Unequally Yoked

  • Thread starter Thread starter sabrinaofmn
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

sabrinaofmn

Guest
The Bible teaches that we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Why then will the Catholic Church marry a Catholic to a non-believer?
 
  1. So the non-believer can becaome Catholic
  2. So the non-believer’s children can be taught catholicism.
 
40.png
sabrinaofmn:
The Bible teaches that we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Why then will the Catholic Church marry a Catholic to a non-believer?
Click to expand...
do you view the teaching as a command or as a recommendation?
 
It appears to be a command:

2 Corinthians 6:14
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
 
This is an interesting verse in that one must determine its intent. Did Paul mean it to be a universal proscription or one only for the Corinthians to whom he was writing?

A third possibility: Is there an element of his instruction that truly does apply perpetually to all, while some of his instruction was limited to the Corinthians?

There are apolstolic admonitions that clearly were not meant to extend to people other than those being addressed or referred to (such as the initial rules governing the admission into the Church of the first Gentiles, those rules coming in response to the Judaizing element in the Church)

Other apostolic teachings were of universal application. Usually the distinction is clear. In the “unequally yoked” verse there is some ambiguity.
 
40.png
quasimodo:
do you view the teaching as a command or as a recommendation?
Click to expand...
In 1917 Canon Law, it was a divine law prohibitive impediment to marriage, as well as an ecclesiastical law diriment impediment. However, the 1983 revision of Canon Law eliminated the category of prohibitive impediments.
 
40.png
Catholic2003:
In 1917 Canon Law, it was a divine law prohibitive impediment to marriage, as well as an ecclesiastical law diriment impediment. However, the 1983 revision of Canon Law eliminated the category of prohibitive impediments.
Click to expand...
What is the evidence of why the category was eliminated? Was it because the verses in question THAT vague?

Inquiring mind wants to know!?

BTW. My father was not Catholic and my mother raised me up as Catholic. Mom must have done a good job, my twin is a priest and my father became Catholic the last 1 1/2 years of his life before he passed away in 2002!

Edwin
Glory be to Jesus Christ! Glory to Him Forever!
 
40.png
Edwin1961:
What is the evidence of why the category was eliminated? Was it because the verses in question THAT vague?

Inquiring mind wants to know!?
Click to expand...
Good question. I’ve just spent half an hour reading through canon law commentaries about this point, and if anything, I’m more confused then when I started.

Maybe someone else knows the answer.
 
Where I live there are Christians of many sects. And once in a while a Catholic marries a non-catholic in church. I think it is difficult, but better than to loose the catholic, who might leave the church for their circumstances facing them, that way the church would loose many faithful and possibly their children and grandchildren … On the other hand, the catholic will be cut from the source of life, the sacraments, which can be very painful and mortal. Can mixed marriage not be a way of evangalization sometimes? Maybe the other patner will convert due to the faith of the catholic, as the Bible says, or at least their children would have the freedom to follow on. I am thinking of Saint Monica, her once pagan husband Patrick, and her saintly son Augustine!
 
I don’t know, I could never do it, but if you can, God bless ya. I think for me, it just would not work to have a wife who doesn’t share this wonderful catholic faith.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top