Is it true that impotent people can't be married in the Catholic Church?

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Rozellelily

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I came across something that said impotent people can’t be married in the Catholic Church.
While impotence is usually associated with men-it makes mention of women too so in which way can women be impotent?

This issue doesn’t relate to me personally,but when I read things like this it puts me off Catholic because this to me seems cruel.
Shouldn’t someone with impotence be treated with compassion the same way as a person with any other illness and deserve love too?
If I had a husband with this issue I wouldn’t be like “that’s it I’m dumping you”

 
That is not a teaching of the Catholic Church. Impotent folks can marry. They just need to be open to life. That might be physically impossible for some couples. But nothing is truly impossible for God.

I agree. Barring impotent folks from marriage would be cruel.
 
Rozellelily said:
I came across something that said impotent people can’t be married in the Catholic Church.
While impotence is usually associated with men-it makes mention of women too so in which way can women be impotent?

This issue doesn’t relate to me personally,but when I read things like this it puts me off Catholic because this to me seems cruel.
Shouldn’t someone with impotence be treated with compassion the same way as a person with any other illness and deserve love too?
If I had a husband with this issue I wouldn’t be like “that’s it I’m dumping you”
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Those that are sterile can marry but not those that certainly cannot consummate the marriage. CIC Canon law:
Can. 1084
§1. Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have intercourse, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether absolute or relative, nullifies marriage by its very nature.
§2. If the impediment of impotence is doubtful, whether by a doubt about the law or a doubt about a fact, a marriage must not be impeded nor, while the doubt remains, declared null.
§3. Sterility neither prohibits nor nullifies marriage, without prejudice to the prescript of ⇒ can. 1098.
Can. 1098 A person contracts invalidly who enters into a marriage deceived by malice, perpetrated to obtain consent, concerning some quality of the other partner which by its very nature can gravely disturb the partnership of conjugal life.
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Lol,she was probably joking.A lot of women say things like that as a joke or say “soon I’ll be getting cobwebs” etc…
 
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…I never considered it could have been a joke but I thought I read somewhere that that actually Does happen!
 
Can. 1084 §1. Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have intercourse, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether absolute or relative, nullifies marriage by its very nature.

§2. If the impediment of impotence is doubtful, whether by a doubt about the law or a doubt about a fact, a marriage must not be impeded nor, while the doubt remains, declared null.

Impotence renders a person incapable by nature of entering marriage, for the same reason that e.g. an invalid cannot enter a contract to do manual labor. The Church simply recognizes this. A purported marriage involving an impotent person is a fiction.

BTW, since someone earlier claimed this, it is obviously not morally licit to use sex toys or whatever to determine if one is impotent or not. In a case of doubt, marriage can proceed (though it obviously will not be real if the person is in fact impotent).

There are certain conditions that render it impossible for a woman to have sex without extreme pain and/or injury.
 
This has been recently done to death here:
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Marriage question concerning impotency / infertility Family Life
I just have a question here. This is hypothetical and I am not going through anything, just curious. Can people who know beforehand that one of them can’t have kids be married in the church? As to whether or not just one or both is Catholic doesn’t matter of course.
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Another quesrion related to this, how can a person about to get married know that he or she is impotent if that person never had sex yet?
 
fin said:
how can a person about to get married know that he or she is impotent if that person never had sex yet?
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My guess is that the provision generally applies to those who know for sure due to an accident or medical reason (amputation, mutilation, other major dysfunction) that they cannot perform. Presumably if you got married and then found that one person could not consummate the marriage, which has happened sometimes, you could get an annulment after the fact.
 
Rozellelily said:
Shouldn’t someone with impotence be treated with compassion the same way as a person with any other illness and deserve love too?
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this is a confusion. The role of the Church is not to promote love (of concupiscence), but charity. Christian marriage is not concerned by the loving sentiment, mariage based on loving sentiment is a luxury of the Western culture …
Indeed a person who is known as impotent can not marry in the Church, because it is the consumption of marriage that makes the unity of bodies, and an impotence is an handicap that prevents that.
 
This topic has been covered many times, reading a couple of those threads may answer your questions.
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Marriage question concerning impotency / infertility Family Life
The Bishop very much needs to be made aware of this. Such fear mongering is unseemly for a priest, let alone a pastor. Also, parish membership is determined by where you live, just like you live inside a state, inside a county, you also live inside a parish boundary. For a priest to suggest you move houses because of your age is so unbelievable that it makes me think you are pulling our collective legs.
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If a couple finds out after being married that one of the partners is perpetually impotent and the marriage is dissolved, is the potent partner free to remarry? Moral Theology
It would seem the putative marriage could be swept aside either by an annulment (perpetual impotency is a canonical impediment to a valid marriage) or by dissolution of the ratified but not consummated marriage. It is hard to imagine the male would not have been aware of perpetual impotence before the marriage. If the wife was not advised of this beforehand that would be even further grounds for annulment if indeed anything further was needed.
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Its a reasonable point and indeed why many dioceses do not care to enquire too deeply into this impediment to Catholic marriage.

The canon law phrase is “permanent and antecedent impotence”. If there is any doubt in the matter, and no other red flags, most pastors I know turn a blind eye. How would anybody know if it is a permanent state.

The tricky one is where the permanent impotence appears obvious like an older man remarrying. But even here there is room for reasonable doubt on the issue. A new wife may possibly spark the imagination to new heights if you will excuse the pun.

More difficult is the case of a dismembered returning war veteran. But even here with modern prosthetics and techniques there is room for doubt.

Obviously in all cases the partner would need to be aware of the impotence before marriage.

So really the relevance applicability of this canon in practise in the 21C is moot. When one considers the pastoral consequences of idealistically enforcing it… most wise priests (and I am on familiar terms with many) seem quite happy to turn a blind eye unless other red flags are raised.

We all realise there are deserving couples/cases which have every chance of success even if sex is not possible. If they are refused a Catholic marriage what do we think they will do…suffer in silence? No, most will simply marry civilly and possibly leave the Church or harbour a life long resentment from that day forward. That is a nowadays surety a pastorally insensitive outcome easily foreseen and one easily avoided with very few downside risks by giving the benefit of even the smallest of doubts.

Priest turn the same blind eye to many weddings of eligible young but immature Catholic couples they know in their long experience likely have little chance of success. Why should not the same apply with impotent couples with no red flags? Be advised FrDavid96 disagrees with my view as per the other thread 😥.
 
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But it’s not very realistic for a marriage to not be built on love.
Even sometimes in countries where there arranged marriages (not that that’s ideal!) such as India the girl and her family will first meet the potential boy to see if she’s interested in him to then proceed.

Without love,marriage just becomes like a cold business partnership.
Eg:we both agree to get married,make love and then have children and raise children together.
 
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Rozellelily said:
Without love,marriage just becomes like a cold business partnership.

Eg:we both agree to get married,make love and then have children and raise children together.
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And getting married only in this way would be an obstacle to our salvation?
 
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