The Campaign Against the Sacrament

According to the Encyclical the principal attack is against marriage as a Sacrament. The Holy Father says:¹ And now considering that the third blessing, which is that of the Sacrament, far surpasses the other two, we should not be surprised to find that this, because of its outstanding excellence, is much more sharply attacked by the same people.

¹ P. 45.

By tactics in which we can distinguish three steps: the denial of the sacred character of marriage; the assault upon its indissolubility; and the relegation of marriage to the rank of profane and civil affairs.

By regarding the marriage which is called civil as the real marriage, which can later be supplemented by a religious ceremony, a nuptial blessing, which is in no way essential.¹

¹ Pp. 45, 46.

It is impossible in this sense, that the declaration of a civil magistrate can never form the bond, whose only efficient cause is the exchange of consent by the two parties themselves. For non-baptized persons the civil contract may be the real contract in this sense that the competent authority — and according to a common opinion, that is, for those cases, the civil authority — can require on pain of nullity that the exchange of consent be given in the presence of a civil magistrate and two witnesses; just as the Church, since the Council of Trent, and now under the Code of Canon Law, requires on pain of nullity for marriages between two Catholics and between a Catholic and a non-Catholic, that the exchange of consent be given regularly in the presence of an authorized priest and two witnesses. We say this is required regularly, because the Code provides for certain cases in which the marriage may be validly contracted before any two witnesses, without the presence of a priest.

Although the nuptial blessing is a sacred ceremony, which, through the prayer of the Church, is a means of actual graces, yet it does not constitute the sacred element which is essential to marriage.

It is in the mutual consent of the parties to the marriage.

A marriage between Christians is the only marriage which is a Sacrament; but in a lower degree every marriage contains something sacred, “put there,” says Leo XIII, “by nature herself.”

We prove it from the unanimous consent of the peoples who have introduced a religious rite into the conjugal union; from the Divine origin of the institution of marriage; from

the end of marriage, which is to bring up for God the children that may be born, and to lead the spouses themselves to God by the mutual help which they give each other; finally from the mysterious alliance between God and the spouses in human generation, God creating and infusing the spiritual soul into the body prepared by the parents.¹ Leo XIII adds this more profound supernatural reason: “because marriage was from the beginning like an image of the Incarnation of the Word of God” (Encyclical "Arcanum”). The sacramental character gives besides to Christian marriage a new dignity or nobility in which the Apostle St. Paul recognizes a great mystery in Christ and in the Church (Ephes. v. 32). The conjugal community cannot derive entirely from the created natural order, either its end or its means. Its principal end, the generation of children, cannot be attained unless God, the Creator of the spirit, intervene in the paternal function and complete it by the creation of the soul. By that very fact, marriage, even in its natural reality, overflows the confines of this world and surpasses the forces of this world. From this point of view alone, every marriage is a mystery. Then, consider its interior structure. We find there a sensible, corporal side, and a moral, spiritual side. Inasmuch as it is placed in the sphere of the senses, marriage is in danger of losing itself by sinking into animality. It must cry for help from above to escape from the preponderance of the corporal element. On its moral and spiritual side, it is more than a simple alliance of mind and heart; it implies the mutual self-surrender of two persons destined to be welded together in one flesh, a thing, which is done in all security and purity only with the Divine good pleasure. Hence, even a purely natural marriage possesses a mystic character, and is a sacred and holy thing. According to the admirable expression of Leo XIII it is a foreshadowing of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Nowhere is man less autonomous than in marriage. Autonomy, by cutting the secret roots of its life, its special relation to God, makes marriage unrecognizable, reduces it to nothing.² What shall we say now of the supernatural elevation of Christian marriage by the sacramental character with which

Christ has endowed the consent which gives it birth? What shall we say of the mission which belongs as a consequence to Christian spouses to represent by their union and love the Union of Christ and His Church? Listen to this exhortation which the Ritual used in Germany addresses to the bride and groom in the ceremony of marriage: Just as Christ never abandons His Church, so you must never forsake each other, but ever remain faithfully united until death. And just as Christ sanctifies His Church, so too each of you should work for the sanctification of the other. As Christ loves His Church, and protects and cares for her, so the husband should love his wife, and protect her, and care for her with fidelity even unto the sacrifice of self; and as the Church is subject to Christ as to her head, so too the wife should obey her husband in all that is necessary, right, and fitting. And both should, in faithful unity, raise their children for Christ and for His holy Church. Consequently, as Dr. Riedel observes,³ the Sacrament of matrimony confers on the partners a grace which perfects their natural love, a grace which cements their indissoluble unity, which helps them to sanctify each other, and enables them to fulfil their duty in regard to their children.

¹ Pp. 46, 47.

² These thoughts are borrowed almost literally from the fine address which Mr. Karl Adam delivered at the general assembly of German Catholics held at Freiburg in Brisgau in 1929. It was published by Herder under the title, Die Sakramentale Weihe der Ehe.

³ Brautunterricht, p. 3 (Herder, 1929).

Because marriage between Christians whom heresy or schism has separated from the true and only Catholic Church, is a Sacrament just as much as that between Catholics, provided the parties have been validly baptized.

A high regard for Christian marriage which they are about to contract, and an ardent zeal to make their union resemble as closely as possible its arch-type, the union between Christ and the Church.

Unfortunately they are not, because Protestants deny the sacramental character of marriage.

Four centuries of Protestant teaching have established two convictions in the consciousness of the English-speaking world. The first is that the marriage of Christians is in no sense a sacramental union, and the second, that marriage is not a lasting, but a terminable, union. . . . It is a contract which can be terminated at will by the parties concerned, provided that they fulfil the conditions prescribed by the State.¹

¹ America, January 17, 1931, p. 350.

The Holy Father is very far from granting that other assumption of the profaners of marriage, namely that Catholics may marry persons of any other religion, or of no religion at all, or even professed atheists, without concerning themselves in the least about the religion of their chosen partner, and without any regard to ecclesiastical authority. On the contrary, the Sovereign Pontiff emphasizes¹ the just aversion which the Church professes for mixed marriages, and recalls to mind the words of the Code (Canon 1060) : “Everywhere and with the greatest strictness the Church forbids marriages between baptized persons, one of whom is a Catholic and the other a member of a schismatical or heretical sect.”²

¹ Pp. 47, 48.

² Experience only confirms the wisdom of this judgment. Compare Rev. P. Ter Haar, C.SS.R., De matrimoniis mixtis eorumque remediis.

For the parties themselves, a less complete accord of thought, sentiment, and action, flowing from the fundamental disagreement on the question of religion.¹ Also, the greater difficulty of fulfilling the task of mutual sanctification; less assurance of peace and cordial understanding; and a fatal tendency toward religious indifference. For the children there is reason to fear apostasy, or religious indifference, which is next door to loss of faith and ungodliness.

¹ See the convincing and popular exposition of this subject in “Marry Your Own” by D. A. Lord, S.J. (St. Louis, The Queen’s Work.)

Yes, she sometimes does, for grave reasons based on religious interests; for example, when in an exceptional case a well-grounded hope of the other party's early conversion makes the disadvantages and dangers more remote; and when a reason of a political nature demands such a concession.¹ Sometimes, too, the reason for the dispensation is hardness of heart; it is given to prevent a still greater evil. But when she does dispense, the Church imposes conditions dictated by the spiritual interests of the parties and of the children. She requires that the Catholic party work for the conversion of the other; that the non-Catholic party agree in writing to allow the Catholic party full liberty to practise his or her religion devoutly. Moreover both parties must promise in writing to educate in the Catholic Faith all the children that may be born of the marriage.²

¹ [Translator’s note: This latter reason would seem to have application only in countries, such as many of those of Europe, where matrimonial alliances between royal families have political importance.]

² See Code of Canon Law, Canons 1061, 1062.

It is a matter of natural and Divine law if there is danger of perversion for the Catholic spouse or for the children. (Canon 1060).

It is in fact more severe on marriages with unbaptized persons, because for these it promulgates a more severe sanction: such marriages are null and void if contracted without a dispensation.

The plague of divorce, the increasing facility of which is deplored by the Encyclical.¹ Even persons who are little affected by the religious motive are alarmed by the moral and social decline which statistics indicate.² Nevertheless, the obstinate abettors of the new paganism continue to agitate for the establishment of divorce where it does not yet exist, and for extending its facility where it is already recognized.

¹ Pp. 48-51.

² See, for instance, the statistics published by us in Periodica, 1930. See also Dermine, La doctrine du mariage chrétien: “Divorce,” he writes, p. 139, “makes love free, and kills it; indissolubility disciplines love, and saves it.”

They allege both subjective and objective reasons: the interests of the parties themselves they argue, demand that the innocent party be allowed to break with the guilty, and that the guilty party be withdrawn from a union which has become painful and strained; the welfare of the children requires that the quarrels and misbehavior of the parents be removed as a source of offence and scandal; the good of society demands the annulment of marriages which do not fulfill their purpose, and the legal separation of unhappy couples to prevent crimes, and to forestall lies and official perjuries committed in the course of legal proceedings for divorce. Others, seeing no longer in marriage anything but a private contract, claim that, like any other contract, it can be made and dissolved by mutual consent.

It replies in the first place by recalling the inviolable law of God and of Christ, and the anathemas of the Council of Trent. We must have confidence in God and in the Church; neither God nor the Church is mistaken: that is enough to reject, in the name of the common welfare, the reasons conjured up under color of the same interest. Then it adds that in extreme cases separation duly regulated by competent authority, that is, fundamentally by ecclesiastical authority, and as regards civil effects by the civil authority, is a sufficient protection against the evils mentioned. Finally, a detailed contrast drawn between the regime of indissolubility and that allowing divorce, is an eloquent refutation of the argument attempted in favor of the latter.

From the earlier Encyclical of Leo XIII: To revert again [says the Holy Father] to the expressions of Our predecessor, it is hardly necessary to point out what an amount of good is involved in the absolute indissolubility of wedlock and what a train of evils follows upon divorce. Whenever the marriage bond remains intact, then we find

marriages contracted with a sense of safety and security, while, when separations are considered and the dangers of divorce are present, the marriage contract itself becomes insecure, or at least gives ground for anxiety and surprises. On the one hand we see a wonderful strengthening of good will and co-operation in the daily life of husband and wife, while on the other both of these are miserably weakened by the presence of a facility for divorce. Here we have at a very opportune moment a source of help by which both parties are enabled to preserve their purity and loyalty; there we find harmful inducement to unfaithfulness. On this side we find the birth of children and their tuition and upbringing effectively promoted, many avenues of discord closed amongst families and relations, and the beginnings of rivalry and jealousy easily suppressed; on that, very great obstacles to the birth and rearing of children and their education, many occasions of quarrels and seeds of jealousy sown everywhere. Finally, but especially, the dignity and position of women in civil and domestic society is reinstated by the former; while by the latter it is shamefully lowered and the danger is incurred of their being considered outcasts, slaves of the lust of men.¹ Considering the exceptional importance of this matter, it seems worth while to sum up in a synoptic form the teachings which we have just transcribed. | INDISSOLUBILITY | DIVORCE | |---|---| | Marriages peaceful and secure. | Unions made precarious by even the distant prospect of divorce, and by suspicions easily aroused. | | Mutual good will strengthened. | Good will weakened. | | Guarantees of chaste fidelity. | Harmful temptations to infidelity offered. | | Birth and education of children protected. | Birth and education of children compromised. | | Door closed against discord between families. | Many occasions of discord. | | Seeds of discord nipped in the bud. | Seeds of discord growing to bitterness. | | Dignity and position of woman upheld in society and the home. | Humiliation of woman, often irreparable. “After having ministered to the passions of their husbands they are in danger of being considered as outcasts.”—Leo XIII, “Arcanum.” |

¹ Pp. 50, 51.

It is the open road to the decay of morals, and leads to an ever-increasing number of broken homes.

It notes the justice of the forecast made by Leo XIII, the unheard-of degradation of the family where Communism is in control.