Part Two: The Attack on Marriage

It is not. Assaults are actually launched against it to ridicule and disparage it, to exalt the vices that violate its sanctity, and to substitute in its place monstrous unions which are more in accord with what is called the “modern mind,” that is the spirit which denies the Faith and the morality founded on Faith, under the pretext of “emancipating itself from ancient prejudices.”

By all the channels of publicity which science places at the disposal of everyone: by books, not only obscene or subtly suggestive novels, but works that pretend to be scientific; by newspapers and magazines, text and illustration; by theaters, movies, the radio; by official propaganda as well as by advice given openly or under cover. These thoughts are instilled into men of every class, rich and poor, workers and masters, lettered and unlettered, married and single, the godly and the godless, old and young,— but for these last, as easier prey, the worst snares are laid.¹

¹ P. 35.

As in all errors, there are in this matter extremists and moderates; and the more moderate errors themselves admit of various degrees. As a matter of fact, it is the moderates who do the most harm, because they give less alarm and thus succeed more readily in seducing the mind and effecting a transition which paves the way for the worst excesses. The most moderate are those who, whilst they retain in theory the moral principles relating to marriage, believe that in practice certain concessions should be made to human weakness, that certain difficulties should be met by compromise. Not all the sponsors of these new doctrines are carried

to the extremes of unbridled lust. There are those who, striving as it were to ride a middle course, believe, nevertheless, that something should be conceded in our time as regards certain precepts of the Divine and natural law. But these likewise, more or less wittingly, are emissaries of the great enemy who is ever seeking to sow cockle among the wheat.¹

¹ Pp. 35, 36.

It is deeply rooted in atheistic materialism, which is fatally blinded to whatever is above the things of the senses and of earth; in sensualism which mistakes sensual pleasure for happiness and governs everything by the dictates of the lower appetites; in a spineless education which no longer concerns itself with self-conquest; in a disregard of the Cross of Christ, which makes satisfaction instead of duty the absolute standard. Corrupted by these evil influences, man has forgotten how to look up, how to restrain his passions, how to practise the self-denial, at times heroic, which right conduct demands. The message of Christian doctrine is: Lift up your hearts! It says: Master your appetites. It preaches the Cross, and denial of self. It demands faith in Jesus crucified. If anyone wants to understand marriage, he must first understand Christ; and whoever wants to understand Christ must know the meaning of the Cross.”¹

¹ Dr. W. Spael, Le mariage chrétien. Premières considérations sur l’Encyclique . . . Kölnische Volkszeitung, Jan. 31, 1931. Supplément hebdomadaire, Im Schritt der Zeit. Documentation Catholique, 1931, p. 460.

Their basic principle lies in this, that matrimony is repeatedly declared to be not instituted by the Author of nature nor raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a true Sacrament, but invented by man. Some confidently assert that they have found no evidence for the existence of matrimony in nature or in her laws, but regard it merely as the means of producing life and of gratifying in one way or another a vehement impulse. On the other hand, others

recognize that certain beginnings, or as it were seeds, of true wedlock are found in the nature of man, since, unless men were bound together by some form of permanent tie, the dignity of husband and wife or the natural end of propagating and rearing the offspring would not receive satisfactory provision, at the same time they maintain that in all beyond this germinal idea matrimony, through various concurrent causes, is invented solely by the mind of man, established solely by his will.¹

¹ P. 36.

That the laws and morals of marriage are variable, according to prevailing ideas and the shifting circumstances of human affairs; that the generative power has a wider range than matrimony; and hence that it may be exercised outside as well as within the confines of wedlock.

The Holy Father repudiates in the name of Catholic morality, or rather in the name of natural morality: temporary marriages, contracted only for a definite time, for example whilst the parties live in a certain country or are engaged in a certain enterprise; trial marriages, entered upon as a provisional experiment; companionate marriage, based on a so-called friendship which claims the most intimate relations, but insists on their remaining unfruitful. Whilst he condemns these enormities, the Holy Father is even more severe against the effrontery of those who insist that these monstrosities be legitimatized by law or at least legally tolerated.