May a person who knows they are infertile still get married?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Holly3278
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Holly3278

Guest
May a person who knows they are infertile still get married? I ask this because I know that marital acts must be open to conception.
 
AFAIK, they can. Assuming the infertile person would accept a baby if God, by some miracle, allowed the couple to conceive, there’s nothing wrong. Just because you’re “open” to it doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to happen.
 
Yes, they can marry.

Canon 1084 §3. Sterility neither prohibits nor nullifies marriage
 
Luke 1
5] In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechari’ah, of the division of Abi’jah; and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
6] And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
7] But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

Now did Elizabeth know she was barren when she got married? Probably not, but her infertility certainly wasn’t held against her by God. She was open to a child…a very important one named John the Baptist.
 
Nevarlander said:
AFAIK, they can. Assuming the infertile person would accept a baby if God, by some miracle, allowed the couple to conceive, there’s nothing wrong. Just because you’re “open” to it doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to happen.
Click to expand...
It’s also important to make the distinction about being “open to life” the Church is not talking in a general way.

Specifically, each act of intercourse must be procreative-- this means it must be an unaltered act of completed vaginal intercourse. That is what the Church means by procreative.

Subjectively any given act may or may not result in conception. That is not relevant to whether or not the **act **is procreative.

This is why a sterile couple is still objectively completing a procreative act when they have intercourse.
 
A man named Hedir Antonio de Brito of Brazil was refused marriage in the Catholic Church because he was impotent. He was impotent due to the fact that he became a paraplegic after receiving a gunshot wound. There was a movie made on his experience and you can Google his name for more information.
 
Pluggedin said:
A man named Hedir Antonio de Brito of Brazil was refused marriage in the Catholic Church because he was impotent. He was impotent due to the fact that he became a paraplegic after receiving a gunshot wound. There was a movie made on his experience and you can Google his name for more information.
Click to expand...
Pluggedin,

The OP did not ask about impotence. She asked about sterility. They are not the same thing.

Canon Law is clear that impotence is an impediment to marriage.
 
I am infertile and will be getting married May 2008. I am now 44 and he is 46. I have “threatened” him NOT to start a Novena to St. Elizabeth, St. Ann or Sara:eek:

Whether infertile or not, if God want a baby conceived it will happen.👍
 
Nevarlander said:
AFAIK, they can. Assuming the infertile person would accept a baby if God, by some miracle, allowed the couple to conceive, there’s nothing wrong. Just because you’re “open” to it doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to happen.
Click to expand...
Of course an infertile person may marry. It is intentional sterility which is the sin. Whether they have children or not is not the sin, the sin occurs when we say no to the gift of child or impede conception.
GraceAngel.
 
One may not withold the knowledge of sterility from another ,though. That may cause the marriage to be null by lack of full disclosure.(probably not the right words)
 
love4mary said:
I am infertile and will be getting married May 2008. I am now 44 and he is 46. I have “threatened” him NOT to start a Novena to St. Elizabeth, St. Ann or Sara:eek:

Whether infertile or not, if God want a baby conceived it will happen.👍
Click to expand...
I’m much in the same boat - 42 and with a history of infertility, DH is 29, we just married in September. We are just letting God do His thing, and what ever happens, happens! Or doesn’t. 😃 Either way we are accepting of His will.

~Liza
 
love4mary said:
I am infertile and will be getting married May 2008. I am now 44 and he is 46. I have “threatened” him NOT to start a Novena to St. Elizabeth, St. Ann or Sara:eek:

Whether infertile or not, if God want a baby conceived it will happen.👍
Click to expand...
Yep–my mom was diagnosed infertile before her marriage to my father (granted, she was very young, but she was SO irregular that the drs believed she never ovulated at all). I was born 284 days after the wedding, but it took a full 6 years for my brother to be conceived.
 
My mother was diagnosed as infertile, married and had 7 children.

Also, as I’ve said before this, all those little old ladies who lose their life’s sweetheart after 40 or 50 years find their way to marriage again with suitable gentlemen- and I don’t think any of them are fertile (although, with God, all things are possible).
 
1ke said:
Pluggedin,

The OP did not ask about impotence. She asked about sterility. They are not the same thing.

Canon Law is clear that impotence is an impediment to marriage.
Click to expand...
Indeed, but it is good to have clarification on what conditions are impediments to marriage and which aren’t. This prevents confusion.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top