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Marriage between an adoptive parent and the adopted person is invalid under canon law. However it is considered to be a diriment impediment of ecclesiastical law, not divine law and dispensations from it can be given, as canonists all know
books.google.com/books?id=JKgZEjvB5cEC&pg=PA1295&lpg=PA1295
The impediment arising from an adoptive relationship is one of ecclesiastical law. The local ordinary can dispense from it as can those mentioned in canons 1079-1080 in the circumstances foreseen in those canons. Before a dispensation is granted, however, one should ascertain whether there is also a civil law impediment based on adoption.
New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law: Study Edition p. 1295
What are you thoughts on this? I wonder why a dispensation arising out of an adoptive relationship would ever be given. To me the fact that it can be given means that if you are adopted you are not really your adopted parent’s son or daughter. After all if you were really your adopted parent’s son or daughter then that would be an impediment of divine law that not only is not dispensed under present codified policy but has been taught by a pope to be something that can’t even in principle be dispensed from. Does that mean that when an adopted person tells his adoptive mother, “Mother” that it is actually a lie? A mere social convention? I suppose it just means that the adoptive mother is not one’s mother in the same exact way that a real mother is one’s mother just as Mary is not Jesus’ mother in the same exact way that God the Father is his Father, as that fatherhood is eternal and pertains to his one uncreated divine person and Mary is mother true in the order of creation of that divine person in the order of his created humanity and the divine economy.
But is Mary a mother of Jesus in a way that ordinary mothers are not of their sons? and/or vice versa? Could Mary be likened to a surrogate mother? Or would it be more apt to compare her to a mother who gives a home to a frozen embryo waiting to be born (with God waiting for the perfect woman to carry His Son to term)?
Is Mary not only the Mother of Christ but as with all Christians, a bride of Christ, spiritually speaking? If so, then it seems to me that one cannot object to this liberality in canon law since, besides the fact that the hiearchy is called to be open to dispensing any impediment which they know not to be of divine law (when it is doubtful, they can choose not to dispense ever for the time being as was decided historically with respect to consanguinity in the 2nd degree of the collateral line), it is clear from scripture that there is no inherent impropriety in that duality of relationship, one both physical and spiritual, and one more mystical and spiritual, at least in the case of Mary. I think the reason why it would seem so shocking (that the adoption impediment can be dispensed) is because we have a carnal view of marriage when in fact marriage and erotic (romantic) love in general is primarily spiritual in nature and even mystical.
I was quite pleased in the partial rehabilitation of “eros” that Pope Benedict XVI gave in his first encyclical Deus caritas est. It was quite pleasing to see him also submit the encyclical to the CDF before promulgating it just as a President might submit a course of action to the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice (where the John Yoo “torture” memos are said to have arisen) before taking that action. Perhaps Benedict learned of the American system and sought to emulate its humility. Or perhaps he was inspired to do it from one of the books in his 20K library
The key insight that was endorsed IMO was that “eros” can exist between two persons even without any physical contact at all. To put it in a more physical way, the essence of love betwen a man and woman is corporeal but the corporeal sexual complementarity is found both corporeally and spiritually primarily in the face not in any other area of the body as the face is what reflects the sexual soul. I recently learned from another forum member that the Vatican has ruled that sex (gender) is intrinsically spiritual. This is unsurprising since the soul is the form of the body so if the body is truly male, then the soul as its form must be male also (or female, female)
books.google.com/books?id=JKgZEjvB5cEC&pg=PA1295&lpg=PA1295
The impediment arising from an adoptive relationship is one of ecclesiastical law. The local ordinary can dispense from it as can those mentioned in canons 1079-1080 in the circumstances foreseen in those canons. Before a dispensation is granted, however, one should ascertain whether there is also a civil law impediment based on adoption.
New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law: Study Edition p. 1295
What are you thoughts on this? I wonder why a dispensation arising out of an adoptive relationship would ever be given. To me the fact that it can be given means that if you are adopted you are not really your adopted parent’s son or daughter. After all if you were really your adopted parent’s son or daughter then that would be an impediment of divine law that not only is not dispensed under present codified policy but has been taught by a pope to be something that can’t even in principle be dispensed from. Does that mean that when an adopted person tells his adoptive mother, “Mother” that it is actually a lie? A mere social convention? I suppose it just means that the adoptive mother is not one’s mother in the same exact way that a real mother is one’s mother just as Mary is not Jesus’ mother in the same exact way that God the Father is his Father, as that fatherhood is eternal and pertains to his one uncreated divine person and Mary is mother true in the order of creation of that divine person in the order of his created humanity and the divine economy.
But is Mary a mother of Jesus in a way that ordinary mothers are not of their sons? and/or vice versa? Could Mary be likened to a surrogate mother? Or would it be more apt to compare her to a mother who gives a home to a frozen embryo waiting to be born (with God waiting for the perfect woman to carry His Son to term)?
Is Mary not only the Mother of Christ but as with all Christians, a bride of Christ, spiritually speaking? If so, then it seems to me that one cannot object to this liberality in canon law since, besides the fact that the hiearchy is called to be open to dispensing any impediment which they know not to be of divine law (when it is doubtful, they can choose not to dispense ever for the time being as was decided historically with respect to consanguinity in the 2nd degree of the collateral line), it is clear from scripture that there is no inherent impropriety in that duality of relationship, one both physical and spiritual, and one more mystical and spiritual, at least in the case of Mary. I think the reason why it would seem so shocking (that the adoption impediment can be dispensed) is because we have a carnal view of marriage when in fact marriage and erotic (romantic) love in general is primarily spiritual in nature and even mystical.
I was quite pleased in the partial rehabilitation of “eros” that Pope Benedict XVI gave in his first encyclical Deus caritas est. It was quite pleasing to see him also submit the encyclical to the CDF before promulgating it just as a President might submit a course of action to the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice (where the John Yoo “torture” memos are said to have arisen) before taking that action. Perhaps Benedict learned of the American system and sought to emulate its humility. Or perhaps he was inspired to do it from one of the books in his 20K library
The key insight that was endorsed IMO was that “eros” can exist between two persons even without any physical contact at all. To put it in a more physical way, the essence of love betwen a man and woman is corporeal but the corporeal sexual complementarity is found both corporeally and spiritually primarily in the face not in any other area of the body as the face is what reflects the sexual soul. I recently learned from another forum member that the Vatican has ruled that sex (gender) is intrinsically spiritual. This is unsurprising since the soul is the form of the body so if the body is truly male, then the soul as its form must be male also (or female, female)