Article — Merkelbach, Pastoral Questions
Article I: Concerning the Rights and Duties of Spouses
- I. "From valid matrimony there arises between the spouses a bond by its nature perpetual and exclusive." (Can. 1110.)
Cf. the things we said concerning the properties of matrimony, Chapter I, Article II.
- II. "Christian matrimony furthermore confers grace upon spouses who do not place an obstacle." (Ibid.)
For matrimony between baptized persons is a true sacrament of the New Law, and therefore it confers grace upon those who receive it worthily. The sacramental grace of matrimony is an increase of grace making one pleasing, together with special help so that spouses can duly fulfill the duties of conjugal life.
- III. "To each spouse from the very beginning of the matrimony there belongs an equal right and duty as regards acts proper to conjugal life." (Can. 1111.)
a) "From the very beginning of the matrimony." From these words, as otherwise from the silence of the Code, it is licit to infer that the privilege existing in the law of the Decretals is now abolished, by force of which a period of two months was granted to each spouse for deliberating whether he or she wished to enter a religious institute of solemn vows, without being held during that whole time to render the conjugal debt.
b) Concerning the rights and duties of spouses in the use of matrimony, we shall not treat here. But we remit to the solid, clear, and learned doctrine of the distinguished Father Merkelbach, O.P., in Questions concerning Chastity and Lust; question eight: Concerning spouses in the use of matrimony.
- IV. "Unless something else is provided by special law, the wife, concerning canonical effects, becomes a participant in the status of the husband." (Can. 1112.)
Here there is question of domicile, competent forum, rite, and burial, but to linger over these is not our province.
- V. "Parents are bound by a most grave obligation to care according to their powers for the education of their offspring, both religious and moral, and physical and civil, and also to provide for their temporal good." (Can. 1113.)
Let the parish priest or confessor take careful care often to exhort parents duly to fulfill the most grave office of educating their children. Both in public sermons and in private conversations let him induce them to send their children to Catholic schools.