The memorable Encyclical Casti Connubii of 31 December 1930, has astonished the world by its apppropriateness and the richness of its content.
It contains and promulgates anew the entire Christian doctrine on marriage.
It has evoked the enthusiastic admiration of some, the wanton criticism of others. Like the Master whose word it announces, it is at once a sign of resurrection and of contradiction, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed.
The Pope whose firm hand signed it wishes that the teachings which he has given in the name of Christ and of the Church shall receive the greatest possible diffusion.
To correspond with this desire of the Supreme Pastor, to contribute in our very humble way to its realization, is our only ambition.
It seemed to us that the catechetical form would best suit our purpose, since it puts each point in clear relief and favors precise answers.
Since it is a catechism according to the Encyclical, it must include all the doctrine of the. Encyclical and nothing else. Yet our questions and answers cannot be content merely to formulate that doctrine; they must besides give the reasons for it, especially those which the Holy Father himself adduces. Only thus can they furnish an explanation of that doctrine, the solution of doubts which may arise in connection with it, and in case of need, defense and justification for it.
This in itself will indicate that we do not propose to write a popular catechism but rather to furnish the material for one.
Our work is destined for priests and the educated laity. Without a doubt the motherly eye of the Virgin, no less attentive than at Cana, observes how the world, even the Christian world, is in want of the wine of holy doctrine. We may therefore invoke her with confidence begging her to aid the propagators of the Encyclical, as doubtless she aided the august Pontiff who published it.
1. What Motives Determined the Holy Father to Publish an Encyclical on Marriage?
Moved to compassion by the errors that are current in a society become partly pagan, by the ignorance to which many of the Faithful are becoming more and more the victims so far as to lose sight of the sanctity of their state of life, and by the growing corruption of morals against which nature protests, the Supreme Pastor declares that he yielded to an imperious necessity in publishing an encyclical which is doctrinal and which at the same time highly champions the cause of Christian marriage.
2. What More Definite Purposes Did He Have in View?
The Sovereign Pontiff wished to remind every one of what is now too commonly ignored, the sanctity of marriage, especially of Christian marriage; to stigmatize the false principles and practical abuses relating to it, and to win the Faithful away from them; and to point out the way of escape from the deplorable state of affairs, and give hope of a restoration beautiful in itself and salutary to society.
To this end, the Vicar of Jesus Christ wishes through the voice of the Bishops to instruct the entire Church, and even the whole human race:
1. On the nature and dignity of marriage, especially Christian marriage;
2. On the blessings and benefits which flow from it for the family and for society;
3. On the prevailing errors on the subject of marriage;
4. On the abuses that are commonly practiced against the conjugal state;
5. On the principal remedies to do away with the abuses and to restore Christian marriage to its true place.
3. How Is the Encyclical Divided?
The Encyclical falls naturally into three principal divisions:
The fundamental principles, and the three great benefits and blessings of marriage: children, conjugal fidelity, and sacramental elevation;
Erroneous theories and the vices contrary to these three great blessings, together with their sad consequences;
The principal remedies to avoid the abyss into which the abuses against marriage are drawing society, and to make way for the restoration of marriage to its true dignity.
4. Is This Encyclical the First Which Has Dealt Thoroughly With Christian Marriage?
By no means. Fifty years before, on 10 February 1880, Leo XIII published a doctrinal Encyclical beginning with the word "Arcanum." Its chief purpose was to set forth the sacred character of every conjugal union, and to condemn purely civil marriages and divorce.
5. Does the New Encyclical Revoke the Former One?
On the contrary the Pope expressly desires to give it new force, and he makes all its teachings his own. More than once he appeals to it as an authority.
6. How Does the New Encyclical Differ From the Former One?
The new one has a more practical purpose. Whereas the Encyclical "Arcanum" concerned itself chiefly with theory and refuted the errors embodied in civil legislation, the Encyclical "Casti Connubii," while not departing from theoretical principles, pays special attention to erroneous teachings which have more recently gained currency, and condemns the vices which are now perverting marriage. It is particularly designed to meet the needs of the present time.
7. What Is the First Fundamental Truth Taught by the Encyclical?
The Encyclical lays down to begin with this immutable fundamental doctrine: Matrimony was not instituted or restored by man, but by God; not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate it but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ our Lord by whom nature was redeemed.
8. How Do You Prove that Marriage Was Instituted by God?
The Encyclical tells us: This is the doctrine of Holy Scripture, this is the constant tradition of the Universal Church, this is the solemn definition of the sacred Council of Trent, which declares and establishes from the words of Holy Writ itself that God is the author of the perpetual stability of the marriage bond, its unity and its firmness. Genesis records that God gave the first woman as a companion to Adam, who, by Divine inspiration, as the Council of Trent tells us,* exclaimed: "This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: wherefore a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh." This is what comes about by the use of marriage. God confirmed this inspiration by blessing them both and saying to them: "Increase and multiply." Our Lord Himself quoted the words of Adam as containing the Divine law of unity, which limits true marriage to two persons.
9. What Do We Mean by Saying that Marriage Has Received its Laws from God the Author of Nature?
We mean that these laws are written in man's very nature, even apart from all revelation.
10. What Are These Laws?
The law of unity; the law of perpetuity; the law of indissolubility.
11. Are These Laws Equally Unchangeable?
By human authority, yes. Man, being subject to the rational moral order can in no case derogate from it even for purposes which he thinks good. But God, the Author of nature and of order, can without offense to His own wisdom make some exceptions to laws other than the most principal or most essential ones. This He may do by positive authorization of the exceptions, for ends worthy of Himself, or by tolerating them through consideration of the weakness of human nature, with due regard to all the circumstances. Never has He permitted adultery or free love or fornication; but He did tolerate among the Jews a certain polygamy, and even in certain cases the repudiation of the wife.
12. How Do You Prove the Natural Law of Unity?
We prove it by the analysis of the sentiment which leads to the conjugal union; by the conjugal union considered in itself; and by the evil consequences of plurality.
The sentiment of love, quite a different thing from that of quiet friendship, is jealous and exclusive.
"Conjugal love," says Abbe Dermine, "must be exclusive under pain of dissolving itself. Conjugal love shared with another excites jealousy and divides the heart."
"I want to love you, you alone, you more than all the world. We want to belong to each other, live for each other, share joy and suffering together. That is the way this love expresses itself."
Moreover the practically equal number of births of the two sexes shows that polygamy is possible only by the killing or mutilation of human beings, two abuses contrary to nature.
Besides how could the mutual total self-surrender which the conjugal union implies be realized between more than two people?
Finally, plurality of wives reduces each one to a condition of too great inferiority; plurality of husbands lowers the male sex, and, by throwing doubt upon paternity, takes away from marriage one of the resources intended for the education of the child.
13. How Do You Prove the Natural Law of Perpetuity?
We prove it by the natural aspiration of the sentiment of love which desires to last forever; by the irrevocable character of mutual self-surrender, which takes away from the woman her integrity; by the duty of education, which by its nature requires years, and which goes on indefinitely, being renewed at every birth; finally by the duties of mutual help and mutual upbuilding which are implied in marriage and which do not cease until death.
14. How Do You Prove the Natural Law of Indissolubility?
We prove it by the irreparable consequence which the consummation of marriage entails for the bride; by the obstacle which the mere possibility of divorce puts in the way of a perfect union between the spouses; and by the harm which the breaking of the bond necessarily inflicts upon the children.
15. Why Do You Say that God, in the Person of Our Lord, Restored Marriage to its Pristine Purity?
Because Christ, in virtue of His Divine power, suppressed polygamy which, even for the Jewish people, had been merely tolerated under the Old Law; and abolished the repudiation of the wife which the law of Moses had allowed in certain cases. In this way He restored to marriage its primitive unity and stability.
Therefore [says the Sovereign Pontiff] although before Christ the sublimeness and the severity of the primeval law was so tempered that Moses permitted it to the chosen people of God on account of the hardness of their hearts that a bill of divorce might be given in certain circumstances, nevertheless, Christ, by virtue of His supreme legislative power, recalled this concession of greater liberty and restored the primeval law in its integrity by those words which must never be forgotten: "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder."
16. How and Why Were Polygamy and the Putting Away of the Wife Tolerated Under the Old Law?
Polygamy and repudiation were tolerated in virtue of a Divine dispensation, as being reconcilable strictly speaking with the essential demands of nature.
As regards the reason why, Our Lord Himself in the passage where He restores both the conjugal unity and indissolubility gives but this one reason for it: that the dispensations had been a concession to the moral weakness of the Jewish people.
17. Is Polygamy Now Suppressed Not Only for Christians But Also for Unbaptized Persons, So That No Conjugal Union Can Be Validly Contracted Between Several Spouses?
Yes, the Sovereign Pontiff expressly teaches in this Encyclical that all forms of polygamy are abolished for the entire world.
After recalling the fact that the primitive law of marriage was monogamy, the Holy Father adds: And although afterwards this primeval law was relaxed to some extent by God, the Supreme Legislator, there is no doubt that the law of the Gospel fully restored that original and perfect unity, and abrogated all dispensations, as the words of Christ and the constant teaching and action of the Church show plainly. With reason therefore does the Sacred Council of Trent solemnly declare: "Christ Our Lord very clearly taught that in this bond two persons only are to be united and joined together when He said: 'Therefore they are no longer two but one flesh.'"
Consequently when the Holy Father, immediately after these words, declares that Our Lord wished "to condemn any form of polygamy or polyandry," he evidently means a condemnation which applied to the whole world. The restoration of a law which was primitively universal, is itself universal.
18. What Part Has the Human Will in Marriage?
It has the very noble part of giving rise to every particular marriage. Every marriage is created by mutual consent, and that consent no other human power can supply. (Canon 1081, ยง1.)
19. What Is the Essential Quality of This Consent?
It must be free. Each of the two parties must really wish to contract marriage, and to contract it with a certain determinate person.
20. Is the Marriage Valid Where This Consent Was Given Under the Influence of Fear?
If the consent were given, under the influence of grave fear resulting from a human action, the marriage would be void, at least by ecclesiastical law.
21. Why Do You Say That the Grave Fear Must Result From a Human Act?
Because fear from any other cause (unless, indeed, it were so excessive as to interfere with the deliberation which is essential to any human act), for example the emotion arising from some misfortune, from a storm, an earthquake, an illness, the thought of the punishments of the future life, does not nullify marriage nor any other contract.
22. Why Do You Say, "At Least by Ecclesiastical Law"?
Because the invalidity or nullity of the marriage by the natural law is less evident; it is a disputed question.
23. Since Consent Is Essential to Produce a Marriage, May it Not Modify its Terms and Conditions?
Consent can change some of the accidental terms, such as the agreement to live in such or such a place, but it can alter neither the nature of the contract nor the essential laws which govern it, because these are fixed by the law of God.
The nature of marriage [says the Encyclical] is entirely independent of the free will of man, so that if one has once contracted matrimony he is thereby subject to its Divinely made laws and its essential properties.
24. What Would Happen if the Parties Were Mistaken About Some of These Laws?
If the mistake were purely interior it might be implicitly corrected by the preponderant intention to contract marriage, but, as the Encyclical states, citing Saint Thomas, "these things are so contained in matrimony by the very marriage pact that if anything to the contrary were expressed in the consent which makes the marriage, it would not be a true marriage."
25. What Effect Does the Giving of Consent Produce?
By matrimony the souls of the contracting parties are joined and knit together more directly and more intimately than are their bodies, and that not by any passing affection of sense or spirit, but by a deliberate and firm act of the will; and from this union of souls, by God's decree, a sacred and inviolable bond arises.
26. What Power Over This Bond Has Legitimate Authority, Civil or Ecclesiastical?
Lawful authority has the right and even the strict duty to forbid, prevent, and punish those shameful unions which are contrary both to reason and nature, [for example adultery, the corruption of children, etc., but] to take away from man the natural and primeval right of marriage is beyond the power of any human law.
27. Cannot the Law Create Impediments to Marriage?
In the case of baptized persons, who in consequence of their baptism are subject to the authority of the Church, the peculiarly sacred character of their marriage has this consequence, that the Church alone can create impediments or sanction those which the civil law may have established. In the case of unbaptized persons, one may admit the competence of the civil authority, not as merely secular, but because for those persons the authority of the State is by the very necessity of the case extended, with certain limitations, into the field of religion and morality.
The activity of the State as such should be restricted to regulating the civil effects of marriage: the tenure of property, the order of inheritance, the registry of births.
28 Why Cannot Human Law Do More Than This?
Because positive human law, while it may for the common good establish regulations for the use of a right, has no authority to suppress the right itself which is given by nature. Now nature, in bestowing upon human beings the power of generation, allows the normal use of that power. In other words, the office of a human lawgiver is to adapt the order of nature to varying circumstances and to supplement its general decrees by more definite provisions; but he cannot subvert or contradict that order, as he himself is subject to it.
29. Does Not a Fine Conclusion Follow from the Foregoing Considerations?
There follows from them this beautiful conclusion, that the sacred partnership of true marriage is constituted both by the will of God and the will of man; from God comes the very institution of marriage, the ends for which it was instituted, the laws that govern it, the blessings that flow from it, while man through generous surrender of his own person, one to another for the whole span of life, becomes, with the help and cooperation of God, the author of each particular marriage, with the duties and blessings annexed thereto from Divine institution.
- text taken from What Is Marriage? - A Catechism Arranged According to the Encyclical "Casti Connubii" of Pope Pius XI, by A. Vermeersch, S.J.; it has the Imprimatur of Cardinal Patrick Hayes, Archbishop of New York, 10 December 1931; for all the sections of this catechism, see the table of contents; the book and the encyclical are available for download in a free ebook