Because marriage existed as a civil institution long before the incarnation of Christ, who raised it to the dignity of a Sacrament.
What I’m suggesting is that the Catholic Church has a warped interpretation of scripture (though not as bad as many protestant sects). The Catholic Church needs to start with a blank slate, re-read the Bible, and make a cohesive set of black and white rules that can be backed up with black and white biblical teachings. The end result would be a very different religion. Many current prohibitions/requirements on various things would cease to exist since and the Church would be able to focus its energy on vigorous pursuit of black and white biblical teachings. I also think that federal/state governments should not be allowed to force priests to report marriages to the government. Thousands of years ago, the Church and State were one. When Moses led the Israelites across the desert, there was no parasitic court system where people would lose everything over absurd allegations and years of arguing. If I was a young Israelite living under Moses, I would have no objection to getting married under that system because the system was reasonable back then.
Simple, if a religious figure disagrees with civil marriage on the grounds that it opens the door to sinful behavior, he can’t reject civil marriage without possible legal consequences. A very long time ago, Church and State were one. I feel that marriage should be something left exclusively in the religious realm.
I don’t understand why you keep making it seem like my views are the result of emotional trauma. I am a pragmatic/utilitarian person and I look at things in terms of cost analysis. That’s just how I am. I analyzed civil marriage from a cost analysis point of view and I simply don’t want to do it. I think it’s a bad deal and it sucks in the same way that paying 60k for a Toyota corolla is a bad deal. I think the Catholic Church is wrong to require civil contracts and my view will not change.
Please explain to me what I don’t understand about the Church’s teaching on marriage. I still assert that I understand the Church’s teachings on marriage, but I reject some of those teachings. Quite a few Catholics going into marriage don’t have a lifelong view of marriage. A decent number still consider divorce to be an option if things don’t work out. Does that not make a marriage invalid in the eyes of the Church?As has been mentioned to you already, this is not “the Church’s teaching on marriage.” If this is what you think the Church teaches about Christian marriage, then you really don’t understand what the Church teaches.
This simply means that you’re not ready to enter into Christian marriage, then.
No, they aren’t. A marriage performed by the Church, that has done all the preparation and investigation required, has the favor of the law – that means that, by definition, they are explicitly not “considered invalid”.
OK. This means that you won’t be able to marry in the Church – unless your opinion changes – because the Church teaching on marriage is that the spouses must intend indissolubility.
You appear to be much more comfortable with sola scriptura, which is the position of protestant Churches.
The Church finds no onerous or objectionable obligation here - it is you that does, for reasons you have explained. I remind you again that marriage as a fundamental commitment between man and woman existed prior to the Church. People living in communities determined that the law of those communities needed to address aspects of these relationships. Your objection appears to be not with that principle, but with the specific operation of modern-day family law.
How does family law open the door to sinful behaviour? Your argument has **not **been about the “wrongs” of marriage without the Church, but rather Church marriages being subject to the same law as any other. Or put another way - you oppose the operation of modern family law.
And when a man (say) ill-treats a wife and children to the point where their separation needs to be enforced - what agency will see to this? What agency will see to the assignment of assets and financial responsibility for the care of children?
So, what do you anticipate will be your course:
Divorce as a means to “terminate” a marriage is not acceptable to the Church, and I think most if not all Catholic know this. But divorce per se is not an unacceptable thing. For example, if continued cohabitation and joint care of children has become impossible (eg. presents physical danger to one or more family members), then divorce is accepted as a necessary means to deal with distribution of assets for the care and maintenance of family members, particularly children.
As a matter of fact…
:ehh: :sad_yes:As Rau has mentioned, this approach is known as ‘sola scriptura’ – that is, that the only guide we have is the Bible, and it is the sole and final authority on everything. The problem is… that’s not the approach that Jesus himself took! Jesus didn’t sit the apostles down and say, “ok guys, here’s what I want: write a book that contains accounts of what I said and did (and letters that you guys wrote to churches in various towns), and append it to the Jewish scriptures. Then, whenever there’s a dispute, your means of resolving that dispute are to go straight to the book and let it dictate your answer. In other words, no person will have authority – only the book will be authoritative.”
I think you might benefit from a bit of knowledge about the history of marriage. As Rau has pointed out, civil involvement in marriage proceeds from society’s stake in ensuring that family units are supported and protected. Much of current law was written in an era in which women were completely at the mercy of the men they married, such that divorce could easily lead them (and their now-unsupported children) into destitution; that wasn’t good for society, since it would make divorced women and their children dependent on the state for support. This, I suspect, is what you’re really railing against.
I think I’m running out of space in this post (and I know I’m running out of time). Mind if I pick up your question this evening?
Actually, not :sad_yes: but rather :nope:pragmatist91:
As a matter of fact…
Thank you for the elaboration. Certainly is was never my intention to imply otherwise?
Not sure how you may have inferred so, but that is beside the point. To repeat:
Being “presumed valid” and being “valid” are two different things. All those marriages that have been found to be invalid were before that presumed to be valid. It’s not the decree of nullity that made them invalid, the decree just made known the fact that they were always invalid.
Sorry, I read your last post as you saying you WERE emotionally traumatised, not that you WEREN’T. My mistake
LOL! Yeah – I presumed that this wasn’t your intent; I just wanted to clarify that the statement “most Catholic marriages are invalid” is categorically untrue.
I disagree. If they’re invalid, then that means that all those people (who do not intend permanence) are in a state of grave (but venial) sin. Worse yet, their spouses (who, we might presume, do intend permanence) are likewise in invalid marriages, and therefore, are likewise sinning venially.
But if one goes backwards the same thing can be said, and I’ve seen it suggested on CAF, that a declaration of nullity means that the couple was living in sin and any children from the union are illegitimate (that latter is a common one). Wouldn’t it be a putative marriage? Although, I agree, going around suggesting certain marriages as invalid is unwise and scandalous.
States may not call it common law marriage, but I know a whole lot of attorneys in my state who would be absolutely delighted to represent your non-civil law “spouse” when you decide to take a powder. They would clean your clock. And I have no doubt I could find a plethora in just about any state in the Union.
There is never absolute certainty that a marriage is valid because there could be deceit or a hidden invalidating impediment, so it is presumed to be valid until proved invalid.
This is incorrect. If folks suggest it, then they’re mistaken. For example, in the current CIC, children are legitimate who are born of a valid or putative marriage. In other words, if at the time of their birth, the marriage is at least putative, the child is legitimate. There’s no retroactive effect of nullity that makes a legitimate child illegitimate.
Strictly speaking, yes: unless and until both spouses become certain of the nullity of their marriage (something that, it would seem, only generally happens upon their notification of the decree of nullity) the marriage is not invalid. Until that time – in this case, during the time that they still remain married, even if they have doubts about the validity of the marriage – they are not in an invalid marriage; the Church would call it ‘putative’ at best, but never invalid. Since a case for nullity cannot be initiated while the couple is still (civilly) married, therefore (by definition) there are no married couples (who attempted valid marriage, and for whom there’s at least one spouse who entered into the marriage in good faith) who are in invalid marriages.
The way you put it – that “there is never absolute certainty” of the validity of any marriage – you seem to be saying that all (seemingly valid) marriages are putative. That is incorrect. The only marriages that are ‘putative’ are ones that have already been proven invalid. Therefore, saying that marriages are ‘presumed’ valid doesn’t mean “we’re not certain they’re valid”, but rather “we’re calling these marriages ‘valid’”, period!
Are you suggesting then that the marriage was valid and then became invalid? Because that is not what the Chuch teaches. If it’s found to be invalid it’s that it was invalid from the start.
Without the civil permission that the marriage can proceed (the marriage license in the USA), the bishop would have to give explicit permission.
I sometimes feel like when we discuss marriage validity we are talking about Schrodinger’s cat. “Until investigated, the marriage has the potentially to be valid or invalid. Only once a decree in the affirmative or negative will we really know.”
You have quite thoroughly misunderstood the Church’s teachings and discipline concerning marriage. All marriage ceremonies conducted according to proper civil and/or ecclesiastical form give rise to presumptively valid marriages - presumption is necessary because it is impossible for us to read others’ thoughts and intentions that can impact validity, so we have to simply work, at that time, off of the (outwardly ascertainable) information available to us. But if some requirement of validity is lacking (free will, intention of all the ends of marriage, etc.) the “marriage” never takes place, it is invalid from the very start, and is only treated as valid because we don’t have all the information necessary to ascertain its invalidity. We are only led to think (putare => putative) such a marriage valid due to incomplete information, but its invalidity is an objective fact regardless of whether we ever become aware of it or not.
Putative marriages are invalid marriages that have yet to be revealed as such (the canon was already cited here for your benefit). Once we have declared a marriage to be invalid, we no longer have grounds to reckoning it a true marriage, thus it ceases to be putative. Not all invalid marriages are putative, because some do not give the appearance of a valid marriage, e.g., Catholics who marry without canonical form enjoy no presumption of validity because they obviously have not married. Conversely, if a marriage is in fact valid it is not classed as a putative marriage even if someone has a grave doubt about its validity, this due to the fact that by canonical definition a putative marriage is invalid. Thus while you are correct to oppose the notion that all seemingly valid marriages are putative, you are wrong to claim that our use of the term “presumption” implies no uncertainty about the validity of a marriage. Since validity depends, again, on hidden variables ultimately unknowable to mortal men the Church never declares any marriage certainly valid. Instead validity is only ever presumed, known to be at least minimally uncertain but nonetheless certain enough to allow us to *treat *the union as valid in God’s eyes unless and until our presumption is overturned by added evidence.