§ 2. On the More Honorable Secularists

119. - The opinions of those who, outside the Church, profess themselves devoted to the natural law and to moral uprightness can be reduced to the following heads ¹.

¹ Errors concerning Christian matrimony are condemned in propositions 65-74 of the Syllabus of Pius IX, in the encyclical letter of Leo XIII Arcanum divinae sapientiae, February 10, 1880, and in canons 1012, 1013, 1016, 1960, and 1961 of the new Code.

1. Having wrested jurisdiction over marriages from the Church, they assign it to the civil power. Wherefore they defend the institution of civil marriage.

2. They acknowledge and defend the perpetuity of matrimony; yet in such a way that they contend that there are just causes on account of which civil divorce, although rarely, is to be granted.

3. They declare the use of marriage to be of itself consonant with nature. Yet, when compelled by the necessity of physical health, most do not dare to condemn either sterility sought through devices or abortion itself; indeed, several do not hesitate positively to advise devices of this kind.

Therefore, civil marriage, civil divorce, and the excuse of neo-Malthusianism must be discussed briefly.