Tag: marriage

(Un)changeable

Optical Illusion Best Optical Illusion Online Black Dots 12 Black Dots Optical Illusion Optical Illusion Queensland Australia Op 651157

4426 words, 22 min read

I have recently come across the grandiosely-titled website: “Declaration of Fidelity to the Church’s Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted Discipline“, signed by no less than three cardinals and by over 2600 others, whose ranks the website invites us to join. However much the company of cardinals may be enticing, what holds me back are the words of a certain carpenter, who once told his friends the following: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth” (John 16:12-13).

Instead of going over arguments previously laid out in this blog,1 let me just pull together a tasting menu of what the Church has said about marriage during the councils it held over the course of the last 2000 years (plus the so-called “Apostolic Canons” that predate them), so you can make up your own mind about whether it has been (un)changing.

  1. 4th century AD – Apostolic Canons:
    6. Let not a bishop, a priest, or a deacon cast off his own wife under pretence of piety; but if he does cast her off, let him be suspended. If he go on in it, let him be deprived.

    17. He who has been twice married after his baptism, or has had a concubine, cannot be made a bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or indeed any one of the sacerdotal catalogue.

    18. He who has taken a widow, or a divorced woman, or an harlot, or a servant, or one belonging to the theatre, cannot be either a bishop, priest, or deacon, or indeed any one of the sacerdotal catalogue.

    19. He who has married two sisters, or his brother’s or sister’s daughter, cannot be a clergyman.

  2. 309 AD – Council of Elvira:
    16. Heretics, if they are unwilling to change over to the Catholic Church, are not to have Catholic girls given to them in marriage, nor shall they be given to Jews or heretics, since there can be no community for the faithful with the unfaithful. If parents act against this prohibition, they shall be kept out for five years.

    17. If any should somehow join their daughters in marriage to priests of idols, they shall not be given communion–even at the end.

  3. 325 AD (May 20-June 19) – First Council of Nicea:
    8. Concerning those who have given themselves the name of Cathars, and who from time to time come over publicly to the catholic and apostolic church, this holy and great synod decrees that they may remain among the clergy after receiving an imposition of hands. But before all this it is fitting that they give a written undertaking that they will accept and follow the decrees of the catholic church, namely that they will be in communion with those who have entered into a second marriage and with those who have lapsed in time of persecution and for whom a period [of penance] has been fixed and an occasion [for reconciliation] allotted, so as in all things to follow the decrees of the catholic and apostolic church.

  4. 451 AD (October 8-November 1) – Council of Chalcedon:
    14. Since in certain provinces readers and cantors have been allowed to marry, the sacred synod decrees that none of them is permitted to marry a wife of heterodox views. If those thus married have already had children, and if they have already had the children baptised among heretics, they are to bring them into the communion of the catholic church. If they have not been baptised, they may no longer have them baptised among heretics; nor indeed marry them to a heretic or a Jew or a Greek, unless of course the person who is to be married to the orthodox party promises to convert to the orthodox faith. If anyone transgresses this decree of the sacred synod, let him be subject to canonical penalty.

    15. No woman under forty years of age is to be ordained a deacon, and then only after close scrutiny. If after receiving ordination and spending some time in the ministry she despises God’s grace and gets married, such a person is to be anathematised along with her spouse.

    16. It is not permitted for a virgin who has dedicated herself to the Lord God, or similarly for a monk, to contract marriage. If it is discovered that they have done so, let them be made excommunicate. However, we have decreed that the local bishop should have discretion to deal humanely with them.

  5. 1123 AD – First Lateran Council:
    21. We absolutely forbid priests, deacons, subdeacons and monks to have concubines or to contract marriages. We adjudge, as the sacred canons have laid down, that marriage contracts between such persons should be made void and the persons ought to undergo penance.

  6. 1139 AD – Second Lateran Council:
    6. We also decree that those in the orders of subdeacon and above who have taken wives or concubines are to be deprived of their position and ecclesiastical benefice. For since they ought to be in fact and in name temples of God, vessels of the Lord and sanctuaries of the holy Spirit, it is unbecoming that they give themselves up to marriage and impurity.

    7. [N]obody is to hear the masses of those whom he knows to have wives or concubines. Indeed, that the law of continence and the purity pleasing to God might be propagated among ecclesiastical persons and those in holy orders, we decree that where bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, canons regular, monks and professed lay brothers have presumed to take wives and so transgress this holy precept, they are to be separated from their partners. For we do not deem there to be a marriage which, it is agreed, has been contracted against ecclesiastical law. Furthermore, when they have separated from each other, let them do a penance commensurate with such outrageous behaviour.

    8. We decree that the selfsame thing is to apply also to women religious if, God forbid, they attempt to marry.

  7. 1215 AD – Fourth Lateran Council:
    1. For not only virgins and the continent but also married persons find favour with God by right faith and good actions and deserve to attain to eternal blessedness.

    50. Prohibition of marriage is now perpetually restricted to the fourth degree. It should not be judged reprehensible if human decrees are sometimes changed according to changing circumstances, especially when urgent necessity or evident advantage demands it, since God himself changed in the new Testament some of the things which he had commanded in the old Testament. Since the prohibitions against contracting marriage in the second and third degree of affinity, and against uniting the offspring of a second marriage with the kindred of the first husband, often lead to difficulty and sometimes endanger souls, we therefore, in order that when the prohibition ceases the effect may also cease, revoke with the approval of this sacred council the constitutions published on this subject and we decree, by this present constitution, that henceforth contracting parties connected in these ways may freely be joined together. Moreover the prohibition against marriage shall not in future go beyond the fourth degree of consanguinity and of affinity, since the prohibition cannot now generally be observed to further degrees without grave harm. The number four agrees well with the prohibition concerning bodily union about which the Apostle says, that the husband does not rule over his body, but the wife does; and the wife does not rule over her body, but the husband does; for there are four humours in the body, which is composed of the four elements. Although the prohibition of marriage is now restricted to the fourth degree, we wish the prohibition to be perpetual, notwithstanding earlier decrees on this subject issued either by others or by us. If any persons dare to marry contrary to this prohibition, they shall not be protected by length of years, since the passage of time does not diminish sin but increases it, and the longer that faults hold the unfortunate soul in bondage the graver they are.

    51. Clandestine marriages forbidden. Since the prohibition against marriage in the three remotest degrees has been revoked, we wish it to be strictly observed in the other degrees. Following in the footsteps of our predecessors, we altogether forbid clandestine marriages and we forbid any priest to presume to be present at such a marriage. Extending the special custom of certain regions to other regions generally, we decree that when marriages are to be contracted they shall be publicly announced in the churches by priests, with a suitable time being fixed beforehand within which whoever wishes and is able to may adduce a lawful impediment. The priests themselves shall also investigate whether there is any impediment. When there appears a credible reason why the marriage should not be contracted, the contract shall be expressly forbidden until there has been established from clear documents what ought to be done in the matter. If any persons presume to enter into clandestine marriages of this kind, or forbidden marriages within a prohibited degree, even if done in ignorance, the offspring of the union shall be deemed illegitimate and shall have no help from their parents’ ignorance, since the parents in contracting the marriage could be considered as not devoid of knowledge, or even as affecters of ignorance. Likewise the offspring shall be deemed illegitimate if both parents know of a legitimate impediment and yet dare to contract a marriage in the presence of the church, contrary to every prohibition.

    52. On rejecting evidence from hearsay at a matrimonial suit. It was at one time decided out of a certain necessity, but contrary to the normal practice, that hearsay evidence should be valid in reckoning the degrees of consanguinity and affinity, because on account of the shortness of human life witnesses would not be able to testify from first-hand knowledge in a reckoning as far as the seventh degree. However, because we have learned from many examples and definite proofs that many dangers to lawful marriages have arisen from this, we have decided that in future witnesses from hearsay shall not be accepted in this matter, since the prohibition does not now exceed the fourth degree, unless there are persons of weight who are trustworthy and who learnt from their elders, before the case was begun, the things that they testify: not indeed from one such person since one would not suffice even if he or she were alive, but from two at least, and not from persons who are of bad repute and suspect but from those who are trustworthy and above every objection, since it would appear rather absurd to admit in evidence those whose actions would be rejected. [… I]t is preferable to leave alone some people who have been united contrary to human decrees than to separate, contrary to the Lord’s decrees, persons who have been joined together legitimately.

  8. 1311-1312 AD – Council of Vienne:
    8. We strictly command local ordinaries to admonish by name three times clerics who publicly and personally engage in the butcher’s trade or conduct taverns, that they cease to do so within a reasonable time to be fixed by the ordinary and never resume such trades. If after admonition they do not leave off or if they resume them at any time, then as long as they persist in the above ways of life those who are married shall automatically lose all clerical privileges, and those who are unmarried shall automatically lose their clerical privileges relating to things, and if the latter go about in every way as laymen they shall also lose automatically their personal privileges as clerics. As for other clerics who apply themselves publicly to secular commerce and trade or any occupation inconsistent with the clerical state, or who carry arms, the ordinaries are to be diligent in observing the canons, so that these clerics may be restrained from such misconduct and they themselves may not be guilty of reprehensible negligence.

  9. 1431-45 AD – Council of Basel:
    The seventh is the sacrament of matrimony, which is a sign of the union of Christ and the church according to the words of the apostle: This sacrament is a great one, but I speak in Christ and in the church. The efficient cause of matrimony is usually mutual consent expressed in words about the present. A threefold good is attributed to matrimony. The first is the procreation and bringing up of children for the worship of God. The second is the mutual faithfulness of the spouses towards each other. The third is the indissolubility of marriage, since it signifies the indivisible union of Christ and the church. Although separation of bed is lawful on account of fornication, it is not lawful to contract another marriage, since the bond of a legitimately contracted marriage is perpetual.

    It is asserted that some people reject fourth marriages as condemned. Lest sin is attributed where it does not exist, since the apostle says that a wife on her husband’s death is free from his law and free in the Lord to marry whom she wishes, and since no distinction is made between the deaths of the first, second and third husbands, we declare that not only second and third marriages but also fourth and further ones may lawfully be contracted, provided there is no canonical impediment. We say, however, that they would be more commendable if thereafter they abstain from marriage and persevere in chastity because we consider that, just as virginity is to be preferred in praise and merit to widowhood, so chaste widowhood is preferable to marriage.

  10. 1545-1563 AD – Council of Trent:
    On the Sacrament of Matrimony.

    Canon I.-If any one saith, that matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelic law, (a sacrament) instituted by Christ the Lord; but that it has been invented by men in the Church; and that it does not confer grace; let him be anathema.

    Canon II.-If any one saith, that it is lawful for Christians to have several wives at the same time, and that this is not prohibited by any divine law; let him be anathema.

    Canon III.-If any one saith, that those degrees only of consanguinity and affinity, which are set down in Leviticus, can hinder matrimony from being contracted, and dissolve it when contracted; and that the Church cannot dispense in some of those degrees, or establish that others may hinder and dissolve it ; let him be anathema.

    Canon IV.-If any one saith, that the Church could not establish impediments dissolving marriage; or that she has erred in establishing them; let him be anathema.

    Canon V.-If any one saith, that on account of heresy, or irksome cohabitation, or the affected absence of one of the parties, the bond of matrimony may be dissolved; let him be anathema.

    Canon VI.-If any one saith, that matrimony contracted, but not consummated, is not dissolved by the solemn profession of religion by one of the married parties; let him be anathema.

    Canon VII.-If any one saith, that the Church has erred, in that she hath taught, and doth teach, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolical doctrine, that the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of one of the married parties; and that both, or even the innocent one who gave not occasion to the adultery, cannot contract another marriage, during the life-time of the other; and, that he is guilty of adultery, who, having put away the adulteress, shall take another wife, as also she, who, having put away the adulterer, shall take another husband; let him be anathema.

    Canon VIII.-If any one saith, that the Church errs, in that she declares that, for many causes, a separation may take place between husband and wife, in regard of bed, or in regard of cohabitation, for a determinate or for an indeterminate period; let him be anathema.

    Canon IX.-If any one saith, that clerics constituted in sacred orders, or Regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, are able to contract marriage, and that being contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law, or vow; and that the contrary is no thing else than to condemn marriage; and, that all who do not feel that they have the gift of chastity, even though they have made a vow thereof, may contract marriage; let him be anathema: seeing that God refuses not that gift to those who ask for it rightly, neither does He suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able.

    Canon X.-If any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema.

    Canon XI.-If any one saith, that the prohibition of the solemnization of marriages at certain times of the year, is a tyrannical superstition, derived from the superstition of the heathen; or, condemn the benedictions and other ceremonies which the Church makes use of therein; let him be anathema.

    Canon XII.-If any one saith, that matrimonial causes do not belong to ecclesiastical judges; let him be anathema.

    Decree on the Reformation of Marriage.

    Chapter VII. Vagrants are to be married with caution. There are many persons who are vagrants, having no settled homes; and, being of a profligate character, they, after abandoning their first wife, marry another, and very often several in different places, during the life-time of the first. The holy Synod, being desirous to obviate this disorder, gives this fatherly admonition to all whom it may concern, not easily to admit this class of vagrants to marriage; and It also exhorts the civil magistrates to punish such persons severely. But It commands parish priests not to be present at the marriages of such persons, unless they have first made a careful inquiry, and, having reported the circumstance to the Ordinary, they shall have obtained permission from him for so doing.

    Chapter IX. Temporal lords, or magistrates, shall not attempt anything contrary to the liberty of marriage. Earthly affections and desires do for the most part so blind the eyes of the understanding of temporal lords and magistrates, as that, by threats and ill-usage, they compel both men and women, who live under their jurisdiction,-especially such as are rich, or who have expectations of a great inheritance,-to contract marriage against their inclination with those whom the said lords or magistrates may prescribe unto them. Wherefore, seeing that it is a thing especially execrable to violate the liberty of matrimony, and that wrong comes from those from whom right is looked for, the holy Synod enjoins on all, of whatsoever grade, dignity, and condition they may be, under pain of anathema to be ipso facto incurred, that they put no constraint, in any way whatever, either directly or indirectly, on those subject to them, or any others whomsoever, so as to hinder them from freely contracting marriage.

  11. 1962–1965 AD – Second Vatican Council:
    Lumen Gentium

    11. Christian spouses, in virtue of the sacrament of Matrimony, whereby they signify and partake of the mystery of that unity and fruitful love which exists between Christ and His Church,(108) help each other to attain to holiness in their married life and in the rearing and education of their children. By reason of their state and rank in life they have their own special gift among the people of God. From the wedlock of Christians there comes the family, in which new citizens of human society are born, who by the grace of the Holy Spirit received in baptism are made children of God, thus perpetuating the people of God through the centuries. The family is, so to speak, the domestic church. In it parents should, by their word and example, be the first preachers of the faith to their children; they should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each of them, fostering with special care vocation to a sacred state.

    29. With the consent of the Roman Pontiff, this diaconate can, in the future, be conferred upon men of more mature age, even upon those living in the married state.

    35. In connection with the prophetic function is that state of life which is sanctified by a special sacrament obviously of great importance, namely, married and family life. For where Christianity pervades the entire mode of family life, and gradually transforms it, one will find there both the practice and an excellent school of the lay apostolate. In such a home husbands and wives find their proper vocation in being witnesses of the faith and love of Christ to one another and to their children. The Christian family loudly proclaims both the present virtues of the Kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed life to come. Thus by its example and its witness it accuses the world of sin and enlightens those who seek the truth.

    41. [M]arried couples and Christian parents should follow their own proper path (to holiness) by faithful love. They should sustain one another in grace throughout the entire length of their lives. They should embue their offspring, lovingly welcomed as God’s gift, with Christian doctrine and the evangelical virtues. In this manner, they offer all men the example of unwearying and generous love; in this way they build up the brotherhood of charity; in so doing, they stand as the witnesses and cooperators in the fruitfulness of Holy Mother Church; by such lives, they are a sign and a participation in that very love, with which Christ loved His Bride and for which He delivered Himself up for her.

    Gaudium et Spes

    48. The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one. For the good of the spouses and their off-springs as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes. All of these have a very decisive bearing on the continuation of the human race, on the personal development and eternal destiny of the individual members of a family, and on the dignity, stability, peace and prosperity of the family itself and of human society as a whole. By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown. Thus a man and a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love “are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matt. 19:ff), render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union and the good of the children impose total fidelity on the spouses and argue for an unbreakable oneness between them. […] Widowhood, accepted bravely as a continuation of the marriage vocation, should be esteemed by all.

    49. This love is uniquely expressed and perfected through the appropriate enterprise of matrimony. The actions within marriage by which the couple are united intimately and chastely are noble and worthy ones. Expressed in a manner which is truly human, these actions promote that mutual self-giving by which spouses enrich each other with a joyful and a ready will. Sealed by mutual faithfulness and hallowed above all by Christ’s sacrament, this love remains steadfastly true in body and in mind, in bright days or dark. It will never be profaned by adultery or divorce. Firmly established by the Lord, the unity of marriage will radiate from the equal personal dignity of wife and husband, a dignity acknowledged by mutual and total love. The constant fulfillment of the duties of this Christian vocation demands notable virtue. For this reason, strengthened by grace for holiness of life, the couple will painstakingly cultivate and pray for steadiness of love, large heartedness and the spirit of sacrifice.

    50. Marriage to be sure is not instituted solely for procreation; rather, its very nature as an unbreakable compact between persons, and the welfare of the children, both demand that the mutual love of the spouses be embodied in a rightly ordered manner, that it grow and ripen. Therefore, marriage persists as a whole manner and communion of life, and maintains its value and indissolubility, even when despite the often intense desire of the couple, offspring are lacking.

    Presbyterorum Ordinis

    16. Perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, commended by Christ the Lord and through the course of time as well as in our own days freely accepted and observed in a praiseworthy manner by many of the faithful, is held by the Church to be of great value in a special manner for the priestly life. It is at the same time a sign and a stimulus for pastoral charity and a special source of spiritual fecundity in the world. Indeed, it is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood, as is apparent from the practice of the early Church and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches. where, besides those who with all the bishops, by a gift of grace, choose to observe celibacy, there are also married priests of highest merit. This holy synod, while it commends ecclesiastical celibacy, in no way intends to alter that different discipline which legitimately flourishes in the Eastern Churches. It permanently exhorts all those who have received the priesthood and marriage to persevere in their holy vocation so that they may fully and generously continue to expend themselves for the sake of the flock commended to them.

Yes, indeed, the Church has been (un)changing!

1 E.g., here (via Gödel), here (in the words of Schönborn), here (by Pope Francis), and in many other posts on this blog.

Marriage after death

Adam

1621 words, 8 min read

Last Saturday I attended a wedding during which the priest conducting the ceremony started his sermon by addressing the bride and groom with: “Today is the greatest day of your lives.” While this was undoubtedly well intentioned and said in the spirit of underlining the goodness of marriage and the joy of the occasion, my mind – and I am not proud of this – immediately transformed itself into a hatchet and shredded that statement to smithereens. “Do you mean that it is downhill from here?” “They haven’t even gotten married yet and you are telling them that any attempt at growth and development is doomed?”

Thankfully I then turned to one of my favorite kōans that I reached for with the intention of weaponizing it (not a nice thing to do to a kōan), but whose memory derailed my rage as I remembered it’s beautiful twist.

The kōan in question is about a famous general, who went to see a zen master to ask him for a nice piece of calligraphy to use as interior decoration. The zen master happily agreed and, when the general returned a week later, presented him with a beautifully executed inscription that read: “Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.” The general exploded with rage, drew his sword and, before cleaving the zen master in half, gave him an opportunity to explain himself. The zen master, all surprised, looked at the general and said: “What don’t you like about the inscription? Would you prefer to see your son die and for your father to see both his and your death? What I have written for you is the natural progression of life, which is true happiness and prosperity.” The general, ashamed about his hasty rage, left with his sword unused and grateful for the master’s good wishes.

Suitably calmed, and recognizing a fellowship with the kōanic general, I asked myself what I would have wished the couple to be their greatest day – if I had to, although that is not something that would have come to me naturally. And I arrived at: “May the greatest day of your marriage be the day one of you dies.” Thankfully I wasn’t asked for my opinion and, even if I had been and if I had said what I thought, the bride and groom are, to the best of my knowledge, not versed in martial arts or marksmanship. Nonetheless, if I had been asked and if there had been the inevitable, outraged call for an explanation, I would have pointed to my wish being one for maximum greatness. Wishing for the last day of a marriage to be its greatest is both a wish for continuous growth in greatness and, at the same time, a suggestion that every day of a marriage contains the greatness of all the days that preceded it and that the last day is therefore going to be the greatest by definition.

This lead me to thinking about the end of marriage, which the Catholic Church teaches comes with the death of one of the spouses,1 and to wondering about what that meant. How do I, a married person, relate to my spouse once they or I die? Is that it? In the next life, will we, who are one flesh now, be strangers? If I survive my spouse, will they, who have already passed into life everlasting, be there without being one with me? Somehow that did not seem right at all, since it violates the central Christian understanding of who God is. The God who is Love and who is Three and One. How could the God of Love dissolve the bond of love that marriage effects? How could the God of unity wish for the oneness of husband and wife to be annulled at the point of unity with Him? No, that didn’t seem right at all.

The obvious thing to do was to go back to where Jesus spoke about marriage to the Sadducees, who tried to set him a trap by running a hypothetical scenario past him and asking him a question designed to undermine the idea of the resurrection:

“Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies without children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died and, having no descendants, left his wife to his brother. The same happened with the second and the third, through all seven. Finally the woman died. Now at the resurrection, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had been married to her.” (Matthew 22:24-28)

What a nice, little trap! If Jesus says that she is the wife of all of the brothers, he says that in the next life there is polyandry, which, like polygamy, was against the Law, and he therefore undermines the credibility of the resurrection that the Sadducees denied. Alternatively, if he says that she isn’t anyone’s wife (or only the wife of one of the brothers) then he puts the solidity of marriage into question, which is also enshrined in the Law, and the Sadducees win again.

So, let’s see what Jesus said to them in reply:

“You are misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven.” (Matthew 22:29-30)

Now, the way this is typically read is to say that there is no marriage in Paradise, however, I would like to argue, that such an interpretation is not a particularly close reading of Jesus’ words. Jesus didn’t say “At the resurrection she won’t be anyone’s wife.” Instead, he said: “At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” In other words, no marriage is contracted in the next life. And, let’s not forget his admonition: “You are misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.” I.e., the way you are looking at marriage is not from God’s point of view.

I believe that there is another reading of what Jesus’ words about marriage mean, which we can get to by the light of St. Paul saying:

“For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:29-32)

Notice how St. Paul parallels first, a person’s love for their own flesh, second, Christ’s love for the Church, who is His flesh (body), made up by us, and, third, husband and wife becoming one flesh in marriage. This, indeed is the sacrament of marriage, that the “one flesh” of married spouses is sacrament (“efficacious sign of grace”2) of the “one body” of Christ and us, His Church.

Therefore, I believe that what happens at the death of one of the spouses is that the unity of flesh that previously resided in the created, passes, with the now ever-alive spouse, into the uncreated, where the unity of Christ’s Body dwells. Instead of suggesting that the bond, which ontologically makes the spouses one, breaks at the point of one of their deaths, I believe that Jesus’ and St. Paul’s words point to another reading: that this bond persists; no longer only as a bond between the spouses, but now also as an eternal constituent of the Body of Christ. The bond of marriage, contracted on Earth, remains both the force that made the spouses one here and, at the same time, becomes like the bonds of unity that in Paradise will bind us to Christ and to all other members of his body.

Finally, I also believe that the above reading is consistent with what the Church teaches, since it does not argue for a multiplicity of marriage bonds on Earth, but only for a recognition of their persistence in and subsummation into the bonds that make up the Body of Christ in Paradise. What ends with death is the exclusivity of the bond of one man and one woman, but not the bond itself, which now becomes one with the oneness of Christ and His Church.

So, maybe a better wish for newlyweds would be: “May every day be the greatest day of your lives.” The sequential days of chronos now, and the eternal day of kairos then.

1 “A marriage that is ratum et consummatum can be dissolved by no human power and by no cause, except death.” (Can. 1141) This is also related to St. Paul saying the following about death ending the bond of marriage: “Thus a married woman is bound by law to her living husband; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law in respect to her husband. Consequently, while her husband is alive she will be called an adulteress if she consorts with another man. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and she is not an adulteress if she consorts with another man.” (Romans 7:2-3).
2 “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1131)

Amoris Lætitia: sex sanctified

Close quibe

3406 words, 17 min read

An aspect of marriage that Pope Francis speaks about extensively in Amoris Lætitia is sex and he does so by presenting a very positive view. He speaks about sex in a way that recognizes both its beauty and its importance in the context of a couple’s relationship, also beyond its procreative function. This is a topic that was very prominent during the two Synods that preceded the exhortation, where the Synod Fathers have called for a new way of speaking about sex and of making it clear that it is valued broadly and positively by the Church. Since Pope Francis has, I believe, taken up that challenge masterfully and has written with great clarity and freshness about the subject, I would next like to share with you my favorite passages from Amoris Lætitia in which he speaks about this topic.

Sex comes up very early on in the text, in §9, which is effectively the second paragraph of the exhortation, since the preceding ones present more meta context (about the process, an outline, …). Here, Francis goes back to the origins of the family in Scripture and introduces it as Genesis does:

“At the centre we see the father and mother, a couple with their personal story of love. They embody the primordial divine plan clearly spoken of by Christ himself: “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female?” (Mt 19:4). We hear an echo of the command found in the Book of Genesis: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Gen 2:24)”.”

Francis then points to it being a couple’s potential to beget life as a result of their love for each other that makes them an icon of God himself, a vehicle for salvation and a reflection of the inner life of the Trinity:

“The couple that loves and begets life is a true, living icon – not an idol like those of stone or gold prohibited by the Decalogue – capable of revealing God the Creator and Saviour. For this reason, fruitful love becomes a symbol of God’s inner life (cf. Gen 1:28; 9:7; 17:2-5, 16; 28:3; 35:11; 48:3-4). […] The ability of human couples to beget life is the path along which the history of salvation progresses. Seen this way, the couple’s fruitful relationship becomes an image for understanding and describing the mystery of God himself, for in the Christian vision of the Trinity, God is contemplated as Father, Son and Spirit of love. The triune God is a communion of love, and the family is its living reflection. Saint John Paul II shed light on this when he said, “Our God in his deepest mystery is not solitude, but a family, for he has within himself fatherhood, sonship and the essence of the family, which is love. That love, in the divine family, is the Holy Spirit”. The family is thus not unrelated to God’s very being. This Trinitarian dimension finds expression in the theology of Saint Paul, who relates the couple to the “mystery” of the union of Christ and the Church (cf. Eph 5:21-33).” (§11)

The “becoming one flesh” that is referred to right at the start of AL is then unpacked and presented as being both physical and spiritual:

“The marital union is thus evoked not only in its sexual and corporal dimension, but also in its voluntary self-giving in love. The result of this union is that the two “become one flesh”, both physically and in the union of their hearts and lives, and, eventually, in a child, who will share not only genetically but also spiritually in the “flesh” of both parents.” (§13)

Further on in the exhortation, Pope Francis underlines that Christian Scripture presents marriage as a gift from God and that this gift also contains sexuality:

“Contrary to those who rejected marriage as evil, the New Testament teaches that “everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected” (1 Tim 4:4). Marriage is “a gift” from the Lord (1 Cor 7:7). At the same time, precisely because of this positive understanding, the New Testament strongly emphasizes the need to safeguard God’s gift: “Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled” (Heb 13:4). This divine gift includes sexuality: “Do not refuse one another” (1 Cor 7:5).” (§61)

Francis also points to this position already having been put forward by Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes:

“The Second Vatican Council, in its Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, was concerned “to promote the dignity of marriage and the family (cf. Nos. 47-52)”. The Constitution “de ned marriage as a community of life and love (cf. 48), placing love at the centre of the family… ‘True love between husband and wife’ (49) involves mutual self-giving, includes and integrates the sexual and affective dimensions, in accordance with God’s plan (cf. 48-49)”. (§67)

This then leads to a reflection on the sacrament of marriage, where the link between the love of wife and husband for each other and of Christ for his Church is again made (§72) and where links are also shown to Christ’s incarnation and to the joys of Paradise:

“By becoming one flesh, they embody the espousal of our human nature by the Son of God. That is why “in the joys of their love and family life, he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb”. Even though the analogy between the human couple of husband and wife, and that of Christ and his Church, is “imperfect”, it inspires us to beg the Lord to bestow on every married couple an outpouring of his divine love.” (§73)

Next, Pope Francis speaks directly about the role of sex in the context of the sacrament of marriage and emphasizes that it is sanctified, leads to growth in grace and has meaning in the context of complete, mutual self-giving:

“Sexual union, lovingly experienced and sanctified by the sacrament, is in turn a path of growth in the life of grace for the couple. It is the “nuptial mystery”. The meaning and value of their physical union is expressed in the words of consent, in which they accepted and offered themselves each to the other, in order to share their lives completely. Those words give meaning to the sexual relationship and free it from ambiguity.” (§74)

Francis then goes on to spell out its divine, unitive nature:

“[B]y manifesting their consent and expressing it physically, [the man and the woman who marry] receive a great gift. Their consent and their bodily union are the divinely appointed means whereby they become “one flesh”.” (§75)

Next, he speaks with nuance about the relationship between sex and procreation:

“Marriage is firstly an “intimate partnership of life and love” which is a good for the spouses themselves, while sexuality is “ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman”. It follows that “spouses to whom God has not granted children can have a conjugal life full of meaning, in both human and Christian terms”. Nonetheless, the conjugal union is ordered to procreation “by its very nature”.” (§80)

Following a beautiful reflection on St. Paul’s Hymn to Love, Pope Francis underlines through Pope Pius XI’s words the link between conjugal love and Christ’s love for us:

“[Conjugal love] is the love between husband and wife,115 a love sanctified, enriched and illuminated by the grace of the sacrament of marriage. It is an “affective union”,116 spiritual and sacrificial, which combines the warmth of friendship and erotic passion, and endures long after emotions and passion subside. Pope Pius XI taught that this love permeates the duties of married life and enjoys pride of place. Infused by the Holy Spirit, this powerful love is a reflection of the unbroken covenant between Christ and humanity that culminated in his self-sacrifice on the cross. “The Spirit which the Lord pours forth gives a new heart and renders man and woman capable of loving one another as Christ loved us. Conjugal love reaches that fullness to which it is interiorly ordained: conjugal charity.”” (§120)

Later on in AL, Francis speaks both about the good effects of sex on a married couple and about the meaning of it being used as a parallel to heavenly love, in which context he also points to the importance of pleasure and passion:

“The Second Vatican Council teaches that this conjugal love “embraces the good of the whole person; it can enrich the sentiments of the spirit and their physical expression with a unique dignity and ennoble them as the special features and manifestation of the friendship proper to marriage”. For this reason, a love lacking either pleasure or passion is insufficient to symbolize the union of the human heart with God: “All the mystics have affirmed that supernatural love and heavenly love find the symbols which they seek in marital love, rather than in friendship, filial devotion or devotion to a cause. And the reason is to be found precisely in its totality”.” (§142)

Pope Francis then revisits the idea of sex as a gift and quotes from St. John Paul’s writings on the theology of the body, in which he denies a negative view and one restricted solely to procreation:

“God himself created sexuality, which is a marvellous gift to his creatures. If this gift needs to be cultivated and directed, it is to prevent the “impoverishment of an authentic value”. Saint John Paul II rejected the claim that the Church’s teaching is “a negation of the value of human sexuality”, or that the Church simply tolerates sexuality “because it is necessary for procreation”. Sexual desire is not something to be looked down upon, and “and there can be no attempt whatsoever to call into question its necessity”.” (§150)

This leads Francis to following John Paul II’s lead further into a view of sexuality that neither deprives it of spontaneity nor denies the need for self-control, leading to a recognition of its nature being love and self-giving:

“To those who fear that the training of the passions and of sexuality detracts from the spontaneity of sexual love, Saint John Paul II replied that human persons are “called to full and mature spontaneity in their relationships”, a maturity that “is the gradual fruit of a discernment of the impulses of one’s own heart”. This calls for discipline and self-mastery, since every human person “must learn, with perseverance and consistency, the meaning of his or her body”. Sexuality is not a means of gratification or entertainment; it is an interpersonal language wherein the other is taken seriously, in his or her sacred and inviolable dignity. As such, “the human heart comes to participate, so to speak, in an other kind of spontaneity”. In this context, the erotic appears as a specifically human manifestation of sexuality. It enables us to discover “the nuptial meaning of the body and the authentic dignity of the gift”. In his catecheses on the theology of the body, Saint John Paul II taught that sexual differentiation not only is “a source of fruitfulness and procreation”, but also possesses “the capacity of expressing love: that love precisely in which the human person becomes a gift”. A healthy sexual desire, albeit closely joined to a pursuit of pleasure, always involves a sense of wonder, and for that very reason can humanize the impulses.” (§151)

The train of thought then concludes with a repeated rejection of a negative view of sex and Francis links it to goodness and happiness:

“In no way, then, can we consider the erotic dimension of love simply as a permissible evil or a burden to be tolerated for the good of the family. Rather, it must be seen as gift from God that enriches the relationship of the spouses. As a passion sublimated by a love respectful of the dignity of the other, it becomes a “pure, unadulterated affirmation” revealing the marvels of which the human heart is capable. In this way, even momentarily, we can feel that “life has turned out good and happy”.” (§152)

While sex is presented as an inherent part of marriage and as a gift from God, Francis also speaks about the dangers of its misuse as a means of egoistic consumerism:

“On the basis of this positive vision of sexuality, we can approach the entire subject with a healthy realism. It is, after all, a fact that sex often becomes depersonalized and unhealthy; as a result, “it becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instincts”. In our own day, sexuality risks being poisoned by the mentality of “use and discard”. The body of the other is often viewed as an object to be used as long as it offers satisfaction, and rejected once it is no longer appealing. Can we really ignore or overlook the continuing forms of domination, arrogance, abuse, sexual perversion and violence that are the product of a warped understanding of sexuality?” (§153)

This is a point he also made very early on in AL, where he decried all forms of violence directed towards women in the family:

“Unacceptable customs still need to be eliminated. I think particularly of the shameful ill-treatment to which women are sometimes subjected, domestic violence and various forms of enslavement which, rather than a show of masculine power, are craven acts of cowardice. The verbal, physical, and sexual violence that women endure in some marriages contradicts the very nature of the conjugal union.” (§54)

Following from its nature as self-giving, Pope Francis next warns against an abuse of sexuality between husband and wife:

“We also know that, within marriage itself, sex can become a source of suffering and manipulation. Hence it must be clearly reaffirmed that “a conjugal act imposed on one’s spouse without regard to his or her condition, or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife”. The acts proper to the sexual union of husband and wife correspond to the nature of sexuality as willed by God when they take place in “a manner which is truly human”. Saint Paul insists: “Let no one transgress and wrong his brother or sister in this matter” (1 Th 4:6). Even though Paul was writing in the context of a patriarchal culture in which women were considered completely subordinate to men, he nonetheless taught that sex must involve communication between the spouses.” (§154)

And he again points to St. John Paul who spoke out clearly about the dangers of domination perverting what ought to be a communion build on the recognition of mutual dignity:

“Saint John Paul II very subtly warned that a couple can be “threatened by insatiability”. In other words, while called to an increasingly profound union, they can risk effacing their differences and the rightful distance between the two. For each possesses his or her own proper and inalienable dignity. When reciprocal belonging turns into domination, “the structure of communion in interpersonal relations is essentially changed”. It is part of the mentality of domination that those who dominate end up negating their own dignity. Ultimately, they no longer “identify themselves subjectively with their own body”, because they take away its deepest meaning. They end up using sex as form of escapism and renounce the beauty of conjugal union.” (§155)

Like he did in Laudato Si’ with regard to a misinterpretation of passages from Genesis that have been taken as license to exploit the Earth, Pope Francis next presents an exegesis of a passage from St. Paul that could be misunderstood as giving men power over their wives:

“Every form of sexual submission must be clearly rejected. This includes all improper interpretations of the passage in the Letter to the Ephesians where Paul tells women to “be subject to your husbands” (Eph 5:22). This passage mirrors the cultural categories of the time, but our concern is not with its cultural matrix but with the revealed message that it conveys. As Saint John Paul II wisely observed: “Love excludes every kind of subjection whereby the wife might become a servant or a slave of the husband… The community or unity which they should establish through marriage is constituted by a reciprocal donation of self, which is also a mutual subjection”. Hence Paul goes on to say that “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies” (Eph 5:28). The biblical text is actually concerned with encouraging everyone to overcome a complacent individualism and to be constantly mindful of others: “Be subject to one another” (Eph 5:21). In marriage, this reciprocal “submission” takes on a special meaning, and is seen as a freely chosen mutual belonging marked by fidelity, respect and care. Sexuality is inseparably at the service of this conjugal friendship, for it is meant to aid the fulfillment of the other.” (§156)

Concluding this section of Amoris Lætitia, in which Francis warns about distortions of sexuality, is a passage that reaffirms, with the help of Benedict XVI’s beautiful words from Deus Caritas Est, the intrinsic importance of sex also as a safeguard against a dualism that would result in a loss of the value of both body and spirit:

“All the same, the rejection of distortions of sexuality and eroticism should never lead us to a disparagement or neglect of sexuality and eros in themselves. The ideal of marriage cannot be seen purely as generous donation and self-sacrifice, where each spouse renounces all personal needs and seeks only the other’s good without concern for personal satisfaction. We need to remember that authentic love also needs to be able to receive the other, to accept one’s own vulnerability and needs, and to welcome with sincere and joyful gratitude the physical expressions of love found in a caress, an embrace, a kiss and sexual union. Benedict XVI stated this very clearly: “Should man aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity”. For this reason, “man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift”. Still, we must never forget that our human equilibrium is fragile; there is a part of us that resists real human growth, and any moment it can unleash the most primitive and selfish tendencies.” (§157)

Speaking about marriage preparation, Pope Francis introduces a new aspect to his presentation of sexuality, which again builds on St. John Paul II’s thought, who links it to the wedding liturgy and who thinks of sex as its continuation:

“[young people] need to be encouraged to see the sacrament not as a single moment that then becomes a part of the past and its memories, but rather as a reality that permanently influences the whole of married life. The procreative meaning of sexuality, the language of the body, and the signs of love shown throughout married life, all become an “uninterrupted continuity of liturgical language” and “conjugal life becomes in a certain sense liturgical”.” (§215)

Finally, Pope Francis mentions sexuality again in one of the last paragraphs of the exhortation, where he speaks about it in the context of family spirituality and where he links it to the resurrection:

“If a family is centred on Christ, he will unify and illumine its entire life. Moments of pain and difficulty will be experienced in union with the Lord’s cross, and his closeness will make it possible to surmount them. In the darkest hours of a family’s life, union with Jesus in his abandonment can help avoid a breakup. Gradually, “with the grace of the Holy Spirit, [the spouses] grow in holiness through married life, also by sharing in the mystery of Christ’s cross, which transforms difficulties and sufferings into an offering of love”. Moreover, moments of joy, relaxation, celebration, and even sexuality can be experienced as a sharing in the full life of the resurrection. Married couples shape with different daily gestures a “God-enlightened space in which to experience the hidden presence of the risen Lord”.” (§317)

Amoris Lætitia: virginity and marriage

Arcabas holy family

2104 words, 11 min read

The change of mindset that is at the heart of Amoris Lætitia, in terms of how we are to journey together with and towards God, also has implications on a variety of more specific questions and Pope Francis even spells some of them out in the text itself. One of the most beautiful of these, to my mind, is a re-presentation of the value of virginity and marriage and of their mutual relationship.

If we look back at the development of how virginity and marriage have been understood throughout the history of the Church, we can trace the roots of a long-standing preference for virginity to the words of St. Paul: “[B]ecause of cases of immorality every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband. [… But] I wish everyone to be as I am [celibate]” (1 Corinthians 7:2,7) and to Jesus’ words in the Gospels: “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.” (Mark 12:25).

St. Thomas Aquinas then supplements these passages with rational grounds for a higher value being attached to virginity:

“Virginity is more excellent than marriage, which can be seen by both faith and reason. Faith sees virginity as imitating the example of Christ and the counsel of St. Paul. Reason sees virginity as rightly ordering goods, preferring a Divine good to human goods, the good of the soul to the good of the body, and the good of the contemplative life to that of the active life.” (ST II-II.152.4)

At the council of Trent (1545–1563), a claim to the opposite is declared as punishable by excommunication: “If anyone saith that the marriage state is to be preferred before the state of virginity, let him be anathema,” which was re-affirmed as recently as 1954 by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Sacra Virginitas:

“This doctrine of the excellence of virginity and of celibacy and of their superiority over the married state was, as We have already said, revealed by our Divine Redeemer and by the Apostle of the Gentiles; so too, it was solemnly defined as a dogma of divine faith by the holy council of Trent, and explained in the same way by all the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Finally, We and Our Predecessors have often expounded it and earnestly advocated it whenever occasion offered. But recent attacks on this traditional doctrine of the Church, the danger they constitute, and the harm they do to the souls of the faithful lead Us, in fulfillment of the duties of Our charge, to take up the matter once again in this Encyclical Letter, and to reprove these errors which are so often propounded under a specious appearance of truth.” (§32)

Now, there have also been examples of a more egalitarian perspective on marriage and virginity, including in the early centuries of the Church, such as the Synod of Gangra in 340 AD:

“Canon 1: If any one shall condemn marriage, or abominate and condemn a woman who is a believer and devout, and sleeps with her own husband, as though she could not enter the Kingdom [of heaven] let him be anathema.

Canon 9: If any one shall remain virgin, or observe continence, abstaining from marriage because he abhors it, and not on account of the beauty and holiness of virginity itself, let him be anathema.

Canon 10: If any one of those who are living a virgin life for the Lord’s sake shall treat arrogantly the married, let him be anathema.”

And the current, 1993 Catechism also speaks about the two states in a balanced way:

“Both the sacrament of Matrimony and virginity for the Kingdom of God come from the Lord himself. It is he who gives them meaning and grants them the grace which is indispensable for living them out in conformity with his will. Esteem of virginity for the sake of the kingdom and the Christian understanding of marriage are inseparable, and they reinforce each other.” (§1620)

Yet, even here there are remnants of a superiority being attributed to virginity:

“Virginity for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is an unfolding of baptismal grace, a powerful sign of the supremacy of the bond with Christ and of the ardent expectation of his return, a sign which also recalls that marriage is a reality of this present age which is passing away.” (§1619)

It is against this backdrop that paragraphs 159-162 of Amoris Lætitia are so important in that they dispel lingering feelings of disparity that even the post-conciliar Catechism contains.

Pope Francis starts off by associating virginity with love and pointing to the Scriptural roots of its value:

Virginity is a form of love. As a sign, it speaks to us of the coming of the Kingdom and the need for complete devotion to the cause of the Gospel (cf. 1 Cor 7:32). It is also a reflection of the fullness of heaven, where “they neither marry not are given in marriage” (Mt 22:30).

He then provides context and nuance, especially with regard to St. Paul’s words:

Saint Paul recommended virginity because he expected Jesus’ imminent return and he wanted everyone to concentrate only on spreading the Gospel: “the appointed time has grown very short” (1 Cor 7:29). Nonetheless, he made it clear that this was his personal opinion and preference (cf. 1 Cor 7:6-9), not something demanded by Christ: “I have no command in the Lord” (1 Cor 7:25). All the same, he recognized the value of the different callings: “Each has his or her own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another” (1 Cor 7:7).

So, already Paul’s preference for virginity can be read in a personal context and against a background of a recognition of other paths to God, which leads Pope Francis to making the following declaration – again quoting St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, as he does profusely throughout AL:

Reflecting on this, Saint John Paul II noted that the biblical texts “give no reason to assert the ‘inferiority’ of marriage, nor the ‘superiority’ of virginity or celibacy” based on sexual abstinence. Rather than speak absolutely of the superiority of virginity, it should be enough to point out that the different states of life complement one another, and consequently that some can be more perfect in one way and others in another.

To counter-balance the well-known and historically-dominant presentation of virginity being more perfect than marriage, Francis next points to the 13th century English theologian, Alexander of Hales, who:

stated that in one sense marriage may be considered superior to the other sacraments, inasmuch as it symbolizes the great reality of “Christ’s union with the Church, or the union of his divine and human natures”.

Therefore, and here Francis passes the word to St. John Paul II again:

“it is not a matter of diminishing the value of matrimony in favour of continence”.“There is no basis for playing one off against the other… If, following a certain theological tradition, one speaks of a ‘state of perfection’ (status perfectionis), this has to do not with continence in itself, but with the entirety of a life based on the evangelical counsels”. A married person can experience the highest degree of charity and thus “reach the perfection which flows from charity, through fidelity to the spirit of those counsels. Such perfection is possible and accessible to every man and woman”.

What John Paul II does here masterfully is not reject virginity’s claim to perfection, but, by going to its root, which is “a life based on the evangelical counsels” he argues that such perfection – the perfection previously though to be exclusively that of virginity – “is possible and accessible to every man and woman”. Instead of a downgrading of virginity, this is a recognition of the potential virginity – as a putting into practice of the evangelical counsels – of all.

Next follows Pope Francis’ presentation of what virginity and marriage are and how they complement each other:

The value of virginity lies in its symbolizing a love that has no need to possess the other; in this way it reflects the freedom of the Kingdom of Heaven. Virginity encourages married couples to live their own conjugal love against the backdrop of Christ’s definitive love, journeying together towards the fullness of the Kingdom. For its part, conjugal love symbolizes other values. On the one hand, it is a particular reflection of that full unity in distinction found in the Trinity. The family is also a sign of Christ. It manifests the closeness of God who is a part of every human life, since he became one with us through his incarnation, death and resurrection. Each spouse becomes “one flesh” with the other as a sign of willingness to share everything with him or her until death.

After pointing to how married couples can benefit from the witness of virgins, who remind them of “Christ’s definite love”, Francis elaborates the mirror image of this advice by spelling out how virgins can be enriched and encouraged by the witness of married couples:

Celibacy can risk becoming a comfortable single life that provides the freedom to be independent, to move from one residence, work or option to another, to spend money as one sees fit and to spend time with others as one wants. In such cases, the witness of married people becomes especially eloquent. Those called to virginity can encounter in some marriages a clear sign of God’s generous and steadfast fidelity to his covenant, and this can move them to a more concrete and generous availability to others. Many married couples remain faithful when one of them has become physically unattractive, or fails to satisfy the other’s needs, despite the voices in our society that might encourage them to be unfaithful or to leave the other. A wife can care for her sick husband and thus, in drawing near to the Cross, renew her commitment to love unto death. In such love, the dignity of the true lover shines forth, inasmuch as it is more proper to charity to love than to be loved. We could also point to the presence in many families of a capacity for selfless and loving service when children prove troublesome and even ungrateful. This makes those parents a sign of the free and selfless love of Jesus. Cases like these encourage celibate persons to live their commitment to the Kingdom with greater generosity and openness. Today, secularization has obscured the value of a life-long union and the beauty of the vocation to marriage. For this reason, it is “necessary to deepen an understanding of the positive aspects of conjugal love”.

To sum up Francis’ position, virginity and marriage can be seen as reflecting different aspects of the one reality of Christ: virginity its definitive fullness, marriage its trinitarian incarnation and universal closeness. In fact, Francis distills their complementarity in the following words:

Whereas virginity is an “eschatological” sign of the risen Christ, marriage is a “historical” sign for us living in this world, a sign of the earthly Christ who chose to become one with us and gave himself up for us even to shedding his blood. Virginity and marriage are, and must be, different ways of loving. For “man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him” (St. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 1979).

When I read the above, it made me think of how its opposite mirrors some of the Christological heresies of the Early Church. In some sense, a valuing of virginity over marriage can be thought of as a form of gnostic docetism that emphasizes Jesus’ divinity and denies the truth of his incarnation, while a preference for marriage, at the expense of virginity, would be aligned with an Arianism that denies the divinity of Jesus and his unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit. To my mind, Pope Francis’ words present virginity and marriage in a truly Trinitarian way, where their diversity expresses the richness and personal nature of God’s love and where their unity is a witness to its all-encompassing universality. It is only when both virginity and marriage are recognized as “different ways of loving” – both made perfect insofar as they are love – that we see the God who is Love, who is Trinity and who is fullness of life (cf. John 10:10).

A marriage and family questionnaire

John Everett Millais Christ in the House of His Parents `The Carpenter s Shop Google Art Project s

Ahead of this October’s Synod on the Family, the Bishops of England and Wales have published a questionnaire about marriage and the family, in line with the recommendations issued at the end of last year’s Extraordinary Synod on the same subject. If you reside in England or Wales, I would very much encourage you to complete it, and if you live elsewhere, you might like to find out whether your local bishops’ conference is doing something similar.

Finally, in case you are interested, I would also like to share my own responses to this questionnaire, which I found to be a good opportunity for stopping and reflecting (although not in one go, obviously – I wrote these lines while taking a break from a basketball game with my sons, later while having a couple of minutes to myself before a supper and finally while waiting for a flight – continuity, sadly, is the stuff of fairytales :).

What are your joys and hopes of marriage and family life today?

To me the greatest source of joy with regard both to the family and marriage is the warmth and tenderness that can be experienced there. The family is where all its members can be free to express themselves unreservedly, to share their joys and sorrows, to develop their love for others and to know that their welcome by all in the family is unconditional. It is a place where difficulties can be overcome without judgment and where successes can be shared without envy. Above all though, marriage and the family are an openness to participating in the life of the Trinity: in mutual self-giving, in loving and being loved, that invite Jesus’ presence among those gathered together in His name. 

What are your struggles and fears of marriage and family life today?

The struggles and challenges that each member of a family faces individually are also a challenge for the family as a whole. Self-centeredness, isolation, indifference, consumerism, a lack of concern for the poor and a tendency to see what distinguishes at the expense of what unites are all prominent dangers. What makes them worse is if they are faced individually and without the benefit of the family or the relationship between spouses. And what makes them even more serious is if a family closes itself, instead of sharing its warmth and tenderness with those around it, if it only looks inside, instead of recognising the presence of God in all around them. These are the greatest dangers and fears I see today. 

How can we better understand marriage as a vocation?

By first understanding and responding to the vocation that follows from baptism and that consists in participation in Christ’s priestly, prophetic and royal nature. Only then can the membership in the mystical body of Christ that the Eucharist gives life to and the access to the Holy Spirit that follows from confirmation be understood and lived. And only on the basis of a conscious experience of these sacraments can an understanding of the sacramentality and vocational nature of marriage be understood and its choice, instead of the choice of other vocations, be discerned and made in alignment with the will of God. Both the putting into practice of the Gospel and a life-long learning of the faith are indispensable here.

  How does your marriage enrich you?

This is a question akin to asking about the benefits derived from oxygen. Getting married is an existential transformation that is followed by a new, joint being where the spouses are one. It is a monologue becoming dialogue, an individual participating in communion and a one that is not alone. It is a complementarity that is not self-sufficient or self-fulfilling but oriented towards God and neighbours instead. 

How does your family life enrich those around you?

This question would better be addressed to those around my family, while for us it is more of an examination of conscience. I hope those around us feel welcomed by us as they are and feel that we understand and don’t judge them. If we keep Jesus’ words and He makes His home with us, I hope we are able to share Him with those whom we meet. 

In what way, through the abiding presence of God, is your family “salt of the earth and light to the world,” and a place of and for handing on our faith?

By placing the Gospel at the heart of our family’s life: as a guiding light and explicit interpretative key for the events in our family and the world at large, as the motivation for our actions, as a mirror in which to identify our failings and as the inspiration for starting again and again with putting it into practice. 

Do you have any other comments?

I would like to express my wholehearted agreement with and support for Pope Francis’ words at the close of last year’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family, where he emphasised the need for the Church to be open to all, not ashamed of the wounds of our fallen brothers and sisters, and be “[t]he Church that has doors wide open to receive the needy, the repentant and not only the righteous or those who think they are perfect!”

The family: union with God

8417364534 92a9f089c2 z

On Saturday, Pope Francis met with members of the Schönstatt Apostolic Movement in the Vatican and answered some of their questions. Since I haven’t found the full text in English anywhere, and since the topic of most of the questions was the family, I was keen to hear Francis’ words this soon after the conclusion of the Synod.

Instead of an extensive analysis, I would just like to share the following translated transcript of the introduction to his first answer, which I read as a beautiful “relatio synodi” put in Francis’ own words:

“The Christian family, the family, marriage, have never been attacked as much as now. Attacked directly or attacked as a matter of fact. Maybe I am mistaken, and the historians of the Church could tell us, but the family is being beaten, is being bastardized, as if it were just a loose association, as if you could call anything a family. And then, how many wounded families there are, how many broken down marriages, how much relativism there is, as far as the understanding of the sacrament of marriage. From the sociological point of view, from the point of view of human values, and from the point of the Catholic sacrament, the Christian sacrament, there is a crisis of the family. It gets beaten up from all sides. It ends up being very wounded.

So, we have no choice but to do something. So, what can we do. Yes, we can give nice talks, declare some nice principles, this we do have to do for sure to have clear ideas. Look, these things you are proposing, they are not marriage. It is an association, but it is not marriage. Sometimes it is necessary to say things very clearly. And they must be said. But the pastoral help that is needed is body to body. Accompanying. And this means loosing time. The greatest teacher of how to lose time is Jesus. He lost time by accompanying, to help consciences mature, to heal wounds, to teach. Accompanying means to share a journey.

Evidently the sacrament of marriage has been devalued. And, unconsciously, there has been a move from the sacrament to the ritual. A reduction of sacrament to ritual. This leads to thinking about the sacrament as a social matter. Yes, with religious elements, for sure, but the strong point being the social. […] The social aspect obscures that which is most important about marriage, which is union with God.”

And this, in turn, made me think of St. John Paul II’s profound words on the same subject:

“[T]he primordial model of the family is to be sought in God himself, in the Trinitarian mystery of life. […] The family itself is the great mystery of God.” (Letter to Families, 1994, §6, §19)

Very much is at stake here. Not only the family, but our relationship with God too. The God of mercy and vicinity, who invites us to share in the life of his being family.

Viri probati: priesthood for married men

Johannes30070 036L

It looks like Pope Francis has started testing the waters for the possibility of reintroducing the option of having married priests in the Roman Catholic Church. In an audience with him,1 Erwin Kräutler, the bishop of Xingu in the Brazilian rainforest, raised the challenges of the shortage of priests. Bishop Kräutler told the Pope about only having 27 priests for 800 communities with 700 000 faithful in the Amazonian rainforest, which means that each parishioner only has access to the Eucharist 2-3 times per year.

Francis’ response was that local bishops know the needs of their people best and that they must be courageous and make proposals for new solutions. Bishops mustn’t act alone and should instead first agree in their local bishops’ conferences about proposals for reform, before then bringing them to Rome. This was followed by the topic of the possibility of ordaining married “viri probati” (“proven/tested men”) as priest,2 which lead Pope Francis to sharing the situation in a Mexican diocese, where there is a married, permanent deacon in every parish, but many do not have a priest. These 300 deacons, however, cannot celebrate the mass. How could this continue? It is here that bishops should make proposals.

That, in a nutshell, is Bishop Kräutler’s account of his conversation with Pope Francis, which The Tablet reported on 10th April in an article entitled “Pope says married men could be ordained – if world’s bishops agree.” Not exactly the letter of the original report, but, I’d say, in agreement with its spirit (the audience with Pope Francis points to a broader consultation process than just a yes/no about ordaining proven married men to the priesthood, and by the sounds of it, it was Kräutler who brought up the topic).

During the following days there then came a number of statements by bishops regarding the question of “viri probati,” in general being in favor of it. Among them are three English and Welsh bishops: Thomas McMahon, the previous Bishop of Brentwood, in whose diocese there were 20 former Anglican married priests, who said:

“I would be saying personally that my experience of married priests has been a very good one indeed. I think people in those parishes where they have been placed have taken to them very well indeed. People look to their priest as a man of God, to lead them to God. If he is a real pastor at their service then it is rather secondary as to whether he is married or not.”

Bishop Seamus Cunningham of Hexham and Newcastle also expressed his support and Bishop Tom Burns of Menevia (Cardiff) said that “These married men would bring a wider experience and understanding to priestly ministry.” A couple of days ago, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin also expressed his openness to considering the proposal, while emphasizing the importance to act in unity with the whole Church and with the Pope.

There have also been voices of support for this option in the past: Bishop Manfred Scheuer of Innsbruck in Austria declared himself in favor in 2011, while pointing out his skepticism about whether this would be a measure for addressing the shortage of priests though. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, in the book-length interview, stated that he could see the priestly ordination of viri probati happening, but that he too had reservations about it being a solution to current shortage.

And, let’s not forget Pope Benedict XVI himself allowing for the future priestly ordination of married men in in the context of the Personal Ordinariate established by the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus (as opposed to only considering it a transitory measure for the initial transferees from the Anglican Communion).

The concept of “viri probati” dates back to the first century, where it is referred to in a letter (§42:4) by Pope St. Clement I, albeit in a different context – that of candidates for being appointed bishops and deacons in general. The idea there was that the men in question had a track record of living a Christian life, before they were considered for ordination. This is already what is in place for married permanent deacons (a practice re-introduced by Vatican II and having resulted in 16 000 married men being ordained and active as deacons today in the US alone), where the minimum requirement (Can. 1031 §2) for a candidate is the age of 35 years (and the consent of his wife! :).

Essentially this new proposal sounds to me like an opening of priestly ordination to those who today are married deacons or who would become married deacons in the future.

Personally I think this is a good idea, but – like Bishop Scheuer and Cardinal Dolan – I don’t believe it would make a dramatic difference to the number of priests. It is not like there are huge numbers of married men vying for the priesthood and I believe vocations among them are going to be scarce. Not only will they need to have had the vocation to receive the sacrament of marriage (as opposed to just have gotten married) but they will then also need to feel the subsequent call to the priesthood. By probability theory alone I would expect this to be a small number. However, for that small number – even if it only ever applied to one – I’d be in favor of admitting them to the priesthood. Why? Mainly because Jesus did so himself – among the apostles, at the very least St. Peter (the first pope! and a viro very much probato) was married (cf. Matthew 8:14) and chances are that some of the other apostles were too. If it was good enough for Jesus, it sure is good enough for me!

What I find by far more encouraging – and a source of joy – is the process that has already taken place and that is being put into practice by Pope Francis: a bishop comes to see him, shares a concern with him and proposes a solution. Francis encourages him, invites him to consult with his brother bishops and asks him to then escalate the proposal to the universal Church’s level, for discernment by himself. Francis also emphasizes the importance of unity and invites the expression of opinion by others. Other bishops step forward and express their views. All of this within the course of days and in the absence of any formal process and without intermediaries and bureaucrats wedged between the Bishop of Rome and his brother Bishops from around the world. This is what collegiality is about, as Vatican II presents in in Lumen Gentium (§22), and it is finally being put into practice. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam!

1 The news was also picked up by the German branch of Vatican Radio some days later.
2 Note, that this is not the same as opening up the possibility of getting married to priest – a practice that has never existed in the Catholic Church. The question on the table is about married men being ordained priests, not vice versa.

Patriarchal plan perplexity

1231

The other day I came across a series of blog posts by Phillip Cary, professor of philosophy at Eastern University, Yale Divinity alumnus and author of multiple books, three of which were even published by OUP. Given his credentials, my expectations were high and – after reading the posts – my subsequent disappointment, by their obvious lack of insight, commensurably deep.

The posts are an exegesis of the first chapters of Genesis regarding the relationship between man and woman, with the penultimate one focusing on Genesis 3:16 – the words God addresses to the woman after she and the man eat from the forbidden “tree of knowledge of good and evil”: “To the woman he said: I will intensify your toil in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Cary is “puzzled” here by the juxtaposition of the woman’s desire for her husband and his ruling over her and sets out to interpret the meaning of these words of Scripture from the perspective of being God’s plan for how man and woman are to relate:

“My assumption has been that God’s word in Genesis 3 aims at a justice that sets things right. So how does patriarchy, the rule of a man over his wife, set things right? […]

[T]he key point about this patriarchal framework [… is]: because the property of the patriarch consists fundamentally of living things, the increase of wealth and the blessing of procreation are nearly the same thing in Genesis. […]

[T]he man who rules over his wife has a deep economic interest in seeing that she lives well, is healthy and flourishes together with her children, being fruitful and multiplying.”

[And from the following post: T]hat is the framework within which I think we can begin to make sense of patriarchy, where procreation, wealth and the father’s rule of the household coincide. And that in turn is the initial framework we need to see the meaning of God’s word to the woman about her desire for her husband and his ruling over her.”

What I understand from the above is that Cary is saying the following: making the man rule over the woman, in response to their joint disobedience, is a way to re-introduce the value of life in a world where death has entered as a result of the Fall. Life is an economic good and by making procreation a contributor to its proliferation, the husband – who is in charge of the household – benefits and consequently treats his wife well, like he would any other profit-generating asset.

Charming.

Before we get sucked into a diatribe against such a view, let’s take a breath and rewind to Genesis 2:24,1 where man and woman are described before the Fall and where their relationship is one of profound unity: “a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.” In the “one body” there is no master versus slave, no ruler versus subject – there is only one union between man and woman. This is God’s plan for humanity, and, I believe, Cary’s basic mistake is in taking the punishment delivered to man and woman after their disobedience and mistaking it for how man and woman are meant to relate to each other, to the point of arguing for the economic benefits of a relationship that is instituted as punishment. This is like taking the punishing of a child by making them sit still and extolling the virtues of motionlessness in terms of its low carbon footprint.

In fact, Cary’s approach is also at odds with the interpretation Blessed Pope John Paul II makes of Genesis 3:16 in his Man and Woman He Created Them:2

“[T]he words of Genesis 3:16 signify above all a breach, a fundamental loss of the primeval community-communion of persons. This communion had been intended to make man and woman mutually happy through the search of a simple and pure union in humanity, through a reciprocal offering of themselves, that is, through the experience of the gift of the person expressed with soul and body.”

He even goes on to characterize the state instituted in Genesis 3:16 as being a “deformation” of the “original beatifying conjugal union of persons” before the Fall. And if any more evidence were needed for taking this verse not as God’s plan for humanity but as a description of what happens when that plan is corrupted, we only need to look as far as the second reading from the feast of the Holy Family nine days ago, where St. Paul has the following to say: “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands [… h]usbands, love your wives” (Colossians 3:18-19). The advice here is not for husbands to rule, but to love, which, incidentally, also means to self-empty, to subordinate oneself – the exact same thing also asked of wives. The result is a mutual subordination of husband and wife to each other, or – as John Paul II put it – “a reciprocal offering of themselves […] with soul and body.”

1 Just to avoid misunderstandings, speaking about the events described in Genesis does not presuppose considering them to be historical events. The opening chapters of Genesis are a myth, which does not mean to suggest that they are false, but instead that they speak about deep anthropological, psychological and ontological features in a more archaic form – by way of analogy instead of by description of events in this Universe.
2 For more on this book by John Paul II, see here.

Divorced from reality

Simulacrum

[Warning: long read, again :)]1

Starting this post is turning out to be more difficult than I anticipated, so, please, forgive my meta-cop-out for its opening line. I have now deleted four alternative openings – all failed attempts at arriving at the question that has been occupying me during the last several weeks. In fact, as framing the question (which tends to be halfway to answering it anyway) is the problem, I’ll tell you about its history for me instead.

One of my very best friends, SH, has once asked me (during the course of about a year’s worth of the most fantastic, enlightening – at least for me – and profound conversations) whether he, an agnostic, ought to want to believe in God. My immediate intuition at the time – and a view I still hold – was: “No.” I felt that it would be insincere to make oneself want to believe (if such a thing were even possible) and I was instead convinced that my friend was already living a life that was following Jesus’ example and if he were to become a believer it would not be as a result of setting out to do so. Put in other terms, I was not worried about my fiend and in fact considered him to be an example to me in orthopraxy (even with his lack of orthodoxy). This is the first marker in the landscape I would like to sketch out for you – an agnostic who lives by the Gospel.

Next, I’d like to bring in another strand that leads to my central question today. For a long time now I have felt a keen sense that the Church (i.e., me included!) must be open to all, welcoming of all, transmitting what Pope Francis refers to as the “warming of hearts” that Jesus’ presence effects. As a consequence, I have been very pleased by the Church’s openness towards atheists and agnostics (e.g., see Franics’ letter to Scalfari), by Her fresh attempts at engaging with homosexual persons (e.g. in Francis’ interview with Jesuit magazines) and by Her apparent concern for all who today are at Her periphery, including divorced and re-married persons (e.g., see Francis’ impromptu interview during the flight back from the Rio World Youth Day). All of this is a great source of joy to me and its opposites, which sadly still exist in the Church, pain me.

The third strand that leads to what I would like to talk about today is the perennial tension in the Church between safeguarding Jesus’ original, explicit teaching and listening to the Holy Spirit’s ever-new guidance in every present moment. Being a Christian is not about taking a piece of 2000-year-old text and solitarily reading it as a self-help book. Instead, it is membership in a body that has Jesus as its head and a vast throng of individuals – both alive today and already past their earthly pilgrimage – as its members. Starting from the apostles themselves, who saw, touched and lived with Jesus, through their followers and their followers’ followers down to the present day, this body – animated by the Holy Spirit – is the Church through whom Jesus walks the Earth today. What Jesus’ message is in 2013, is to be found here – in the Church. This means both that it is alive and dynamic and that it is – simultaneously – the same, one message that Jesus shared with his followers 2000 years ago: love your neighbors as yourself and God above all else (cf. Mark 12:30-31), give your life for your friends (John 15:13), feed the hungry, quench their thirst, clothe the naked, welcome strangers, visit prisoners (cf. Mathew 25:35-36), be peacemakers, merciful, meek (cf. Matthew 5:3-12), be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16).

The fourth strand is another tension that is part of the very fabric of the Church: Her perfection set against the flaws and failings of Her members. Here it is neither my weakness that makes aiming high futile, nor the holiness of Jesus that makes Him inaccessible. Instead I can choose to allow God’s love into my life without deluding myself into taking credit for its effects or thinking of myself as superior in any way. Dr. Sylvie Barnay put this beautifully in the opening chapter of the book “La grande meretrice” (co-authored with 6 other female historians and looking at the history of the criticisms typically leveled at the Church):2

“The Church remains […] on a journey towards sanctity, a sinner by nature, with the potential for being made perfect by grace. She is therefore neither the Church of the pure, nor a prostitute Church. She is the human Church who hopes to become divine.”

The fifth strand then is a specific confluence of the above four and gets at the specific topic that triggered this post: the challenge of how a person who got married, divorced and then (civilly) re-married participates in the life of the Church. They are not free to receive the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, since they are in a state inconsistent with the indissolubility of marriage that Jesus himself taught explicitly and categorically. As such they don’t live according to, or share with the Church in terms of, an important aspect of what it means to follow Jesus. As a consequence they cannot participate in the sacrament that is both the expression of and means to the unity of the Church. This is a very painful situation for remarried divorcees who desire union with the Church in its most profound gift – the Eucharist – as it is for the whole Church, and Pope Francis has dedicated the first synod of bishops of his pontificate to it and the topic of the pastoral care of families in general.

Francis’ attention to the suffering of remarried divorcees has already lead to a lot of discussion and even to the misinterpretation of a German diocese’s contribution to this discussion as an actual permission for remarried divorcees to receive the Eucharist (immediately followed by the Vatican calling for patience ahead of the coming synod). A couple of days later, Archbishop Müller (head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) published an extensive treatise on the subject in L’Osservatore Romano. The gist of the argument is a categorical “no” to the idea of remarried divorcees receiving the Eucharist, and not only that, but a systematic closing-down of a number of potential counter-arguments and loop-holes. Müller essentially says: marriage is indissoluble as Jesus himself told us so directly and unambiguously. As such, those who act as if the sacrament of marriage were dissoluble are objectively at odds with the Church and can not participate in the sacrament that “effects and signifies” Her unity.

At first I was quite puzzled by Müller’s piece (while simultaneously being hugely impressed by the beauty of the argument’s exposition and the clarity of his thinking!) – not because I disagreed with it, on the contrary, everything he says is (as befits his job) highly orthodox and I am in full agreement with him, but because it – prima facie – flies in the face of Francis’ consistent message on this subject.

As is often the case with at-first-sight appearances, there is typically more beneath the surface. As I read Müller’s arguments, I started realizing what he is doing – he is crystalizing what the sacrament of marriage is, exposing its rock-solid foundations and being categorical about its value and centrality to Jesus’ teaching. Between the lines I hear him insisting: “The sacrament of marriage is indissoluble. Don’t look for answers to warming the hearts of remarried divorcees here. Look elsewhere!” To come up with an innovative solution, which the next synod will be devoted to and on which I believe both him and Francis are already at work, it is first essential to ensure that we don’t throw out the baby with the bath water, that we don’t dilute Jesus’ teaching and the immeasurable treasures it contains.

In fact, reading Müller more closely also shows that he is very much concerned for remarried divorcees and for all at the Church’s periphery:

“Clearly, the care of remarried divorcees must not be reduced to the question of receiving the Eucharist. It involves a much more wide-ranging pastoral approach, which seeks to do justice to to the different situations. It is important to realize that there are other ways, apart from sacramental communion, of being in fellowship with God. One can draw close to God by turning to him in faith, hope and charity, in repentance and prayer. God can grant his closeness and his salvation to people on different paths, even if they find themselves in a contradictory life situation.”

Far from just slamming a door shut, Müller calls for a broader view of the situation, which is also in line with another of Pope Francis’ hints on the subject. In his interview on the flight from Rio he quoted his predecessor in Buenos Aires, Cardinal Quarracino, as saying: “I consider half of today’s marriages to be invalid because people get married without realising it means forever. They do it out of social convenience, etc …” In other words, the sacrament of marriage is indissoluble, but not all that looks like sacramental marriage is – or indeed ever was – sacramental marriage. In light of this angle, Müller’s demarcation of marriage and reinforcement of its absolute indissolubility make great sense, as part to a new approach to determining whether in a given instance marriage was ever entered into or not.

I have to say I feel greatly encouraged by all of the above developments and by other statements that Pope Francis has made recently, underlining the sacramental, vocational nature and profound value of marriage. In fact, speaking to a group of young people in Assisi about a month ago, he was very explicit: “[Marriage] is a true and authentic vocation, as are the priesthood and the religious life.” I wholeheartedly agree, but I also think that this statement points to an elephant in the room: if marriage is a vocation like the priesthood and religious life, how come there is such a vast gap between how one prepares for it versus the other vocations. Entering a religious order involves years spent in preparation, passing through various forms of novitiate, being followed by a spiritual director, with the outcome not being a guaranteed admission to the order. Preparation for the priesthood is equally lengthy, with years of study, practical and spiritual preparation and discernment being exercised both by the candidate and the Church’s hierarchy. Marriage instead can be had within a matter of weeks (months at most – if we include the challenges of booking the reception venue :|) and after attending a variable number of “preparation” sessions with a total duration in single digit hours. Yet, once the sacrament is enacted, it is binding for life! No surprise that great suffering can come from such a lopsided and inadequate process.

I clearly don’t mean to say that no couple properly prepares for the sacrament of marriage, since I know many who have, but only that if it does, it is so independently of the marriage preparation provided by the Church. Maybe it would be better for fewer marriages to be entered into and for these to be the result of a couple’s response to a call from God to follow Him as a family, instead of the easy access + heavy penalties model in place today. While writing this, I hear alarm bells in my head though, reminding me that it is imperative for the Church to be open and welcoming to all and the challenge remains of how to achieve such openness while following the path Jesus has shown us.

1 Many thanks to my überbestie, PM, for the great chats we have had about this and related topics.
2 The crude translation from Italian here is all mine, as the book is, sadly, not available in English.

Married priests: a hermeneutic of choice

That the Catholic Church should allow for married men to become priests (or for priests to marry) is frequently put forward as a must and as a sure-fire way to address the current dearth of priests in many parts of the world. Celibacy, it is argued, is an outmoded idea and one that presents an obstacle to otherwise great candidates for the priesthood. And, it is suggested that having married priests would both make them better understand their parishioners and avoid crimes like pedophilia, which are laid at the feet of celibacy. The hope then is that a “modern” pope, e. g., like Francis, would finally see sense and do the right thing.

As should be obvious from the tone of the above, I have never seen these as being good grounds for changing the practice of requiring Roman Catholic priests to be celibate (for that is all it is – practice, not dogma, and the desire for its change is furthermore directed primarily at the Roman rite and not, e. g., the Eastern Catholic ones, where married priests have always been an alternative to celibate ones).

First, I don’t believe having married priests would lead to more priests (the low numbers today deriving from what Pope Francis has called a “fascination with the temporary”, equally affecting the sacrament of marriage). Second, I consider celibacy to be a treasure – different from, yet equal to marriage in its potential for sanctification. Third, I have my suspicions about those who today would opt for the priesthood in the Roman rite if only it allowed for marriage too (note the specific wording of this point). Fourth, I don’t believe that shared experience is a necessary prerequisite for understanding – it can help, but it is not what is essential (otherwise – via reductio ad absurdum – understanding would be impossible – see Nagel’s bats). Fifth, linking pedophilia to celibacy is a red herring, and, sixth, you can bet your bottom dollar that Francis will do the right thing – it’s only its level of “modernity” that remains to be seen.

And then there is probably the most serious reservation I have about married priests – that it is just too hard! Being married asks for 100% of one’s capacity and, I am sure, so does being a priest. Even with the above I wouldn’t have said that I am against married priests though, as I have seen great ones both in the Catholic Church an the Anglican Communion. It undoubtedly is challenging, but I wouldn’t exclude its being an option just on those grounds.

A couple of weeks ago I read a book chapter about this subject (in the book “La grande meretrice”) and it changed my mind. Its author, Prof. Lucetta Scaraffia, a historian from Rome’s La Sapienza University, presents the history of priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church and has the following to say about the reasons for allowing priests to marry that were put forward in the Church’s early days:

“The problem of clerical celibacy, and its eventual imposition, clashed with another point that was one of the principal innovations of Christian culture: the value of free choice, especially in the context of spiritual life. […] The high regard enjoyed by chastity meant that, since the first centuries, many clerics spontaneously practiced celibacy, especially in the West, where it was particularly valued. But the Church has not declared a norm with regard to it. The married state too, in fact, had a religious and spiritual value, which made it difficult to exclude clerics from it without provoking its devaluation.”

What struck me about the above was that the argument pivoted around an insistence on the fundamental value of choice and therefore on freedom. It was an argument that decidedly was not pitting celibacy against marriage but presented this important choice as being both orthogonal to that of the priesthood and as having great importance, which in turn placed equal value on the two choices: celibacy and marriage. How strongly this was believed is exemplified by the following canons of the Synod of Gangra in 340 AD:

“Canon 1: If any one shall condemn marriage, or abominate and condemn a woman who is a believer and devout, and sleeps with her own husband, as though she could not enter the Kingdom [of heaven] let him be anathema.

Canon 4: If any one shall maintain, concerning a married presbyter, that is not lawful to partake of the oblation when he offers it, let him be anathema.

Canon 9: If any one shall remain virgin, or observe continence, abstaining from marriage because he abhors it, and not on account of the beauty and holiness of virginity itself, let him be anathema.

Canon 10: If any one of those who are living a virgin life for the Lord’s sake shall treat arrogantly the married, let him be anathema.”

Not only were married priests to be treated as the equals of celibate ones and marriage be afforded with reverence, but anyone who acted contrary to this teaching was anathema and therefore subject to excommunication.

While the above is a strong argument already, what really clinched it for me is the realisation that Jesus himself called married men to the priesthood, while he could have just as easily chosen only unmarried ones. St. Peter was certainly married (the Gospel referring to his mother-in-law, cf. Matthew 8:14-15) and in all likelihood so were more of the apostles. Even being sure only of St. Peter’s married state is sufficient for knowing that Jesus called married men to go out in His name and proclaim the Good News. St. Peter having been the first pope further underlines the deliberate character of Jesus’ choice and it can’t be argued that only some peripheral apostle was married and that this was some anomaly (and even that would be a weak argument). As it stands though, we have Jesus call a married man to be not only a priest and bishop but also the first pope.

There are certainly challenges with opening up the choice between celibacy and marriage to priests (both practical and psychological), but I am left with standing on the side of those in favor of it, predominantly because Jesus himself chose to stand among them too (as he chose to stand among those in favor of celibacy (e.g., cf. Matthew 19:12). In no way is this in opposition to celibacy though, which I consider to be a great good when chosen for the sake of giving one’s life to God. Neither is this a call to disobedience with the Church’s norms or a demand for a change. Instead, it is a (albeit minuscule) contribution to a discussion of the topic and, I believe wholly consonant with the magisterium of the Church. For example, the Vatican II decree Presbyterorum Ordinis clearly states that celibacy “is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood, as is apparent from the practice of the early Church and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches” (§16). Pope Francis too has spoken on this subject in a way that is open to discussion, while being clear about the norm in force today, when he said that priestly celibacy “is a matter of discipline, not of faith. It can change, [but] for the moment, I am in favor of maintaining [it], with all its pros and cons, because we have ten centuries of good experiences rather than failures” (On Heaven and Earth). Even though I don’t dispute at all that priestly celibacy is working well “for the moment,” an understanding of the reasons for having it co-exist with priestly marriage in the Early Church has made me understand that this co-existence was a “discipline” practiced for profound, and to my mind, very strong reasons of choice and freedom.