified, or
spoken. Each marital act signifies the grateful openness to all of God’s gifts.
When the act signifies this grateful openness, one gives oneself completely,
without shame (see Gn 2:25).[52] Each marital act
signifies, embodies, and renews the original and enduring marital covenant
between husband and wife. That is what makes intercourse exclusively a marital
act. Engaging in marital intercourse is speaking the language of the body,
as Pope John Paul II calls it ‘a language of personal communion in complete and
mutual self donation’. Pope Paul VI in Humanae
Vitae clearly states that conjugal love is above all fully human, a compound
of sense and spirit which is total, faithful and exclusive until death. This
love is also fruitful and not exhausted by the communion between husband and
wife, but is destined to continue by raising up new generation. In fact, this
love requires that husband and wife be aware of their mission of responsible
parenthood.[53]
2.4.1 Act of Self Giving
Spousal love involves a
total gift of self that, by its very nature, founds a form and is itself a
form. Even if erotic desire is no part of
a couple’s motivation in marrying, marital intercourse normally involves and
intensifies erotic love, and such love tends to expand into conjugal affection,
which permeates the whole relationship. This affection presses for exclusive
and permanent union, as everyone recognizes.[54]
As expressed in the
liturgy of Christian matrimony, the consent spouses declare is, first, each
one’s reception of the other, which coincides with the entrusting of oneself to
that other, and, second, the promise that this gift of self to the other will
be confirmed in time.[55] Given our cultural
context, it is important to mention that the spouses’ reception of each other
originates a nuptial union that is greater than the sum of its members
precisely because the spouses are sexually different. Only with sexual
difference is the conjugal union a union of two persons who are irreducibly
other in both the spiritual and bodily aspects of their being, and it is
precisely because of this irreducible difference, which truly and permanently
opens one to the other, that the union can be fruitful.
According to God’s will, husband and wife should encounter
each other in bodily union (one flesh union) so as to be united ever more
deeply with one another in love and to allow children to proceed from their
love. In Christianity, the body, pleasure and erotic joy enjoy a high status.
The sexual relationship is seen as sacred body language, a way to express the
deep, unconditional, indissoluble love of married persons. Sex outside of
marriage contradicts and devalues the true meaning of the sexual act, and goes
against the dignity of the human person.
2.5 THE ENDS OF MARRIAGE
Marriage has two fundamental ends or purposes
towards which it is oriented, namely, the good of the spouses as well as the
procreation of children. Thus, the Church teaches that marriage is both unitive
and procreative, and that it is inseparably both.[56] These ends are stipulated
based on the divine plan from the beginning, firstly to bring forth new life
and secondary to be a suitable companion for each other. Thus, the
primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children; the
secondary end is mutual support and companionship; a remedy for concupiscence.
While these ends are ordered in a hierarchical way (primary and secondary), it
is important to say that one is a effect of the other which is the cause;
procreation is an effect of the conjugal companionship between the husband and
wife because if the husband and wife doesn’t come together in sexual union,
procreation will not take place and where there are no offspring, there will
not be children to educate. However the Church in her wisdom and teachings has
willed to make procreation primary and companionship secondary. However Pope
Paul VI mentions that both are essential ends of marriage which preserve
conjugal act in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination
to man’s most noble vocation to
parenthood. Thus the good or mutual love of the spouses and the procreation and
education of children which are often referred to as unitive and procreative
meanings in conjugal act are both vital and inseparably connected and willed by
God. They cannot be broken at man’s own initiative. They are both inherent to
the marriage act.[57]
2.5.1
Primary Ends of Marriage (procreation and education of children)
The enduring love between a man and a woman is destined for the generation of new life.This new life shows itself ordinarily in the bringing forth of children; this is a mystery of life that
requires the cooperation of the man and
the woman with the
providential will of God.The presece of children in a family is a great blessing, calling the couple to a new experience ofgenerosity and fidelity expressed in the daily care they give for the lives of their children.[58]
It is the nature of love
to overflow, to be life-giving. Thus, it is no surprise that marriage is
ordained not only to growing in love but to transmitting life. The Church
teaches that the institution of marriage and conjugal love ipso facto is ordered to the procreation and education of the
offspring and it is in them that if finds its crowning glory.[59] Children are the supreme
gift of marriage. This is equally the social end of marriage. However the most
serious obligation is to educate the offspring and therefore parents are
recognized as the primary and principal educators.
Parents, and those who take their place, have
both the obligation and right to educate their children. Catholic parents have
also the duty and the right to choose those means an institutes which, in their
local circumstances, can best promote the catholic education of their children.[60]
2.5.2
Secondary Ends (companionship/ unitive)
This deals with
the relationship between husband and wife in their communion of whole life. It
is the personal fulfillment and contribution of the spouses to the communion of
life, values and the indissolubility of conjugal life even when children are
lacking.[61]Before Eve was created,
Adam was alone. His joy upon perceiving Eve indicated that with Eve he achieved
the original unity that human nature seeks. God clearly made human beings to
love and to be loved, to be in relationships wherein the act of giving oneself
and receiving the other becomes complete. Pope John Paul II’s theology of the
body speaks of the human body as having a spousal significance. This means that
the human body by its very nature signifies that we humans are directed to
relationship, that we are to seek union with others. For it is only in
relationship that we achieve a true wholeness as a communion of persons. “My
lover belongs to me and I to him” (Song 2:16; see Song 6:3). With all the
dignity and simplicity of poetry, the Bride in the Song of Songs sings of the unitive meaning of married love. It is
important to note that this is not ordered towards lust.
2.6
CONCLUSION
Partners within
the marriage relationship are equal before God because both were made in his
image. Together they fully reflect the image of God. They are both bearers of
the personality of God; both present the distinctive aspects of the character
of God. However, husbands and wives received different roles. Within the
context of the Christian marriage, as presented in Ephesians 5, partners are
called to lovingly submit to one another. In light of that mutual submission,
wives are specifically exhorted to submit to their husbands and husbands are
specifically exhorted to love their wives. Husbands and wives are compared to
Christ and the Church, thus giving this relationship a special purpose and
meaning, a unique place in the range of biblical relations, presenting it as
meaningful, authoritative and vital. There certainly are some limitations to
the cultural aspect of the roles; however, the comparing of this relationship
to Christ and the Church gives the roles within the marriage an eternal,
culturally transmittable value. Christ will always remain the head of His
Church and will always love his bride, and the Church will be forever called to
submit to him and respect him.
CHAPTER THREE
DOCTRINAL PRINCIPLES IN HUMANAE VITAE
3.0
INTRODUCTION
The Papal Encyclical, Humanae vitae (HV) written by Pope St. Paul VI, provides beautiful and clear
teaching about God’s plan for married love and the transmission of life.[62]The Humanae Vitae was intended by Paul VI as a reaffirmation of the
constant teaching of the Catholic Church on married love, responsible
parenthood and the continued rejection of unnatural forms of birth control. The
Catholic Church’s teaching on sexuality is based on the dignity of the human
person as being made in the Image and Likeness of a Loving God. The Church
provides sure guidance on moral matters. There is no doubt that the teachings
in Humane Vitae are to be accepted as
an Authoritative Teaching of the Catholic Church binding on all believers.
3.1
GENERAL OVERVIEW
Humanae
Vitae (Of Human Life) is an Encyclical Letter written by
Pope Paul VI to the world, and particularly to the Church, and published on
July 25, 1968. It addressed and affirmed, contrary to popular expectations, the
Church’s constant teaching on contraception and it came at the peak of the
sexual revolution in a tumultuous time. The Letter was generally not well
received and, in some cases, it was openly denounced.[63]Humanae Vitae is controversial, but is
highly influential in the Church Teachings on sexuality and birth control. The
Encyclical is subtitled “On The Regulation of Birth”, and defends and
reiterates the Church’s Teachings on conjugal love, responsible parenthood, family
planning, and reproductive issues like abortion, sterilization, contraception
and artificial methods.[64]
The
Encyclical firstly addressed the subject of the Letter ‘human life’ which is
the mission of spouses in collaborating with God; “the extremely important
mission of transmitting human life” that God has entrusted to spouses. It
speaks of parents as those who render God a great service. After all, God wants
to share His Limitless Goodness with souls; that is why He created the
universe. Having and raising children is an act of immense generosity and
dignity; it enables human persons to participate in an act of inestimable
value: the act of assisting God in bringing a new immortal soul into existence.[65]
This mission is not carried out without difficulty and has always, but in a
particular way in modern times, challenged the consciences of spouses in
discerning family size. He addressed new aspects of human life, referring
particularly to population increase, modern economic issues and the increase in
the development of technology. He affirmed the competency of the Magisterium to
teach on moral issues and reminded the Church of the special commission set up
by Pope John XXIII to examine the question of contraception from various
disciplines and states in life.[66]
The document at the
heart of its discourse proclaims the Church’s teaching on marital love as a
total, integrated vision of body and soul.
We are called to love as God loves, and this has a special meaning for
those called to conjugal love; the marital vocation. Being made in the Image
and Likeness of God, we are called to be reflections of God’s love; a love that
is free, total, faithful and fruitful. Spouses are called to duty, toward
responsible upbringing of their offspring (responsible parenthood) and they
must not fail in this duty. The marital life is consummated in sexual union
between the spouses. However, sex in marriage is unitive and procreative; these
two aspects must never be separated from each other. Nevertheless it is
permitted to abstain during the fertile period of a woman’s cycle. This is
summed up in the ‘Natural Family Planning’ (NFP) because it respects the
God-given designs of nature and does not impede the life-giving end of sex, as
contraception does.[67]Humanae Vitae speaks against the
distorted view of human sexuality and intimate relationships that many in the
modern world promote. The widespread use of contraception appears to have
contributed greatly to the increase of sex outside of marriage, to an increase
of non-marital pregnancies, abortion, single parenthood, cohabitation, divorce,
poverty, and the exploitation of women.[68]Placing an obstacle to procreation
makes the conjugal act something other than is intended by God.[69]Though
Humanae Vitae is primarily targeted
to Catholics and other Christians, it equally calls government and public
authorities to promulgate laws that uphold natural moral laws and refute those
that oppose it.
3.2
GOD’S LOVING DESIGN
The understanding of God’s Love is foundational to the Teachings of marriage as a Sacrament. God’s Love is Total. It is Permanent. His Love is an unlimited gift of Himself to us, His children. In marriage, spouses live a true communion of persons in the Lord. The sign value of marital love lies precisely in its ability to mirror God’s Love. Marriage is therefore a vocation, a real path to union with God. Here the saintly Pope Paul VI presents the Church’s basic Teaching on marriage. Marriage is a Loving Design of God and not an effect of chance or evolution. Humanae Vitae spoke of marriage as “the wise and provident institution of the creator to realize in mankind His Design of love”.[70] The true nature and nobility of marital love is manifested to us in the most clear when we recognize that it originated from the highest source who is Love (God). This sets the context to a better understanding and appreciation of the love that exist between husband and wife, parents and children, a better understanding of human sexuality, and conjugal love as one of the way husband and wife express love for each other.[71] The creative potentials of humans are united with God’s in the marital act. It is only when a couple are truly open to life that they are part of God’s creative design and respect the intrinsic meaning and language of sexual relations.
However,
there are two dangers in sex: on the one hand, fear of the self-surrender or
closeness that a physical relationship requires, and fear that sex is dirty and
shameful; on the other, unbridled lust and sin. Clearly, the sexual sphere is
not incorruptible. Even in marriage its potential blessings become dangers if
it is entered in isolation from God, who created it. Instead of passion there
is naked lust, instead of tenderness there is aggression and even brutality,
and instead of mutual self-giving there is uncontrollable desire. The spirit of
impurity is always waiting to tempt us, and it will slip into the sanctuary of
marriage whenever we open the door to it. Once impurity has entered a marriage,
it becomes more and more difficult to keep focused on God’s love, and easier
and easier to bypass one another and succumb to evil temptations. Sex quickly
loses its nobler qualities and deteriorates into something cheap. What was created
as a wonderful gift from God becomes a sinister, life-destroying experience. [72]
Nonetheless,
the true nature of sexual sphere can be recognized most clearly when we can see
its sacredness as the fulfillment of wedded love sanctioned by God. It is the
same with the act of sexual intercourse itself, the moment in which marital
love comes to its fullest physical expression. Because intercourse is such a
powerfully dramatic experience, it is vital that it should be anchored in God.
If sex is not recognized as a Gift from God and subordinated to him, it can
become an idol. Entered with reverence, however, it “awakens that which is most
intimate, most sacred, and most vulnerable in the human heart.[73]
In a true marriage, sex is guided by more than the desires of each partner; it
is guided by the love that binds both partners together. When each partner
gives himself in complete surrender to the other, a uniting of unparalleled
depth takes place. It will not be just ‘physical love’; it will be the
expression and fulfillment of total love, an act of unconditional giving and
deep fulfillment. Thus
sex is not a shameful thing; it is a divine gift, ordained to life, to love, to
fruitfulness.[74]
Using sexual intercourse to express sexuality is always good as long as it
occurs within the context for which it was made and because God ordered sex for
a specific purpose, we must fulfill this ordering so as not to misuse God’s
gift. Sex is ordered to an obligation of fecundity and fidelity and these ends
cannot be separated as it would harm the goods of marriage and the spiritual
lives of the couple (cf. CCC 2363). It is important for us to uphold the sexual
act as God intends because sex is not ours and it is not a right. Sex is a
privilege and a gift in which God as Master of sex has designed humans to be
ministers of this gift. It is important to note there is nothing wrong or
sinful in seeking pleasure from sex as long as the ends of fidelity and
fecundity are present. Sexual pleasure becomes sinful when one seeks sex for
the sake of pleasure itself, severing the act’s procreative and unitive ends
(cf. CCC 2351).
The
Love Christ has for the Church allows us to understand better how married love,
in what Saint John Paul II called the language of the body, is called to be an
Image of God’s love: a love which is life-long, exclusive, and ready to reach
beyond the couple itself, even bringing forth a new life. This is why Christ
has committed Himself to husbands and wives in the Sacrament of Marriage. He
will always be present to empower them with his infinite love.[75]
In God’s order, marriage and family originate in the church. The church is
God’s primary expression of his love and justice in the world. In the church,
marriage can be fulfilled and given its true value; Sacramental value.
Regarding this, Paul VI wrote
As a consequence, husband and
wife, through that mutual gift of themselves, which is specific and exclusive
to them alone, develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one
another, cooperating with God in the generation and rearing of new lives.
Marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the
dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ
and His Church.[76]
Only very few people in our day
understand that marriage contains a mystery far deeper than the bond of husband
and wife, that is, the eternal Unity of Christ with His Church. In a true
marriage, the unity of husband and wife will reflect this deeper unity. It is
not only a bond between one man and one woman, because it is sealed by the
greater bond of unity with God and His people. This bond must always come
first. It is this bond we pledge at baptism and reaffirm at every celebration
of the Lord’s Supper, and we should remind ourselves of it at every wedding.
Without it, even the happiest marriage will bear no lasting fruit.[77]
3.3CHARACTERISTICS
OF CONJUGAL LOVE
In the landmark Encyclical, the
saintly Pope Paul VI identified the characteristic features of conjugal love: fully human, total, faithful and fruitful.[78]In a word it is a question of the normal
characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which
not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making
them the expression of specifically Christian values.[79]This love is fully human
simultaneously in terms of the senses and of the spirit, the result of an act
of the free will intended to endure and grow through the joys and sorrows of daily
life. In this the husband and wife become one of heart and soul and together
attain their human perfection. This is a total love in which the husband and
wife generously share everything without undue reservation or selfish
calculations. The partners rejoice in that each can enrich the other with the
gift of self. This love is faithful and exclusive until death as they conceived
it from the day that they freely and with full awareness assumed the duty of
the marriage bond. Down through the centuries this fidelity has been shown to
be in accord with the very nature of marriage. This love is fecund, destined to
raise up new lives.[80]
The
purpose of this evaluation of the characteristic features of conjugal love is
to set it in contradistinction to inordinate desires (lust) and infatuation
which in some cases disguises as love and turns the pursuit of pleasure as an
end in itself. Firstly, as against pleasure seeking, conjugal love is fully
human, implying that is beyond a mere physical phenomenon; it is a compound of
sense and spirit,and
freely seeking the good of each other instead of using the other in casual
sexual encounters.
Therefore it transcends instinct and emotional drives; it is qualitatively
different from the natural instinct that drives animals to reproduce. The
conjugal act is an act of the free will that expresses the communion of persons
that are bound together in marriage. In others words, Married love is fully human and involves free will. It is not the love
of angels (who lack bodies), nor the instinct of animals (who lack spiritual
souls). Rather, it unites husband and wife in both body and spirit. It is lived
out in bodily form in the day-in and day-out lives they share together. This
love is uniquely expressed and made possible in the bodily act of the marital
embrace.[81]
Secondly, conjugal love is total; without reservations or self-interest. This is a total love in which the
husband and wife generously share everything without undue reservation or
selfish calculations. The partners rejoice in that each can enrich the other
with the gift of self. In this personal friendship they
“generously share everything” without thinking of their own convenience.
They place the good of the other before their own, loving the partner for their
own sake and making a gift of self to the other. John Paul II stresses this
totality, reemphasizing the teaching of Humanae
Vitae 9 in these words:
Conjugal love
involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter; appeal of
the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the
spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond
union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul.[82]
Thirdly, conjugal love
is faithful; the couples are called to grow continually
in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of
total mutual self-giving.[83]
This human communion is confirmed, purified, and completed by communion in
Jesus Christ, given through the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is deepened by lives
of the common faith and by the Eucharist (CCC 1644).[84]
By its very nature conjugal love requires the inviolable fidelity of the
spouses. This is the consequence of the gift of themselves which they make to
each other; thus the profession of the marriage vows “in sickness and in
health, for richer and for poorer, until death do them part”. Therefore,
conjugal Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement ‘until
further notice’. The intimate union of conjugal love, as a mutual giving of two
persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses
and require an unbreakable union between them (CCC 1646).[85]
Because of concupiscence; faithfulness is difficult, since it is very
challenging and demanding for one to bind his or herself to another individual
for life, but it is not impossible and the Church in her Catechism has this to
say about couples who endure in faithfulness to their marriage vows,
It can seem
difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself for life to another human being.
This makes it all the more important to proclaim the Good News that God loves
us with a definitive and irrevocable love, that married couples share in this
love, that it supports and sustains them, and that by their own faithfulness
they can be witnesses to God’s faithful love. Spouses, who with God’s grace
give this witness, often in very difficult conditions, deserve the gratitude
and support of the ecclesial community. (CCC 1648)[86]
Fourthly,
conjugal love is fruitful; fecund. The communion of persons doesn’t exhaust itself in the
attainment of sexual climax, but proceeds to the giving of new life.Life-giving. Just as the mutual and perfect love of God the
Father and God the Son is fruitful, their Love being the Holy Spirit; so is married
love to be fruitful and life-giving. Trinitarian love overflows into creation.
Just so, married love must be understood not only as an act of love between
married partners, but also an act that is ordered to bringing new life into the
world. Even though not every conjugal act produces a new life, the couple is
not permitted to place an obstacle to that fruitfulness. The act of
contraception under any circumstances violates the integrity of the marriage
act.[87]This
is the obvious characteristics of conjugal love that shows forth man’s creative
participation in the power of God as the Creator. Quoting familiaris consortio and Humanae
Vitae the catechism of the Catholic Church says:
Fecundity is a
gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to
be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the
mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual
giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which “is on the side of
life”, teaches that “it is necessary that each and every marriage act must
remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life”. “This particular
doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the
inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may
not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance
which are both inherent to the marriage act” (CCC 2366).[88]
When God created Adam
and Eve, He blessed them and told them “be fruitful and multiply,” a command
which follows almost immediately after their creation in Scripture and which
precedes any other directive (Genesis 1:28). This command not only highlights
the importance of procreation, but also that fruitful love is a way man and
woman were made in God’s image and likeness. For just as God in his goodness is
supremely generous, creating the entire world to share in his goodness, so
should husband and wife be generous, by remaining open to life, oriented toward
children that spring from the love they share.[89]
3.4 OBSERVING THE NATURAL LAW
These acts of chaste intimacy by
which human life is transmitted are noble and worthy. They do not cease to be
lawful even if, for causes independent of the will of husband and wife, they
are foreseen to be in-fecund, since they always remain ordained towards
expressing and consolidating their union. As experience bears witness, not
every conjugal act is followed by a new life. God has wisely disposed the
natural laws and rhythms of fecundity, of themselves, to cause a separation in
the succession of births. The Church, calling man back to the observance of the
natural law, teaches that each and every marriage act must remain open to the
transmission of life.[90]The
core teaching of Humanae Vitae is
framed within natural law: The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the
observance of the precepts of natural law, which it interprets by its constant
doctrine, teaches as absolutely required that in any use whatever of marriage
there must be no impairment of its natural capacity to procreate human life.
“The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely
united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the
recent council recalled. “noble and worthy””.[91]Justly, a conjugal act imposed upon
one’s partner without regard for his or her condition and lawful desires is not
a true act of love and so denies the requirements of right moral order. It also
must be recognized that a reciprocal act of love that jeopardizes the responsibility
to transmit life is likewise contradictory to the constitutive design of
marriage as willed by the Author of Life. [92]
Thus:
No reason,
however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against
nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the
conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children,
those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and
purpose, sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically
vicious. Any use whatsoever of matrimony, exercised in such a way that the act
is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense
against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded
with the guilt of a grave sin.[93]
While the sexual act between married
couples are naturally ordered towards the begetting of children, and must not
be hindered,
It does not cease to be
legitimate even when, for reasons independent of their will, it is foreseen to
be infertile. For its natural adaptation to the expression and strengthening of
the union of husband and wife is not thereby suppressed. The fact is, as
experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of
sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of
fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced
through the inherent operation of these laws.[94]
But the Church, which interprets natural
law through its unchanging doctrine, reminds men and women that the teachings
based on natural law must be obeyed, and teaches that it is necessary that each
and every conjugal act remain ordained to the procreating of human life.
3.5 UNION AND PROCREATION
The Magisterium’s Teaching of the two
meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive and the procreative meaning, is
founded upon their inseparable connection willed by God and is unable to be
broken by man. By safeguarding both
these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act
preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination
towards man’s most high calling to parenthood. Men of our day are capable of
seizing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental
principle.[95]The
doctrine that the Magisterium of the Church has often explained is this: there
is an unbreakable connection between the unitive meaning and the procreative
meaning of the marital act, and both are inherent in the marital act. This
connection was established by God and human beings are not permitted to break
it through their own volition” (HV 12).[96]
In truth, the Church teaches that there are two aspects of marital intercourse:
the strengthening of interpersonal unity between the spouses, and the
procreation of new life. These two goods are inseparable, not in the sense that
both must be achieved in every act of conjugal intimacy, but in the sense that
one may not deliberately act against either good in any act of conjugal
intimacy.[97]
The unitive and the procreative purpose of marriage cannot be substituted one
for the other; they are inseparable. In
other words, they are not alternatively inclusive, they are mutually,
simultaneously and constantly inclusive in all conjugal act. We cannot decide
to fulfill one, even temporarily, to the exclusion of the other.[98]
However, the cataclysmic and tragic advent of the contraceptive pill in 1960
had made things easy for those trying to separate the unitive and the
procreative purpose; the pill immediately allowed couples to readily unite with
no intention of having children thereby tearing the unitive and procreation
purpose of sexual union asunder.
By
opening oneself to unity with another human person in sexual love and by being
open to the possibility of a new life coming to be from this very union, a man
and woman open themselves to parenthood; a completely new and welcomed addition
to their personal identity.[99]
This tells us the reason why the Church would allow Natural Family Planning
(NFP), if the two ends of marriage (unitive and procreative) cannot be
separated. One may ask; if neither purpose of marriage can ever be set aside,
how can it be that the Church, repeatedly since the 1930 discovery of the
monthly fertile time, has declared licit, under certain conditions, the exclusive
use of the infertile time, “periodic abstinence,” (NFP) to avoid the conception
of a child?[100] It is because of another
“inseparability principle.” Bearing a child is not enough, the Council
documents point out. There is a second half of procreation: education, raising
the child, forming him for life, life in this world, and, more importantly, in
the next. Each child we bring into being we are to do our utmost to bring into
Heaven. So when Catholics find themselves, as Gaudium et Spes 50
and 51 put it, “in circumstances where at least temporarily the size of their
families should not be increased,” the Council is talking about situations
which Humanae Vitae 10 says are economic and health concerns
such that the parents believe they need to avoid a new conception in order to
be able to adequately, in dignity and self-respect, raise all their children,[101]
they can be coming together in sexual union during the infertile period of the
woman. The Church’s Teachings are not talking about avoiding a child in order to
pursue a career or an education or a vacation, or anything other than facing
health and economic concerns which might prevent parents from raising their
children appropriately. This is the principle behind Natural Family Planning
(NFP). Natural methods of family planning involve fertility education that
enables couples to cooperate with the body as God designed it.
3.6
RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD
Married love requires of husband
and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood,
which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time
must be rightly understood...The exercise of responsible parenthood requires
that husband and wife, keeping a right order of priorities, recognize their own
duties towards God, themselves, their families and human society’.[102]
Married love requires that husband
and wife should have a full awareness of their obligations in the matter of
responsible parenthood. This is much insisted upon but should be equally
rightly understood because there are varied legitimate and interrelated aspects
of responsible parenthood. Regarding the biological process, responsible
parenthood implies an awareness of, and respect for their proper function. In
other words, it is very important that the way we uphold responsible parenthood
is practiced carefully and ethically in ways which preserve the biological
structure of the sexual act. In other words, in the power to give life the
biological laws are part of the human person. With regards to instinct and
passion, responsible parenthood pertains to the necessary dominion that ‘reason
and will’ must exercise over them. Paul VI says that responsible parenthood is
exercised also by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous
family. It would also include the decision, for grave motives and in respect of
moral law, to avoid a new birth. Thus, Humanae
Vitae talks about responsible parenthood from the angle of couples being
able to manage their family circle by bringing forth only the number of
children they can responsibly care and carter for. Responsible parenthood above
all implies the place of a right conscience as its faithful interpreter.
Responsible parenthood implies that husband and wife recognize their own duties
towards God, towards themselves, towards the family and towards society in a
correct hierarchy of values. They are not free to proceed completely at will.
Nor may they act autonomously. They must conform their activity to the creative
intention of God expressed in the very nature of marriage and its acts, and as
manifested by the constant teaching of the Church.[103]
True mutual love transcends the union of husband and wife and extends to its
natural fruit; the children. Responsible parenthood is a value of notable
importance in Humanae Vitae. Humanae
Vitae stresses the duty of responsible parenthood over procreation.[104]
Thus it is a parental irresponsibility for couples to bear more offspring than
they can take care of, both physically and spiritually.
The most basic meaning
of Humanae Vitae’s teaching on
responsible parenthood is that a married couple must be willing to cooperate
with the creative intention of God in the totality of their marriage and family
life, in all their various dimensions, and in each and every act of marital
intercourse. Hence, it is important to discern the creative intent of God, or
what we more usually refer to as the moral law. It is inherent in nature and is
discernible. Beyond a knowledge of the natural moral law, responsible
parenthood implies a knowledge of the pertinent circumstances affecting
responsible parenthood.[105]
3.7
THE RECEPTION OF HUMANAE VITAE
Reception
is a rich ecclesiological term that refers to the dynamic interplay between the
Teaching and the learning Church. It safeguards the freedom of the receivers to
refuse what is being offered; it is a kind of a feedback or the attitude of the
people towards a particular teaching of the Church.
Immediately
after the promulgation of the controversial Papal Teaching Document, organized
groups of concerned Catholic Clergy, Theologians, and Lay people publicly
protested. Their grievances included allegations that the Pope had listened to
a small circle of advisors rather than the voice of the whole Church, that he
read the Tradition incorrectly, that he was mute to contemporary cries for
reform, and that he did not allow spiritually mature Catholics to exercise
their rights of conscience.[106] The
Pope’s decision was, for many, a bombshell. Some Catholics heralded Pope Paul
as a courageous Guardian of the faith’s timeless truths, or even as a Prophetic
figure in the face of the Sexual Revolution. But many Catholics, Clergy and
Lay, questioned and rejected the Pope’s Encyclical Letter. The debate
over Humanae Vitae was so explosive not only because it
concerned such intimate parts of human life: sexuality, family planning,
economic and gender concerns, but because infallibility was the
issue-under-the-issues. Opponents of the Encyclical point out that Humanae
Vitae was not in itself an exercise of the infallible extraordinary Magisterium
of the Pope. In other words, they say that, Pope Paul’s Encyclical clearly did
not contain an ex cathedra definition as outlined by Vatican
I. However, defenders of the Traditional Doctrine had always argued that to
change the teaching on birth control was impossible since the intrinsic
sinfulness of artificial contraception was taught infallibly by the ordinary universal
Magisterium. In other words, they say, that the Church had always unanimously
taught that birth control was sinful and thus Pope Paul had no authority to
change the teaching. Humanae Vitae, these Catholics argued, while
not per se infallible, was a clear Papal reaffirmation of
truths already taught infallibly by the ordinary Magisterium.[107]
3.8
CONCLUSION
It can be foreseen that all will not readily receive this
teaching. Numerous are the voices, amplified by the media and others, that are
contrary to the voice of the Church. The Church is not surprised to be made, as
was Her Divine Founder, a sign of contradiction. She proclaims the entire moral
law, both natural and evangelical. Of such laws the Church was not the author,
nor consequently can she be the arbiter; she is only their depositary and their
interpreter. In defending conjugal morals, the Church knows that she
contributes towards the establishment of a truly human civilization. Faithful
to both the Teaching and the Example of the Savior, she defends the dignity of
man and wife.[108]Humanae Vitae
is a document of the past, a solution for the present, a path for the future.
Understanding the teaching of Humanae
Vitae, believing it and living it is one of the first and most important
answers to the crisis of our time. I truly believe that Pope St. Paul VI wrote
the letter more for our times than even for his own. Today, it can become the
first step in repairing the injury between men and women, husbands and wives, parents
and children, the family and society.
CHAPTER FOUR
SECULAR TRENDS AND CHALLENGES
AGAINST CONJUGAL LOVE
4.0 INTRODUCTION
In
a world awash in sexual depravity, sexual freedom, individualism and moral
relativism, marriage and family life seem to be experiencing unprecedented
challenges and threatened by all sorts of unorthodox teachings and unethical
approaches. The traditional concept of marriage is undergoing unnecessary
redefinition and transformations which are resulting to the loss of age-long
values, practices and customs. However the Church, following the signs of the
times, reaffirms her Magisterial Teachings.
We recognize that
couples face many challenges to building and sustaining a strong marriage.
Conditions in contemporary society do not always support marriage. For example,
many couples struggle to balance home and work responsibilities; others bear
serious economic and social burdens. Some challenges, however, are fundamental
in the sense that they are directed at the very meaning and purposes of
marriage. Here we want to discuss such challenges: contraception, same-sex
unions, divorce, surrogacy, cohabitation and such other trends that threaten
marriage.
4.1
ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE CHURCH’S STAND
In
a bid to justify individual actions or lifestyles that are against the natural
laws guiding humanity and marriage in particular, people and groups have come
up with different arguments to justify trends that are not traditional to
marriage and its institution. There are many opinions about particular
Teachings of the Church on Marriage ranging from its heterosexual nature (which
is basically countered by those clamouring for same sex unions), to its
inseparability (which is basically opposed by people under contract marriages
or partners desperately seeking for divorce or those already divorced), to its
exclusive (monogamous) nature etc. However, since I would not be able to
highlight particularly all the individual arguments, I would state in general,
a summary of the argument against the Teachings of the Church on Marriage.
The summary of the arguments against
the Church’s Teaching is that these Teachings and documents were written by
celibate men, who have no personal experience of the married life, and whose
experience of family life is just about their families of origin many decades
ago, and maybe an observation of the family life of their married siblings. Lisa Sowle Cahill, a married theologian with adult
children, also critiques the Church’s Teaching on marital experience and the
language of ‘total gift’ in marriage. She asks, “On what basis is it affirmed
that marital experience requires procreation as the completion
of conjugal love (especially if tied to each sex act)?[109]
In same light, Margaret Farley critiques the ‘total gift’ language of the
Church Documents on Marriage, querying if “it is even possible for one person
to give him or herself totally to another”.
However, while these arguments may seem ‘subjectively’
sensible, it should not be forgotten where the Church hinged Her Teachings on
Marriage. The Church Teachings on Love and Married Life are based on the
relationship between the Trinitarian Persons, and especially the relationship
between Christ and the Church. In this light, the above relationships are prototype
of what the marriage relationship should strive to be. While there is no
perfect human relationship, married couples, in their everyday life should seek
to perfect their relationship with each other; if Christ could give a total
gift of Himself to the Church, then the partners bonded in marriage can do the
same in and with mutual love.
4.2 VIOLATION OF
CONJUGAL LOVE
Conjugal love is a mutual enterprise between couples bound
together in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. The Marital Love have codes that
govern it, however some trends and practices violate the ethics of conjugal
love. These practices are either resulting from the ignorance of the partners,
or misinformation about conjugal love or subjectivism. However, irrespective of
what the case is, these practices and trends are violations to conjugal love;
some directly violate the essential element of marriage and lowers the dignity
of conjugal love. For example infidelity is against the exclusiveness of
marriage, contraception and abortion are in violation of the prolife nature of
each conjugal act, divorce is against the indissolubility of marriage, and
same-sex union is against the heterosexual nature of marriage.
Marriage needs to be
strengthened, not redefined. Cohabitation, divorce, and contraception all erode
marriage’s meaning as a public, total, lifelong, and fruitful communion of
persons between husband and wife. The latest challenge to marriage, the
proposal that sexual difference doesn’t matter, removes the very basis of
marriage’s meaning as a one-flesh communion, open to children, making the
definition of marriage in law (and thereby culture) open to limitless variation
and ultimately meaningless.[110]
4.2.1 Infidelity
Infidelity is a
worldwide phenomenon which many people publicly condemn, but privately condone
and/or actually participate in. The cost of infidelity is considerable and
brings about or deepens dissatisfaction in the primary relationship. Infidelity
could indeed be the result of dissatisfaction with the principal relationship
in the same way as it could be a cause for marital dissatisfaction.[111]
Infidelity can be defined with many words like cheating, adultery,
unfaithfulness, extramarital affair or stepping out.[112]
It is a violation of the commitment to sexual loyalty by one or both members of
the marriage relationship. However while infidelity is commonly associate with
adultery, which is an extra marital sexual involvement, it goes beyond it. To
this regard, I would additionally define infidelity as an emotional involvement
that violates a commitment to an exclusive relationship and a partner’s
violation of norms regulating the level of emotional or physical intimacy with
people outside the committed relationship of marriage. For our purpose, we will
limit infidelity to sexual intercourse between a married member and another
person outside the primary partnership. This single act violates every unit of
the marital bond. It does not only violate, but is equally a betrayal of
conjugal loyalty. Infidelity (marital unfaithfulness) is arguably said to be
the only reason Jesus agree that a man can sever conjugal living with his wife.[113]Christ condemns even adultery of
mere desire (Mt 5:27-28). The sixth Commandment and the New Testament forbid
adultery absolutely (CCC 2380). In Matthew 5:31-32 and
19:9, Jesus allows divorce for marital unfaithfulness (adultery). However, it
is important to note that infidelity does not demand or require that a divorce
occur, but it allows it. If the offended spouse can forgive such betrayal, it
is to be recommended. Serious, sincere effort should be given to restore the
betrayed trust. If, however, the betraying spouse is unrepentant, or if the
betrayed spouse is unable to overcome the lack of trust due to the adultery, it
is assumed that a divorce on the basis of adultery leaves the innocent party
free to remarry.
Adultery destroys and
violates trust between spouses. The security enjoyed in the relationship is
destroyed. The spouses develop shame, embarrassment, low self-esteem, and loss
of respect. Infidelity may even negatively affect the relationship of friends. The marriage commitment is notable
for being an enduring commitment. Faithfulness
to the marital
commitment is one
of those aspects
of Christian marriage
most difficult for the
modern world to
understand, and for
this reason, it is an aspect
that takes on greater importance in our times. A world that is
losing confidence in the possibility of a faithful and enduring
love needs living
signs of this
reality. This is
a mission that
the Lord confides
in a particular
way to married
couples.[114]
4.2.2
Contraception
Contraception is “any
action which, either in anticipation of the sexual intercourse, or in its
accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes,
whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible”. This
includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides,
withdrawal method, the Pill, and all other such methods.[115] Some married couples use this as a means to
regulate number of children they want in their marriage; however, Pope Paul VI
in his landmark encyclical reemphasizes the Church’s constant Teaching that it
is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings
from coming into existence. Thus
Therefore We base our words on
the first principles of human and Christian Doctrine of Marriage when We are
obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative
process already begun and, above all direct abortion, even for therapeutic
reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number
of children. Equally to be condemned, as the Magisterium of the Church has
affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of
the woman, whether permanent or temporary.[116]
Contraception
is wrong because it is a deliberate violation of the design God built into the
human race, often referred to as “natural law”. The natural law purpose of sex
is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional
blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while
strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife.
The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing
children. But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even
harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the
basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along
with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating
its natural end; procreation.[117]
Going with the definition we provided for the purpose of this work,
contraception is displeasing to God and punishable. In the Genesis account,
Onan was displeasing to the Lord and was slew for his actions, coitus interruptus which means
intentional withdrawal and spilling away of the semen during a sexual act.[118]
In each marital act, the procreative intention, which is the
grateful openness to all of God’s gift is signified. When the act signifies this
grateful openness, one gives oneself completely, without shame. Just as there
are two inseparable purposes of marriage as a whole, the same is true of the
act most symbolic and expressive of the marriage as a whole, namely, the act of
sexualintercourse. The Church’s Teachings speak of an inseparable connection,
established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the
unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent
to the marriage act.[119]
Sometimes one hears it said that as long as the marriage as a whole is open to
children, each individual act of intercourse need not be. In fact, however, a
marriage is only as open to procreation as each act of intercourse is, because
the whole meaning of marriage is present and signified in each marital act.
Each marital act signifies, embodies, and renews the original and enduring
marital covenant between husband and wife. That is what makes intercourse
exclusively a marital act.[120]
4.2.3 Abortion
Abortion perverts sex and is immoral in the same way that
contraception is immoral. Abortion, in its most common usage,
refers to the voluntary or induced termination of a life before birth,
generally through the use of surgical procedures or drugs and as a result of
that, birth does not take part. This is an express rejection of the Gift of God. It is both
an offence against God and humanity. Since its beginnings,
Christianity has maintained a firm and clear teaching on the sacredness of
human life. Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the
moment of conception (CCC 2270). According to the Church’s Teachings, abortion
is one of the serious and deplorable crimes that can be committed against life.
Thus, the Second Vatican Council defines abortion as an unspeakable crime.[121] God, the Lord of life, has
entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it
out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with utmost care
from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes (CCC
2271). It is however, suggested that
couples should make use of the natural free period, than venture into a direct
act that imply a rejection of God’s Gift, which in a sense ‘is a crown of every
marriage relationship’; this is an encouragement toward Natural Family
Planning. However, the Church embraces and stands up for the lives of all the
unborn, while offering hope and healing to parents who have chosen to abort
their unborn children.
Direct
abortion, or the intentional killing of a human being living in the womb, is
always seriously immoral because as persons the right-to-life is the most basic
and fundamental right we possess.[122]
4.2.4 Divorce
“What God has joined together let no man put asunder”
(Mtt 19:6). This was Jesus’ conclusion after he gave the condition under which
divorce may be allowed, which is sexual marital unfaithfulness.[123]Therefore,
nothing less than a violation (by sexual infidelity) of this fundamental
relationship can break the marriage covenant. Even in such cases, divorce is only permissible, not
encouraged or even preferable. Jesus strongly insisted that marriage according
to God’s original design was lifelong and permanent, based on the statement in
Genesis that a man will leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,
“and they shall become one flesh”.[124]
Therefore The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who
willed that marriage be indissoluble. He abrogates the accommodations that had
slipped into the old Law (CCC 2382). In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 24:1–4
regulates divorce in ancient Israel. In Jesus’ day, rabbinic schools lined up
behind two major interpretations of this passage. The conservative school of
Shammai allowed for divorce in cases of immodest behavior or sexual immorality.
The more moderate school of Hillel allowed divorce in any instance where a wife
had done something displeasing to her husband.[125]The
purpose of this Mosaic legislation was neither to enjoin divorce, nor to
encourage it, nor even to approve it, but to prescribe certain procedures if it
took place. Yet even when permissible, dissolution is always a departure from
the Divine Intention and Ideal. In principle marriage is a lifelong union, and
divorce is a breach of covenant, an act of ‘treachery’, which God ‘hates’ (Mal.
2: 13-16).[126]
Firstly, the Church
recognizes that civil divorce, and what may lead up to it is a grave offense to
the natural law and the dignity of marriage. It’s a deep wound to the couple,
their family, and the whole community. According to the Catholic Church a valid
marriage can never be broken, because marriage is meant to image that
unbreakable bond of permanent Love between Christ and His Bride, the Church.
The Church has ‘no power’ to break an authentic marriage bond, but she does
have the authority to determine, after thorough investigation, if that bond
never formed and the marriage was invalid to begin with. Divorce stems from
disordered views of the human person and an inability or refusal to love
rightly.[127]
The teaching is plain. The marriage bond is not merely a human contract but a
Divine yoke; therefore no human should seek to sever it. Therefore, we
reemphasize, what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.
4.2.5
Homosexual Unions
One of the most troubling developments in contemporary
culture is the proposition that persons of the same sex can marry. This
proposal attempts to redefine the nature of marriage and the family and, as a
result, harms both the intrinsic dignity of every human person and the common
good of society.Same-sex unions are incapable of realizing this specific
communion of persons. Therefore, attempting to redefine marriage to include
such relationships empties the term of its meaning, for it excludes the
essential complementarity between man and woman, treating sexual difference as
if it were irrelevant to what marriage is.[128]
Male-female complementarity is intrinsic to marriage. It is naturally ordered
toward authentic union and the generation of new life. Children are meant to be
the gift of the permanent and exclusive union of a husband and a wife. A child
is meant to have a mother and a father. The true nature of marriage, lived in
openness to life, is a witness to the precious gift of the child and to the
unique roles of a mother and father. Same-sex unions are incapable of such a
witness. Consequently, making them equivalent to marriage disregards the very
nature of marriage.[129]Homosexuality
marks another falling away from God’s creation purposes in that it violates the
Divine Will for marriage to be between one man and one woman. Heterosexuality
is the only possible arrangement for marriage, as the Creator has commanded and
expects married couples to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”
(Genesis 1:28). Since homosexuality involves same-sex intercourse that cannot
lead to procreation, it is unnatural and cannot logically entail the
possibility of marriage.[130]
This is an abomination in the sight of God; one of the reason why Sodom and
Gomorrah were destroyed (Genesis 18:17–19:29).
Homosexuality falls short in several critical ways. First,
homosexual relationships fall short in the area of procreation, since
they are by their very nature not able to fulfill God’s creation mandate for
humanity to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Second, homosexuality
also violates another cardinal underlying principle of God’s creation design
for human relationships, namely that of complementarity. The Church
upholds the human dignity of homosexual persons, who are to be accepted with
respect, compassion, and sensitivity.[131]At
the same time, the Church teaches that homosexual acts are contrary to the
natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed
from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can
they be approved.[132]
4.2.6 Pornography
Pornography presents a
distorted view of human sexuality that is contrary to authentic love, and it
harms a person’s sense of self-worth. This is a violation of the dignity of the whole person and
ridiculing of human sexuality. This is an end product of lust and
concupiscence, and implies the lack of chastity. Chastity means
“the successful integration of sexuality within the person,”[133]
and thus the attainment of self-mastery and genuine freedom in the sexual arena
of human action. It is “a virtue that allows us to do what is right, good, and
truly loving in the areas of relationship and sexuality.”[134]
Chastity integrates our internal desires for sexual pleasure into our overall
pursuit of moral excellence and holiness.
Sexual
intimacy and the pleasure that derives from it are gifts from God and should
remain personal and private, enjoyed within the sacred bond of marriage alone.
Such intimacy should not be put on display or/to be watched by any other
person, even if that person is one’s own spouse. Nor should the human body be
unveiled or treated in a way that objectifies it sexually and reduces it to an
erotic stimulant.[135]
Regardless of the relationship between the parties, looking at another person
with lust as only a sexual object to enjoy, control, and use is a sin. It is a
disordered view of the person, because it is ordered toward use, as of a thing,
rather than love, which pertains to persons. This is why pornography can never
be justified, even within marriage.[136]
It is important to note, that pornography in the contest of this paper include
when couples employ erotic films or pictures for their purpose or when they
make them themselves; this imply that making a video of their love making or
sending nude pictures to each other is equally condemned. Using or creating
pornography within marriage is always wrong and can never be justified.[137]
The conjugal rights of sexual companionship in marriage must
not and should not be abused. In the contemporary world, some couples want to
explore sexuality into abnormality, thus they seek and venture into sexual
adventures that deny the dignity of the sexual union in their marriage
relationship. Conjugal act in marriage relationship is meant to be in a ‘human
manner’[138]
therefore all forms of sexual disorders and adventures are not advised. One
spouse might also feel degraded by the other’s requests for demeaning forms of
sexual activity common in pornography.[139] The human manner as used in cannon
1061 paragraph 1, imply freewill (absence of force), absence of contraceptives
and use of the right organs. Unhealthy learned sexual behavior
must be replaced with healthy sexual understanding and habits. When couples fall
into the bondage of pornography, intimacy with Christ is lost; and consequently
they fail as a representation of the relationship between Christ and the
Church. In most case when pornography is involved in marriage (whether as a
stimulation, motivation or as an adventure), the conjugal union which
consolidates in the sexual act tends more to lust and concupiscence than toward
love. While sex in marriage is a gift of God and a remedy for concupiscence,
when pornography (which stimulates lust) is added to it, it becomes an abuse of
the gift of sexual union in marriage and instead of a remedy, it becomes a
stimulator for concupiscence.
4.3
ERRONEOUS PRACTICES
There
are practices which we see as common and usual to the marriage relationship,
especially within particular cultures and social spheres. However, in fact,
these practices are common errors of the marriage relationship. These practices
might have come up because of convenience or other related reasons, but
whatever the reasons for these practices are, it does not justify them. They
continue to be erroneous because a logical and valid excuses or reasons may not
excuse a wrong from being a wrong. Some of the erroneous practices common in
our contemporary society, which we would discuss include cohabitation,
surrogacy, and artificial methods.
4.3.1 Cohabitation
This
is the living together of two individuals before they are formally and legally
married to each other. Most people do this as a pre-experience of what their
eventual marriage would be like; a fore taste. However, getting to know each
other can be done during the dating period, taking into consideration the
guidelines the church stipulated for dating. This is a common error in the
traditional society, parents allow their sons and daughters to live together
with their fiancées without proper marriage, and some start living together
after ‘introduction’, ‘proposal’ or even after ‘betrothing’. One may argue that
Joseph and Mary lived together on the agreement that Joseph would marry Mary.
To this argument I would reply that as at the time of Joseph and Mary, marriage
had not fully attained a Sacramental dignity, because it was a practice before
the birth of Christ, and Christ instituted the Sacraments, thereby affording
the marriage institution a Sacramental dignity and value which must not be
defiled. Cohabitation is not encouraged because while people live together
before official marriage they are tempted or actually explore conjugal rights
which are only allowed within marriage.
Today many couples are living together in a sexual
relationship without the benefit of marriage. Many cohabiting couples believe
that their desire for each other justifies the sexual relationship. This belief
reflects a misunderstanding of the natural purpose of human sexual intercourse,
which can only be realized in the permanent commitment of marriage. Couples
offer various reasons for cohabiting, ranging from economics to convenience.
Frequently, they have accepted the widespread societal belief that premarital
cohabitation is a prudent way to determine whether they are truly compatible.
They believe they need a trial period before proceeding to the lifelong
commitment of marriage.In some cases, cohabitation can in fact harm a couple’s
chances for a stable marriage. More importantly, though, cohabitation involves
the serious sin of fornication. It does not conform to God’s plan for marriage
and is always wrong and objectively sinful.[140]
4.3.2 Surrogacy
Surrogacy is a process wherein an embryo from one couple is placed in the
womb of a second woman and carried to term by her, usually for remuneration. This is the practice of harvesting
another woman’s egg, fertilizing it and implanting it into another woman. This
is a common practice in some societies of the western world, especially when a
woman or a man feels his wife would be unattractive after child birth, or that
her job will not afford her the opportunity of child bearing, or she actually
cannot bear a child. This is contrary to the
unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person.
Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of
maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible (parenthood)
motherhood. Tampering with the normal
course of families and what nature provides as the best and most healthy
environment to conceive and bear children is a recipe for trouble. The
surrogate mother would always have a bond with the child, visible or invisible.
In a way, surrogacy can be compared to human trafficking.
One of the significant moral concerns around surrogacy is
that it introduces fractures into parenthood by multiplying parental roles.
Surrogacy coerces children into situations where they are subjected to the
unhealthy stresses of ambiguous or split origins, perhaps being conceived from
one woman’s egg, gestated by another woman, raised by a third, and maybe even
dissociated from their father by anonymous sperm donation. Such practices end
up being profoundly unfair and dehumanizing for the children caught in the web
of the process. One woman, who was herself conceived by anonymous sperm donation,
describes her experience this way:
“My existence owed almost nothing to the serendipitous nature of normal
human reproduction, where babies are the natural progression of mutually
fulfilling adult relationships, but rather represented a verbal contract, a
financial transaction and a cold, clinical harnessing of medical
technology”...A woman’s reproductive powers and her God-given fecundity should
never be reduced to the status of a “gestator for hire” or a “breeder” as they
are sometimes called by industry insiders, nor should women be exploited by
allowing payment for harvesting their eggs. A woman’s procreative powers ought
to be shared uniquely through marital acts with her husband, so that all the
children born of her are genetically and otherwise her own. All children merit
and deserve this loving consideration and assurance of protection at the point
of their fragile and sacred beginnings. [141]
4.3.3 Willful
Single Parenthood
This
trend has interestingly turned around the
shame associated with having illegitimate children into some sort of
achievement which deserves a badge of honor. Back in the days, the news
that a young lady got pregnant through premarital sex provoked a certain kind
of reaction; disapproval. No one needed to tell you that getting pregnant or
impregnating someone before marriage were simply unacceptable conduct. The fear
of the associated stigma ensured that young people kept their sheets clean
until marriage. But today, the narrative has changed. More and more celebrities
and people who shape opinions are even the ones now spear-heading the trend.
What we now see is a society filled with men who have three or more kids from
different women and women who are now comfortable being called ‘baby mamas’. [142]
Some lady’s prefer to get pregnant and bear a child without getting married,
because they don’t want to stay under a man in marriage, or they feel they are
sufficient on their own. There are women who become single mothers by choice
through artificial insemination. This is a bizarre trend that has found its way
into our society. God’s plan for family life is a composition of a man and
woman, and additionally with their children. The blessed Virgin Mary would have
been a single mother, had Joseph thrown her out secretly as he was planning,
but knowing the importance of family and both parents to the growth of a child
and the family at large, the grace of God did not allow that.
4.3.4
Artificial Methods
The
Church is pro-life. This does not only imply not killing or actively supporting
life, but it includes being open to new life. Therefore the church obviously
supports the desire of married couples to bear children. However, the Church is
particular about their desires for children being in line with God’s intention
of how children come into the world. Hence, all technologies meant to aid the
God-given mechanism for procreation are perfectly acceptable, according to the
Church. However the Church frowns at the scientific innovations which seek to
create children with technology. Children are to come as a gift from God
through sexual relationship instead of being produced as a commodity. Any
reproductive procedure that involves something other than aiding sex and
pregnancy, within the context of married couple’s permanent commitment to
bringing forth life within their union, is what the Church frowns at. This
includes everything from ‘creating a child in a laboratory’ to the ‘use of
another person as a surrogate to carry the child through pregnancy’. The fact
that some couples may not biologically be able to bear children from their
union is painful, but the church says it is what we can endure[143]
because God knows the best. While couples have the right to conjugal union,
they don’t have the right to children because it is a gift which God gives at
will.
4.4 SOCIO-CULTURAL PRESSURES ON
CONJUGAL UNIONS
Incredible as it may seem, we can no longer assume that
people in our culture understand what the proper definition of “marriage” and
“the family” is. Marriage is an institution that is
present in all cultural spheres around the world. Marriage can be rightly said
to be a universal human phenomenon. However, each socio-cultural space adapts
marriage to their customs, traditional values and ethnic practices. However,
because of the ethnic values or socio-cultural influences, there are some sorts
of pressure mounted on married couples especially if experiencing some kind of
‘difficulty’ in their marriage. Some peculiar situations in marriage that can
trigger socio-cultural pressures include lack of male child from the union, and
barrenness, amongst other issues. However, here we would discuss male child
syndrome and barrenness.
4.4.1
Male Child Syndrome
The
existing socio-cultural practices that cause the prevalence of male child
preference are wide-ranging and distressing. This is a problem peculiar to the
most African traditional societies. This phenomenon is evident in societies
where the male children are accorded special recognition and higher status to
their female counterparts. This problem came up as a result of the perceived relative benefits of
male children as potential custodians of both identity and lineage. Women, who
achieve recognition and status by the birth of at least one male child, are
considered fulfilled and ultimately accorded greater respect relative to their
counterparts who do not achieve the same feat. Tension and agony characterizes
the psychological disposition of women in this dilemma. Male-childlessness
should be ameliorated because it does not show a good representation of the
marriage values, and it hits at the core of the Christian understanding of a
child as a gift of God; no one have the right to rank a child above another
irrespective of the gender. The Male-Child syndrome constitutes in mounting
pressure on the man and the man in turn, out of misinformation, pressurizes his
wife to give him a male child. This occurs because a man without a son,
especially in the traditional African society, is said to have no heir, which
mean that his name would be forgotten and his lineage closed when he dies. The status of a man in some traditional
African society is partly assessed by the number of sons he have.[144]
This belief perpetuated over generations is sustained by patriarchy, a system
which promotes the domination of men and boys over women and girls. However, not being able to bear
a male child should not be blamed on the woman, and not even on the couples
because if a child is a gift from God, then each married couple should be open
to accept this gift from God gratefully irrespective of the gender.
4.4.2 Barrenness
In many African societies, one of
the criteria to measure a woman’s worth is her ability to bear children. The
society expects from any married woman offspring. If a woman fails in
fulfilling that societal demand, she is ridiculed, abused, stigmatised,
victimized and endures all sorts of humiliation. It is true that some marriages will not result in
procreation due to infertility, even though the couple is capable of the
natural act by which procreation takes place. Indeed, this situation often
comes as a surprise and can be a source of deep disappointment, anxiety, and
even great suffering for a husband and wife. When such tragedy affects a
marriage, a couple may be tempted to think that their union is not complete or
truly blessed. This is not true. The marital union of a man and a woman is a
distinctive communion of persons. An infertile couple continues to manifest
this attribute.[145]
4.5 CONCLUSION
The
contemporary culture is in a deep crisis regarding marriage and family today.
While the crisis has important political, social, and economic ramifications,
in the ultimate analysis only a spiritual return to the biblical foundations
will address the root issue of the current crisis. Marriage and the family were
God’s idea, and as Divine institutions they are not open to human negotiation
or revision. As we have seen, the Bible clearly teaches that God instituted
marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman, a lifelong union of two
partners created in God’s Image to govern and manage the earth for him. In
keeping with his wonderful design, the Creator will normally bless a married
couple with children, and it is his good plan that a family made up of a
father, a mother, and several children witness to His Glory and Goodness in a
world that has rejected the Creator’s Plan and has fashioned a variety of
God-substitutes to fill the void that can properly be filled only by God
Himself.[146]
However, God is in heaven and He does whatever he wills (Psalm 115:3). To this regard, any couple
whom have not being gifted with children in the course of their union is not
less blessed that others, because God have his purpose in men and knows better
than we do.
GENERAL CONCLUSION
This
essay is a God-given opportunity to reiterate something about the Catholic
Faith that is absolutely crucial to marriages, families, and our lives as
Catholics. Understanding the teaching of Humanae
Vitae, believing it, and living it, is one of the first and most important
answers to the crisis of our time. Hopefully readers, whether Catholic or not, will
find this helpful in forming their own consciences and in fulfilling their
marital responsibilities.Among Christian “voices”, one of the leading voices is
that of Catholic Teachings, that is, the Teachings of the Sacred Magisterium
which has addressed a number of questions, with a
remarkable consistency and respect to the basic doctrines and moral norms with respect to human
sexuality and marriage. For example, marriage is meant to be a loving, chaste,
faithful, exclusive, and deep union for life between a man and a woman,
according to God’s wise and loving plan. Non-marital sex, abortion and
contraception, among some other things, are presented without exception as
being morally wrong, contrary to human dignity and God’s will.
Thus with regard to the
principles and norms found in Catholic Teaching on human sexuality and
marriage, we can ask what values are they meant to protect and promote. They
are in fact related to a number of important human and Christian values. Some
of these values, which are named in Catholic Teaching itself, include the
following: the infinite goodness and love of God; the great dignity of all
human persons and the sanctity of all human life including the unborn; the
goodness of human sexuality, including its unitive and procreative meanings,
and the marvelous complementarity of the sexes; the beauty of authentic
conjugal love; natural human love perfected by God’s grace to become holy and
pure as Christ’s love; marriage, including its complete unity and
indissolubility, as created by God and redeemed by Christ, for the good of
spouses, children and society; sacramental marriage as signifying and
participating in Christ’s faithful love for his bride, the Church; the language
of the body including its “nuptial” meaning with respect to the self-giving
love of persons in marriage.[147]
Living
God’s design for human sexuality in marriage can be difficult. But husbands and
wives have not been left alone to live out this fundamental life challenge. If
you have failed to do so in the past, do not be discouraged. God loves you and
wants your ultimate happiness. Loving as Christ loves is a possibility opened
to us by the power of the Holy Spirit, as a free gift of God. Through prayer
and the Sacraments, including Reconciliation and the Eucharist, God offers us
the strength to live up to this challenge. Recall the words of Christ, repeated
so often by John Paul II: “Be not afraid!” The Church’s Teaching on marital
sexuality is an invitation for men and women; an invitation to let God be God,
to receive the gift of God’s love and care, and to let this gift inform and
transform us, so we may share that love with each other and with the world.[148]
Five
decades have already elapsed since the publication of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI (1968), a
text which caused a great deal of controversy, provoked contradictory reactions
and met with considerable misunderstanding.On July 25th 1968 Pope Paul VI
released a very important Encyclical, which at the time was launched on a
culture very prepared to go against everything that Humanae Vitae stood for. There was more controversy around this
short Encyclical than that of any other Church document ever released. Why?
Because it stood for an ideal that the progressive and increasingly secular
society believed to be very behind the times. This ideal simply stated is that
sex should be considered sacred between one man and one woman, within marriage
and always open to God’s creative power. This Encyclical is in reality a major
reflection on God’s design for human love. It proposes a vision of “the whole
man and the whole mission to which he is called, both its natural, earthly
aspects, and its supernatural, eternal aspects.”[149]
It is an invitation to be open to the grandeur, beauty and dignity of the
Creator’s call to the vocation of marriage. Pope Paul VI in his wisdom
expressed in Humanae Vitae that “The
transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people
collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. Pope Paul VI knew this
central truth; that the sexual act is holy, noble and sacred and if we stopped
seeing sex as such, then our culture would be embracing a lie.
The
Scriptures returns time and again to the nuptial imagery to illustrate God’s
love for humanity and Christ’s love for his Church. This helps us understand
that “the intimate partnership of life and the love which constitutes the
married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its
own proper laws; it is rooted in the contract of its partners, that is, in
their irrevocable personal consent. This sacred bond no longer depends on human
decision alone. For God himself is the author of marriage and has endowed it
with various values and purposes.[150]
Since God has made all married life and, more specifically, the conjugal act,
as an expression of his own love, the question is therefore: how does God love?
Christ, God made man, gives us the answer. Reflecting on the Cross and the
Eucharist enables us to grasp all the qualities and demands of the love that
gives itself “to the end”. This is the love to which couples are called in
their marriage.[151]
For marriage to reflect the love of Christ, couples are called to a love that
is total and without restrictions, faithful, and fruitful. In this way, they
strive to imitate the Love of Christ. Christ’s Love is Total and without
restrictions. He keeps nothing for Himself, but gives us everything: His Body,
His Blood, His Soul and His Divinity. Christ’s love is faithful, even unto
death. “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”[152]
And Christ’s Love is Fruitful. “I came so that they might have life and have it
more abundantly.” Christ’s Love is free, and therefore fully human. “This is
why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life. No one takes it from me,
but I lay it down on my own.”[153]
The Encyclical Humanae Vitae affords us an ideal
opportunity to deepen our appreciation of this extraordinary mystery of
Christ’s Love. The free, total, faithful and fruitful love of Christ who gives
His Life for his spouse the Church and its members is the love to which spouses
are especially called. The promises of their Sacrament of marriage in fact come
down to the desire to love the other as God loves us. Thus, each time that they
become “one flesh” they are called to renew, through the language of their
bodies, their marriage commitment to live a free, total, faithful and fruitful
love, which is expressed in new lives. What dignity! Moreover, it is in
nourishing themselves through the Eucharist that the spouses find the strength
to live like Christ. It is in the Eucharist they discover the source and model
of love to which they try to bear witness in daily life.[154]
Precisely because the love of husband and wife is a
unique participation in the mystery of life and of the love of God Himself, the
Church knows that she has received the special mission of guarding and
protecting the lofty dignity of marriage and the most serious responsibility of
the transmission of human life. Thus, in continuity with the living tradition
of the ecclesial community throughout history, the recent Second Vatican
Council and the Magisterium of my predecessor Paul VI, expressed above all in
the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, have
handed on to our times a truly prophetic proclamation, which reaffirms and
reproposes with clarity the Church’s Teachings and Norms, always old yet always
new, regarding marriage and regarding the transmission of human life.[155]
I
believe the message of Humanae Vitae
is not a burden but a joy. I believe this Encyclical offers a key to deeper,
richer marriages. And so, what I seek from the families and married couples is
not just a respectful nod towards a document which critics have dismissed as
irrelevant, but an active and sustained effort to study Humanae Vitae, to teach it faithfully, and to encourage our married
couples to live it.
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[33]L. Pulley, Walk in Love: Following God’s Plan for Marriage, Bridging the Gap
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[34]
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[37]J. Selling, “Magisterial Teaching on Marriage 1880-1986: Historical
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[38]A. Walch, “Marital Spirituality from the Seventeenth to the
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[39]Ibidem, 160.
[40]Ibid
[41]J. Gallagher, Magisterial Teaching
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[42]J. Selling, “Magisterial Teaching on Marriage 1880-1986: Historical
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[43]Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Casti Connubii (31 December 1930), n.
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[44]J. Selling, “Magisterial Teaching on Marriage 1880-1986: Historical
Continuity or Radical Development?, 96.
[45]John Paul
ii, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (22 November 1981), n.11.
[46]M. Egbuna, Enjoy Your
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[47]C. Mba, A handbook on Marriage: Some Moral, Pastoral and Canonical Reflections,
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[48] M. Egbuna, Enjoy Your
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[49] A. Lopez, Marriage’s Indissolubility: An
Untenable Promise?,
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[50] M. Egbuna, Enjoy Your
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[51] Paul VI, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, (7 December 1965), n. 50
[52]United
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[53]
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[55]A. Lopez, Marriage’s
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[57] Paul
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[59]Second
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[60] Canon 793
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14.
[62]United
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[64]B. Garcia, Humanae Vitae(1968) by Pope Paul VI, Arizona State University,
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[66]Office of
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33.
[67] Ibid
[68]J. Smith, “Self-gift: The Heart of
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[69]M. Sheridan, “Humanae Vitae Giving Day” in www.ccli.org/2017/07/made-for-more-married-love/
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[70]Paul Vi, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, n.8
[71]United
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[72]J. Arnold, Sex, God & Marriage, Bruderhof Foundation Inc., Farmington
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[73]J. Vanier, Man and Woman He Made Them, Paulist, New York (NY) 1994, 128.
[74]J.
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[75]Canadian Conference
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[76]Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, n.8
[77]J. Arnold, Sex, God & Marriage, 73-74
[78]
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[79]John Paul
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[82]John Paul
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[83] Ibid, n.19.
[84]The
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[85] Ibid,
[86] Ibid, 374
[87]M. Sheridan, “Humanae Vitae Giving Day”
[88]The
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[89]United
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[90]W. Wagner, “Humanae Vitae Condensed”
[91]Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, n.11
[92]W. Wagner, “Humanae Vitae Condensed”
[93]J. Smith, “Humanae Vitae: A Challenge to
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[94]Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, n.11
[95]W. Wagner, “Humanae Vitae Condensed”
[96]J. Smith, “Self-gift: The Heart of
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accessed 31 January 2021).
[97]United
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“Human Sexuality From God’s Perspective: Humanae Vitae 25 Years Later”
[98]A.
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[99]A. Percy,
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[100] Cf. Casti Connubii, n.59, Humanae
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[101]A.
Cherney, “The Inseparable Unitive and Procreative
Purposes of Marriage and Appropriate NFP Use”
[102]Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, n.10
[103]W. Wagner, “Humanae Vitae Condensed”
[104]L. Cahill, Sex, Gender, and Christian
Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996, 51.
[105]Maida, Adam J.
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[107] ibid
[108]W. Wagner, “Humanae Vitae Condensed”
[109] L. Cahill, Sex, Gender and
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[110] “What Does The Catholic Church
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[112]F.
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[113] Cf. Canon 1152 §1
[114]United
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Marriage: Sacrament of Enduring Love,
USCCB, Washington D.C. 2010, 3.
[115]R. Knippenberg, “Catholic Teaching on Contraception” in https://d2y1pz2y630308.cloudfront.net/5143/documents/2014/2/Catholic%20Teaching-Contraception.pdf (published 4
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[116]Paul vi, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, n.14.
[117]R.
Knippenberg,
“Catholic Teaching on Contraception”
[118] Cf. Gen 38:8-10
[119] Cf. Humanae Vitae n.12; CCC 2366.
[120]United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
“Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan”
[121]Second
Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, n.51.
[122]Catholic
Diocese of Phoenix,
“Abortion” in https://dphx.org/respect-life/know-the-issues/abortion/ (published 17 June 2019;
accessed February 6, 2021).
[123]A.
Köstenberger, The
Bible’s Teaching On Marriage And Family, Family
Research Council, Washington D.C 2011, 21.
[124]Matthew
19:5, citing Genesis 2:24
[125]A.
Köstenberger, The
Bible’s Teaching On Marriage And Family, 20
[126]J. Stott, “The Biblical Teaching on
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accessed January 20, 2021)
[127]R. Sweet, “A Quick Guide to Divorce and
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accessed 20 January 2021)
[128]United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
“Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan”
[129]United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Between Man and Woman: Questions and Answers About
Marriage and Same-Sex Unions, USCCB, Washington DC, 2003, 6.
[130]A. Köstenberger, The Bible’s Teaching On Marriage
And Family, 12
[131] CCC, 2358
[132] CCC, 2357
[133] CCC, 2337
[134]United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
Catechetical Formation in Chaste Living:
Guidelines for Curriculum Design and Publication, USCCB, Washington DC 2008, 7.
[135]United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
Create in Me a Clean Heart: A Pastoral
Response to Pornography, USCCB, Washington DC 2015, 6.
[136]United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
“Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan”
[137] Ibid
[138] Cf. Canon 1061 § 1
[139]C. Sun, Et. al., “Pornography and the
Male Sexual Script”; and E. Ryu,
“Spousal Use of Pornography and Its Clinical Significance for Asian-American
Women: Korean Women as an Illustration,” Journal of Feminist Family Theory 16.4
(2004): 75-89.
[140]United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops,
United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, USCCB, Washington D.C 2015,
410
[141]Catholic
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[142]B.
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January 2019; accessed February 4, 2021)
[143]C. Camosy, “Does the Catholic Church
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[144]E.
Nwokocha, “Male
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[145]United
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“Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan”
[146]A.
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Bible’s Teaching On Marriage And Family, 21
[147]P. Flaman,
Premarital
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[148]United
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USCCB, Washington DC 2006, 9.
[149]Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae, n.7
[150]Second
Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Gadium et Spes, n.48.
[151]Canadian
Conference of Catholic Bishops, Pastoral Message Liberating Potential, (26 September
2008), n.11
[152] Matthew 28:20
[153] John 10: 17-18.
[154]Canadian
Conference of Catholic Bishops,
Pastoral Message Liberating Potential, n.13.
[155]John Paul
II, Familiaris Consortio, n. 29
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