Follow @shmsdetroit

Marriage and Family: Cornerstones of the Culture

by Dr. Robert Fastiggi

Catholic teachings on marriage and family life are divinely revealed and intimately connectedand are ordered toward society's greater good.

The Catholic Church recognizes the great importance of marriage and the family because both are essential for learning to love. In his meeting with families in the Philippines on January 16, 2015, Pope Francis said, In the family we learn how to love, to forgive, to be generous and open, not closed and selfish. We learn to move beyond our needs, to encounter others and share our lives with them.

In the same meeting, the Holy Father noted that marriage and the family are in crisis today. The family is also threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by the lack of openness to life.

The words of Pope Francis provide a fitting context for raising the question: What does the Church teach about marriage and the family and why? In this regard, it's important to realize that the Catholic Church did not create marriage and the family. Both of them have existed from the very dawn of human history because they correspond to human nature.

The Catholic Church, therefore, in her teaching authority, or Magisterium, seeks to uphold the authentic meaning of marriage and the family as known by natural reason (the natural law) and by divine revelation.

What Does Scripture Say?

Sacred Scripture upholds the beauty and dignity of marriage and the family. In the first two chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1-2, God wills man and woman to unite as one flesh and to be fruitful and multiply. In the Old Testament, however, the divine pedagogy on marriage is not yet complete, though there are some wonderful testimonies of marital love and fidelity in the books of Ruth, Tobit, and the Song of Songs (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 16101611).

Nevertheless, because of the Israelites' hardness of the heart (Mt 19:8), Moses allowed men to divorce their wives (cf. Deut 24:1). God also tolerated polygamy during the time of the patriarchs and the kings, but Christ explicitly ruled out this practice (Mt 19:3-9; Mk 10:1-12; Lk 16:18).

Commenting on Matthew 9:5, Pope Innocent III in 1201 writes that Scripture does not say three or more,' but two'; nor did it say: he will cling to wives,' but to [his] wife.' (Denz.-H, 778).

In the New Testament, Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning. . . . The matrimonial union is indissoluble: God himself has determined it: what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder (CCC, 1614, Mt 19:6). St. Paul gives vivid tes- timony to the dignity of marriage by seeing it as a reflection of the mystery of Christ's union with the Church (Eph 5:3132).

Marriage in Earlier Ages

The New Testament's affirmation of the holiness and indissolubility of mar- riage was continued in the early Church. Patristic writers such as St. Irenaeus (c. 130-200) and Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) were forced to defend the sanctity of marriage against certain Gnostic and dualist groups that considered sex, marriage, and procreation as evil. In this regard, the Magisterium needed to intervene. The Synod of Toledo of 400 AD anathematized those who found marriage to be blameworthy (Denz.-H, 206). The First Synod of Braga (Portugal), begun in 561, likewise anathematized anyone who condemns human marriage and despises the procreation of children (Denz.-H, 461).

The early Church also upheld marriage as a sacrament. St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. 107) and Tertullian (ca.160220) taught that Christians must en- ter into marriage with the approval of the Church. St. Augustine (354-430) pointed to the three goods (bona) of marriage: offspring (proles), fidelity (fides), and sacrament (sacramentum).

Some argue that sacramentum in St. Augustine did not mean sacramentas in one of the seven Sacrament—but the permanency or indissolubility of the bond. This meaning, though, harmonizes with the view of marriage as a sacrament. Moreover, St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who instructed and baptized St. Augustine, referred to Matrimony as a heavenly sacrament (De Abraham, I, vii).

In the Middle Ages, the sacramentality of marriage or matrimony was explicitly defended by the Magisterium. At the Synod of Verona of 1184, those who taught otherwise than the holy Roman Church regarding baptism, confession, matrimony, or the other sacraments of the Church were anathematized (Denz.-H, 761). In the Profession of Faith of the Emperor Michael Paleologus, read out at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274, the Sacrament of Matrimony was affirmed as one of the seven Sacraments of the Church (Denz.-H, 860). In its Decree for the Armenians, the Council of Florence in 1439 not only listed Matrimony as one of the seven Sacraments, but it also upheld the three goods of marriage as children, fidelity, and indissolubility (Denz.-H, 1327).

The Protestant Challenge

In the sixteenth century, Protestant theologians like Martin Luther (1483 1546) challenged marriage as a sacrament and allowed for divorce, remarriage, and even bigamy. The Council of Trent (1545- 1563) responded to the Protestant challenge by its Doctrine and Canons on the Sacrament of Marriage (1563).

Some of Trent's most important teachings were: a) marriage is a true sacrament instituted by Christ; b) marriage must be monogamous; c) Christian marriage is indissoluble and cannot be dissolved by heresy, distressing cohabitation, desertion, or adultery on the part of one of the spouses; d) the Church has the authority to establish disqualifying impediments to marriage, reasons for separation from bed and board, and other matters pertaining to the sacrament; e) the married state does not surpass the state of virginity and celibacy, and it is better for those in this state to remain as virgins and celibates than to marry (Mt 19:11f and 1 Cor 7:25f, 38 and 40; also Denz.-H, 17971816).

The Challenges of Modern Times

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Catholic doctrine on marriage began to be challenged not only by the Protestant rejection of it as a sacrament but also by the growth of secular states and the increase of civil divorces. In his July 11, 1789 letter to the bishop of Agra, Litteris Tuis, Pope Pius VI taught that marriage in the very state of nature, and certainly long before it was raised to the dignity of a sacrament in the true sense of the word, was divinely instituted in such a manner that its bond was perpetual and indissoluble, so that its bond cannot be dissolved by any civil law.

While the Council of Trent allowed for separation of the spouses in difficult cases (Denz.-H, 1808), the growth of civil divorce was perceived by the Catholic Church as a threat not only to the good of marriage but also to the well-being of families. Children were seen as the principal victims of divorce. Pope Leo XIII, in his 1880 encyclical Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae, described in vivid language the harms that come from divorce:

Truly, it is hardly possible to describe how great are the evils that flow from divorce. Matrimonial contracts are by it made variable; mutual kindness is weakened; deplorable inducements to unfaithfulness are supplied; harm is done to the education and training of children; occasion is afforded for the breaking up of homes; the seeds of dissension are sown among families; the dignity of womanhood is lessened and brought low, and women run the risk of being deserted after having ministered to the pleasures of men.

What Leo XIII taught in 1880 has been reiterated numerous times by the Magisterium. Not only does divorce contradict the divine and natural law (CCC, no. 2384), it is also a source of grave harm to children. Pius XII, in his 1942 Allocution to Newlyweds, underscored the Church's concern for children who depend upon their parents for being, nourishment and upbringing. The harmonious formation and education of children are inconceivable without the undoubted fidelity of the parents.

What the pope observed in 1942 has become only more painfully true in the decades that have followed. This is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of divorce as a grave offense against the natural law (no. 2384). Divorce is likewise immoral because it introduces disorder into the family and society that brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them (no. 2385). The harm that is done to children through divorce has a contagious effect, which makes it truly a plague on society (ibid.).

While divorce is a great tragedy, the Church recognizes that there are situations in which civil divorce can be tolerated when it remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance (no. 2383). Catholic ministers must also show love and compassion for men and women who have been divorced, as well as their children.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church feels bound to uphold unity and indissolubility as the essential properties of marriage (Code of Canon Law [1983] 10562) not only because it conforms to divine law, but also because it contributes to the common good of society.

As St. John Paul II taught, To bear witness to the inestimable value of the indissolubility and fidelity of marriage is one of the most precious and most urgent tasks of Christian couples in our time (Familiaris Consortio, no. 20). The same pontiff also recognized that the indissolubility of marriage concerns one of the cornerstones of society, and he believed efforts should be made to obtain the public recognition of indissoluble marriage in the civil juridical order (Address to the Roman Rota, January 28, 2002, no. 9).

In a similar manner, the Church has condemned efforts to make de facto unions the legal equivalent of marriage and various efforts to provide legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons. Marriage between a man and a woman cannot be considered just one possible form of marriage (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church [2004], no. 228). To do so would be a grave detriment to the common good (no. 229). From the viewpoint of the Catholic Church, the solidity of the family nucleus is a decisive force for the quality of life in society, therefore the civil community cannot remain indifferent to the destabilizing tendencies that threaten its foundations at their very roots (ibid.).

Indissoluble Union

The Catholic doctrines on marriage and the family are intimately connected. The matrimonial covenant is a partnership of the whole of life between one man and one woman that is ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children (CCC, 1601; Code of Canon Law [1983], can. 10551). The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1646, provides this beautiful explanation of why conjugal love demands the inviolable fidelity of the spouses:

By its very nature, conjugal love requires the inviolable fidelity of the spouses. This is a consequence of the gift of themselves, which they make to each other. Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement until further notice. The intimate union of marriage, as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between them.

As Pope Francis observed in the Philippines on January 16, 2015, the family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage. The good of families is intimately bound up with the good of marriage.

The Catholic Church has taught and will always teach that marriage is an indissoluble union between one man and one woman for the good of the spouses, the good of the children, and the good of society.

Dr. Robert Fastiggi

Dr. Robert Fastiggi is professor of systematic theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary.

Stay connected with Sacred Heart. Sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Academic-mark_blk_rev.png#asset:487

Sacred Heart Major Seminary is a Christ-centered Catholic community of faith and higher learning committed to forming leaders who will proclaim the good news of Christ to the people of our time. As a leading center of the New Evangelization, Sacred Heart serves the needs of the Archdiocese of Detroit and contributes to the mission of the universal Church.