Section — Konings, Theologia Moralis
§ VIII: Errors Concerning Christian Marriage
- In no way can it be maintained that Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a Sacrament.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- The Sacrament of Marriage is nothing except something accessory to the contract and separable from it, and the Sacrament itself is situated in one nuptial blessing only.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- By the law of nature the bond of marriage is not indissoluble, and in various cases divorce properly so called can be sanctioned by civil authority.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851. - Alloc. Acerbissimum, September 27, 1852.
- The Church does not have the power of introducing impediments diriment of marriage; but that power belongs to civil authority, by which existing impediments are to be removed.
Apostolic Letters Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851.
- The Church in later centuries began to introduce diriment impediments, not by its own right, but using that right which had been borrowed from the civil power.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- The canons of Trent which inflict the censure of anathema on those who dare to deny to the Church the faculty of introducing diriment impediments either are not dogmatic, or are to be understood concerning this borrowed power.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- The form of Trent does not oblige under pain of invalidity where the civil law establishes another form and wills marriage to be valid with this new form intervening.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- Boniface VIII was the first to assert that the vow of chastity emitted in ordination renders marriages null.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- By force of a merely civil contract, a marriage of the true name can exist between Christians; and it is false either that the contract of marriage between Christians is always a Sacrament, or that there is no contract if the Sacrament is excluded.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851. - Letter of His Holiness Pius IX to the King of Sardinia, September 9, 1852. - Alloc. Acerbissimum, September 27, 1852. - Alloc. Multis gravibusque, December 17, 1860.
- Matrimonial causes and betrothals by their own nature pertain to the civil forum.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851. - Alloc. Acerbissimum, September 27, 1852.
N.B. To this point can pertain two other errors, concerning abolishing the celibacy of Clerics and concerning preferring the state of marriage to the state of virginity. The former is struck down in the encyclical letter Qui pluribus, November 9, 1846; the latter in the Apostolic Letters Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851.