Case LXXXVII: Breach of Faith Regarding the Education of Children in a Mixed Marriage

Case.—Fabius, a Protestant, weds the Catholic Anna, and promises that he will let all their children be brought up as Catholics. Upon the birth of the first child, however, he withdraws his promise, causes the infant to be christened by a Protestant minister and to be enrolled in the Protestant church register. Anna vainly opposes this breach of faith, and resolves to deny Fabius his conjugal rights until he makes good his breach of faith. When she seeks advice in confession, one confessor declares her resolve to be unlawful, another says that it is valid, and indeed her duty.

Question.—Which confessor is right?

Solution.—We have to deal here with a resolution which aims at a dissolution of the conjugal union, not in the fullest sense but yet in an essential point. It is true that, though the Catholic Church does not recognize a divorce, or the severing of the bond between baptized persons after a validly consummated marriage, she does permit a separation from conjugal association for important reasons, and, according to the nature and gravity of the reason, she permits a permanent or temporary separation. Grounds for a permanent separation, which excludes the resumption of conjugal association even after the removal of the grounds for separation, are adultery by the other party, or that party’s falling into heresy after the marriage, if such is ascertained by an ecclesiastical court. The ecclesiastical law recognizes as grounds for a temporary separation, i. e., for the period that the grounds continue to exist: Ill-treatment, peril of life, danger of infection, danger of seduction, or the near occasions of sin, and similar causes. (Compare St. Alphonsus I. 6 n. 970; Wernz, Jus decretal, Vol. IV., 712; Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor. II., 934.)

In Anna’s case we have plainly none of the mentioned grounds. For this reason, no doubt, the one confessor declared Anna’s resolve to be unlawful. But there may be a ground of equal, or nearly equal, weight in Anna’s case. If this be the fact, then Anna’s resolve may be considered valid, all the more so as here there is question not of a complete but only of a partial, temporary, suspension of the conjugal union. And as it is not a matter of a public separation, therefore everything may be settled in the realm of conscience, according to established probable opinion.

Is there actually present for Anna a ground similar to the recognized ecclesiastical reasons for a separation? As the last canonical ground is mentioned above: “Danger of temptation, or near occasion of sin.” For Anna personally, as we glean from the case, this danger is not present; but for the children of this marriage, whom Anna must consider as her other ego, there is great danger at hand: from the very start they are to be snatched from Christ’s Kingdom and led into a false religion. One of the reasons recognized by the Church, therefore, is not absent in Anna’s case.

We must also consider the reason which, in a marriage contracted by infidels, allows to the party becoming converted and baptized, not merely a partial suspension of the conjugal union but separation. The reason is thus stated: si infidelis non vult cohabitare nisi cum contumelia Creator is. This contumelia Creator is must be understood as the inciting of the converted spouse to apostasy, or to grievous sin. Such contumelia Creator is is evidently present when the prospective children are to be withdrawn, from the very beginning, from the true worship of God, and hence to be deprived of their Lord and Creator. In our case Fabius intends to compel Anna to this contumelia Creator is.

This fact will become much plainer to us if we call to mind the purpose of Christian marriage, and Anna did enter a Christian marriage with Fabius. The aim of Christian marriage includes the natural purpose of marriage, namely the propagation and increase of the human family, but it ennobles this aim and strives really for the propagation and increase of the Kingdom of God amongst men; it aims at peopling the earth with new beings directly destined to belong to the Kingdom of God on earth; this Kingdom of God, however, is only the Catholic Church. This purpose of the marriage between Fabius and Anna, which Fabius first solemnly desired and promised, he intends now to nullify. Anna need not make herself a party to such frustration of purpose, and may consequently deny the conjugal intercourse that would lead to it. We may easily understand now, why the second confessor was of opinion that Anna is obliged to refrain from intercourse with Fabius, and that her refusal was a matter of duty. This conclusion, however, as we shall presently show, goes too far; but that the refusal on Anna’s part is in and of itself lawful, appears from our deductions as more than probable.

A further confirmation of this view is found in the general prin- ‘ ciple which as the 75. regula juris was by Boniface VIII. incorporated in Canon Law, according to the liber sextus Decretalium. The principle is stated as “A person vainly demands that faith be kept with him by one with whom he refuses to keep the faith pledged by himself.” This is a sharp light on our case, in Anna’s favor. Fabius has committed a breach of faith with Anna, he refuses to keep his solemnly given word and to carry out the serious obligation undertaken before God; hence it is vain for him to require Anna to keep faith in her marital duty; by persisting in his breach of faith he releases Anna from her duty.

There is still to be said, anent this case, that it would be going too far to oblige Anna to refuse her husband the marital right, unless by such temporary denial Fabius would be moved to keep his promise. As a matter of fact, however, a refusal of this nature too often widens the breach between a married couple, it engenders disputes and quarrels, and might become the cause of exposing to many temptations not only the husband (through his own fault), but even the wife. We may gather from this that a refusal on the wife’s part is not only not an obligation, but is not even advisable, unless the debitum conjugale is under the circumstances something intrinsecus malum. But this is not the case. If from the act itself there would result the frustration of the aim of marriage, then certainly the act would be unlawful. But in our case there results from the act not even the frustration of the supernatural or Christian aim of marriage; this is brought about only extrinsecus, through the continued malice of Fabius, but can possibly be defeated through Anna’s vigilance, and later by the voluntary choice of the children themselves; therefore the granting of the debitum conjugale remains for Anna as something in itself lawful. The natural purpose of marriage remains intact, and the secondary purpose of marriage, the remedium concupiscentiae, is not to be disregarded.

From the above it may be gathered that the first confessor judged Anna too severely in the question quid liceat, while the other confessor was also too severe and disregarded quid expediat.