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. 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.”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. 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”.
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.
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. 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.
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).
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).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).
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.” 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.
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”.
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”.
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.”
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. 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. 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…
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).
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.
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.
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.
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. 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. 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. 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, 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. 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”. 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. 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. 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.
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”.
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. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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.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.
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. 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). Therefore the unity we are talkingabout here means oneness that cannot be extended to embrace a third party.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.
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.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. 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). 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.
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.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
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.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.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.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.
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. 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.
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.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.Placing an obstacle to procreation makes the conjugal act something other than is intended by God.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”. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
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.
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.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.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.
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.
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.
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. 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). 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). 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)
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.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).
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.
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.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””.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. 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.
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.
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.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). 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. 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. 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. 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? 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, 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’.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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.
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.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)? 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.
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. Infidelity can be defined with many words like cheating, adultery, unfaithfulness, extramarital affair or stepping out. 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.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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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.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”. 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.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).
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. 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. 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.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. 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.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.
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,” 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.” 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. 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. 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.
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’ 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. 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.
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.
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’. 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 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. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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.” 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. 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. 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.” 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.”
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.
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.
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.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. BOOKS
PRIMARY SOURCE
Paul Vi, Encyclical Letter Humane Vitae (25 July 1968).
SECONDARY SOURCES
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a. Pontifical Teachings
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b. Congregations, Pontifical Councils, Commissions
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3. ENCYCLOPEDIA
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6. INTERNET
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