Morals of the Church
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Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

Appendix III. On Civil Marriage

845.

I. Notion. Civil marriage strictly taken is a true marriage contracted or attempted according to civil law before a civil official. Broadly taken it is the formality performed before a civil official, or notification made to a civil official of a marriage already contracted, made in order to acquire civil effects for the marriage.

II. Morality. We are speaking of the marriage of Christians; for as regards the marriage of infidels, which is subject to the civil power, there is no difficulty.

  1. The law of civil marriage is dishonorable insofar as, according to the mind of the legislator, it commands Christians to emit true consent before an official of the State, and to place civil marriage before ecclesiastical marriage. For the Church prescribes, and indeed for validity, that Christians furnish consent before their own minister; for liceity she commands that they contract before their own minister before they contract before the magistrate.1 Nevertheless, practically:

  2. Those about to marry can posit the civil act and place it before the ecclesiastical act, provided they intend nothing other than to perform the civil ceremony; indeed, ordinarily there is an obligation of acting in this way, namely so that they may provide for themselves, for the other spouse, and for the offspring2 (St. Alphonsus II, 16).

  3. Officials and witnesses licitly assist at the civil act as follows:

a) This is commonly affirmed if the legislator does not intend to touch the bond.

b) It is likewise licit, provided a proportionate cause underlies it, even if the legislator intends to touch the bond. And this holds even if those about to marry, who are held by a dispensable impediment, are foreseen not to be going afterward to contract true marriage.3 Indeed, the same is sufficiently probably affirmed even if those about to marry cannot even contract a valid marriage on account of an indispensable impediment, for instance that of bond, which stands in the way. The reason is that the official and witnesses can abstract from the intention of the legislator, and therefore not assist with the intention of assisting true consent; this is not evil in itself. And since they can abstract, and therefore, as Catholics, for we are now speaking of them, truly do abstract and must be judged to abstract, their action does not involve approval, and therefore not formal cooperation, of the action of those about to marry, who perhaps do not abstract from the intention of the legislator or who intend true consent. I said that they can abstract from the intention of the legislator, just as those about to marry themselves can and must abstract from it.

This question, if an indispensable impediment stands in the way of the marriage, especially bond, is sharply disputed; moreover, it does not seem able to be settled by authority. Defenders of the stricter opinion appeal to the Sacred Penitentiary (November 28, 1883) and to the Holy Office (December 11, 1830 and May 27, 1886). But the Congregations "do not mark that assistance as intrinsically evil, which could be tolerated in no case. Besides, the first treats of missionaries, not of laypersons; the second was given for France soon after the law of divorce had been introduced; and the Sacred Penitentiary responded to a Bishop of Italy, where divorce in the civil forum is not yet in force, and a new marriage was evidently contracted after the religious marriage had been legitimately celebrated."4 In a word: the Sacred Congregations perhaps responded in this way because they judged that, on account of special circumstances, no proportionate cause was given by which material cooperation would be made honorable.

One who admits the stricter opinion should leave officials in good faith, and should send those asking questions, on account of the importance of the matter, to the Ordinary.

1 Cf. Letter of Leo XIII to the Bishop of Verona, February 8, 1893.

2 Constitution of Benedict XIV Redditae sunt nobis, September 17, 1746; Instruction of the Sacred Penitentiary, January 15, 1866; Encyclical of Leo XIII Arcanum; Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, July 1, 1917.

3 Cf. Instruction of the Sacred Penitentiary, January 15, 1866, which in the case responded that "Officials are to be directed according to the rules handed down by approved authors, and especially by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, concerning cooperators"; Instruction, March 29, 1885.

4 Wernz-Vidal, op. cit., n. 591.

Civil Marriage