Does sex, becoming one flesh, make you married?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill77
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Yes, it’s very strange indeed! Very suspect and strange. But also very human nature like.
 
Constant Lerner said:
But there are persons who go through a valid Catholic marriage, by a priest, in a church, and still get an annulment. It seems the church might as well allow divorce under some conditions since it does grant annulments to those it considers validly married.
Click to expand...
I cannot get this one to quote @constantlearner , sorry @rcwitness.

Constant, the Church can not issue a decree of nullity on a valid marriage. EVER.

The Church can dissolve a valid marriage if it is unconsumated, under the Pauline Privilege, etc. That is not a finding of nullity.

Where do you get the idea that the Church can find valid marriages null?
 
Lack of consent can mean “forced” but it can also mean many other things.

I am sure your Diocese does training for those who want to be Tribunal advocates. You might want to take that a course, it will help sort things out for you.
 
Ummm… if Popes St JPII and Benedict were troubled at the number of decrees granted, I think it’s better not to make such over confident claims that the Church cannot err in tribunal decisions.

“For the canonist the principle must remain clear that only incapacity and not difficulty in giving consent and in realizing a true community of life and love invalidates a marriage,” said Pope John Paul in 1987. “Only the most severe forms of psychopathology impair substantially the freedom of the individual,” he said the following year, as he called upon defenders of the bond to prevent “tensions and difficulties, inevitably involved in the choice and achievement of the ideals of marriage, from being confused with the signs of a serious pathology.”

In 2009, Pope Benedict, quoting Pope John Paul, spoke of the “urgent need” of “preserving the ecclesial community from the scandal of seeing the value of Christian marriage being destroyed in practice by the exaggerated and almost automatic multiplication of declarations of nullity, in cases of the failure of marriage, on the pretext of some immaturity or psychic weakness on the part of the contracting parties.”
 
Last edited:
So basically, the two are married as long as they intended to get married. As usual, there’s an issue with technology creating scenarios canon law hasn’t thought of (e.g. getting married through an MMORPG). I suppose this is why the requirement for canonical form exists for marriage between Catholics- precisely to avoid any confusion about what constitutes valid marital consent. Sure, there are other scenarios like duress which can undermine consent, but this at least eliminates the risk of one person thinking it’s real and the other considering it a prank.
 
A more real-life situation is two people have been dating. They plan a fantastic wedding, then, something happens or is realized that likely should stop the wedding. They have already paid the caterer, bought a 10K ring, paid for a honeymoon cruise, bought a house together and adopted a dog. They simply cannot fathom cancelling when the dress has already been altered! So, in spite of what one of the other or both know, they go through with it.

Or the one party thinks “He says this now, but, I can change him” and they have the wedding anyway.

Or she is pregnant and they want to get married so the child is not born out of wedlock.

Or they rush so he can be married before his grandfather dies.

Or a million other things that can impact consent.
 
No, it doesn’t. Unfortunately, Pope John Paul II kind of spread this idea in his Theology of the Body works…
 
As my grandpa said “children live what they learn”. We have stopped teaching by example over the past decades.
 
A promise before God, is a promise before God.

Why do you think we have a defender of the bond in place? There were abuses back then. They have returned.
 
Last edited:
TheLittleLady said:
Where do you get the idea that the Church can find valid marriages null?
Click to expand...
I didn’t know if it could. That’s why I asked. So what makes a marriage valid? For the RCC, validity seems to be fluid and float from case to case.
 
mythbuster1 said:
Follow up question: What formality is required to establish a natural marriage? Obviously, sex alone is not enough, but what form do the vows have to take for a natural marriage to be formed?
Click to expand...
Natural marriage is one not between two baptized people which has the necessary minimums:
  • exclusive
  • lifelong
  • granting just conjugal rights
  • free to marry
  • freely given
  • no impediments of age, consanguity, etc.
 
Last edited:
rcwitness said:
“For the canonist the principle must remain clear that only incapacity and not difficulty in giving consent and in realizing a true community of life and love invalidates a marriage,” said Pope John Paul in 1987. “ Only the most severe forms of psychopathology impair substantially the freedom of the individual ,” he said the following year, as he called upon defenders of the bond to prevent “ tensions and difficulties, inevitably involved in the choice and achievement of the ideals of marriage, from being confused with the signs of a serious pathology .”
Click to expand...
Given the Church’s stance on “marriage is forever” I would think the above would be the norm. But it doesn’t seem to be. At least not among the Catholics I know and have known, and I went to a Catholic college. Well, one was a Catholic college, one was Hebrew.
 
"Bill77 said:
But I do trust the Church. Do you, or anyone reading this, have a definitive source of doctrine you could point me to which directly states that what I’m saying here is wrong, that sex wouldn’t make two virgins married?

Thanks again
Click to expand...
Not a specific doctrine but more of a common sense answer – right and wrong use of sex.

It is only right within the relationship of marriage where the sexual act is both unitive and procreative. Thus the two shall become one flesh – that’s the body of the spouse is like his/her own.

There is also the spiritual element to sex, the ‘becoming one flesh’ obviously is not literal.

Therefore even though sex with prostitutes is mentioned in the Bible, that is an example of its wrong usage because the becoming one flesh is quickly abandoned unlike in a marriage where it is to last until death to either one of the spouse
 
Reuben_J said:
Therefore even though sex with prostitutes is mentioned in the Bible, that is an example of its wrong usage because the becoming one flesh is quickly abandoned
Click to expand...
“abandoned” yes, but how is it dissolved?
unlike in a marriage where it is to last until death to either one of the spouse
Click to expand...
That’s the ideal, yet many who marry don’t believe it must, or that anything holds the marriage accountable.
 
Last edited:
Bill77 said:
…
Click to expand...
Man and woman, joined by God, will not constitute a sacrilege.

1 Cor 6
15 Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
16 Or know you not, that he who is joined to a harlot, is made one body? For they shall be, saith he, two in one flesh.
17 But he who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit.
18 Fly fornication. Every sin that a man doth, is without the body; but he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body.
19 Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?
20 For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body.
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top