What actually makes a marriage invalid? [CNA]

[JimG]

ooopppssss I forgot to clarify the “adultery” position.

There are always two parts of the law, The spirit of the Law, and the letter of the Law.
The Holy Father said that even though they aren’t married they do have the “Grace of a real marriage” i.e. he is giving them the spirit of the law.

But he seems clear that the Letter of the Law does not apply here.

As such we now have a Married person fandangling with an Unmarried person, which = Adultery.

Strictly speaking, two unmarried persons engaging in sexual relations would be fornication. If either or both of them were already married to someone else, it would be adultery.

Perhaps Canon law needs to be amended to address the problem of “fear of marriage.” (Just kidding–I think.)

 

[JimG]

"If one ignores, however, the contract-character of marriage and approaches it as a beautiful ideal, the pope’s assertion of rampant matrimonial nullity begins to make sense. How many marriages, Christian or otherwise, will ever achieve the goals described in Amoris? Surely not “the great majority.”
–Edward Peters, in First Things

 

[Chipper]

Strictly speaking, two unmarried persons engaging in sexual relations would be fornication. If either or both of them were already married to someone else, it would be adultery.

That’s what I am saying.

The spirit of the law = married.
The letter of the law = unmarried.

So the result is: married fandangling with unmarried = adultery.

 

[Tomdstone]

The fact is that probably every single person who has ever gotten married lacked knowledge of what he or she was getting themself into.

Of course. That is why 95% or more of all those who apply for annulment in the USA get it approved.

 

[JimG]

“Marriage is not meant to be the domain of the elite and the privileged. Peasants and servants and sailors and street-sweepers have been marrying for millennia, often as young as seventeen or eighteen. No doubt many were illiterate and largely uncatechized. Their cultures may have been drenched in vice. Their life circumstances were often hard. The Church at least still took their vows seriously and expected them to abide.”
–Rachel Lu–“An Unsettling Comment About Marriage”

 

[Blue_Horizon]

What if you were unaware of the meaning of ‘till death due us part’ at the time of marriage, but then learned later?

When you signed up for a Google account, or one at your local hardware store, or even to get on Catholic Answers … did you really read and digest the licence notes you approval ticked to apply? I don’t anymore because I pretty much know what it involves and the risks to me (minimal) if I am mistaken and things later don’t go the way I thought they would or should.

Well, why would we think that conveyer-belt “Catholics” in third world countries or those in 1st world countries heavily immersed in the values of secular society would not act in the same fashion when it comes to marriage? They go through the Catholic ceremonial frills/motions (esp the male) with little reflection or attention thinking they know what its all about because, hey, I am a cradle Catholic. Just like Catholics who go to Church on Sundays and are devils at work or to their neighbours weekdays. Yes, its a moral or cognitive dissonance - but large numbers of people, esp the young, the poor the less educated or isolated, are like this.

Do you have to get remarried (assuming you are still together)? Does the marriage suddenly become valid with your realization of the meaning of the vow you took years ago?

I think you know the answer to this.
But yes you are right, many marriages are probably only “cemented in” many years after the ceremonial frills/“consent” boxes have been ticked. My professors and Canon Law teachers even back in the 1980s were regularly admitting this.
One doesnt have to be a rocket scientist to eventually mature and realise that ceremonies, no matter how great the gravitas, do not maketh the man/woman or wedding.
That doesn’t mean they are invalid - validity is always assumed until successfully challenged. Thats how it works.

Or is it the case that a couple has to live their entire lives and die faithful to eachother for it to be determined they had a valid marriage?

Correct, it is foolish to think that a ceremony with all the boxes ticked assures absolute certainty about what God sees. We assume certitude in this life only. It has always been so, the legal judgments of man and priest are fallible and always will be.
The real problem I think is why we clean, “older brother” Catholics have been brought up to believe and desire a certainty in this life that is unreal. We live by faith even in men/priests, it has ever been so.

They said the words of their vows without any deceit, so we must assume they intended to fulfill any vows they took. Can it be determined later that their vows weren’t binding because there was more to them than the couple realized when they first spoke them?

Exactly so.
You left out a 3rd possibility - people who go through the motions but the lights arent actually on. They are not yet at a point where they can truly respond either yay or nay.
That is what immaturity is. We don’t suddenly become adults just because we have grown pubic hair. In small areas of life most of us never grow up. Its a WIP isn’t it?

Yes, proven immaturity of a partner is a major ground for granting of Annulments.
If we accept that Annulments are not de facto Church divorces then we must accept this.

It sounds to me like the pope just destroyed the concept of indisolubility.

If you really believe this then I think you may be rejecting the theology behind Church Courts of Annulment.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I am not sure that I would agree with the Roman Catholic Pope on cohabitation having the grace of a real marriage. I would agree with the teaching of the Holy Orthodox Church that a couple receives the grace of the holy Mystery of Matrimony when they have been married sacramentally in a crowning ceremony performed by an Orthodox priest in Church. I don’t see how cohabitation or sexual relations outside of the marriage bond, would impart the graces of a real marriage as does the Orthodox Christian Sacrament of Holy Matrimony which is steeped in ritual and symbolism. In the ceremony, the rings are first blessed by the priest and then exchanged by the couple. The bride and groom hold candles throughout the service. The groom and the bride are crowned as the king and queen of their own kingdom, the home, which they will rule with fear of God, wisdom, justice and integrity. The couple then walks around the Church, and as they return to their places they are blessed by the priest. IMHO, in this way a couple will receive the grace of a real marriage.
As i understand it, the Orthodox Church teaches that sexual relations should exclusively be reserved for the marriage bond. When a couple chooses to cohabit and misuse this gift outside of the marriage bond, they are engaging in behavior that displeases God.

I’m not sure I would be idealizing Orthodox marriage. In Orthodoxy, you get one divorce and remarriage for “free”, pretty much “at will”. The next one is a little more difficult, as I understand it. But you don’t meet real resistance from the Orthodox church until at least the third one.

 

[Tomdstone]

In Orthodoxy, you get one divorce and remarriage for “free”, pretty much “at will”. .

Where is your support and documentation for this statement, which I believe is false. The Orthodox Churches have various rules and regulations outlining the grounds for divorce. For example,

Grounds for divorce in the Russian Church

adultery and a new marriage of one of the parties
a spouse’s falling away from Orthodoxy,
perversion,
impotence which had set in before marriage or was self-inflicted,
contraction of leprosy or syphilis,
prolonged disappearance,
conviction with disfranchisement,
encroachment on the life or health of the spouse,
love affair with a daughter in law,
profiting from marriage,
profiting by the spouse’s indecencies,
incurable mental disease,
malevolent abandonment of the spouse,
chronic alcoholism or drug-addiction,
abortion without the husband’s consent.

Grounds for divorce in the Greek Orthodox Church in America

one or both parties is guilty of adultery.
one party is proven to be mad, insane or suffers from a social disease which was not disclosed to the spouse prior to the marriage.
one party has conspired against the life of the spouse.
one party is imprisoned for more than seven years.
one party abandons the other for more than three years without approval.
one partner should be absent from home without the other’s approval, except in in stances when the latter is assured that such absence is due to psycho-neurotic illness.
one partner forces the other to engage in illicit affairs with others.
one partner does not fulfill the responsibilities of marriage, or when it is medically proven that one party is physically impotent or as the result of a social venereal disease.
one partner is an addict, thereby creating undue economic hardship.
byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/333262/1

The site:
stgeorgegoc.org/pastors-corner/divorce/divorce-in-church-history
lists fewer canonical grounds for divorce.

 

[Chipper]

Here’s some tidbits on the subject of Cohabitation (Fornicators) having the grace of a real marriage.

1 Corinthians 6:9
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,

Hebrews 13:4
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Matthew 15:19
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

So which is it are they full of grace or are they in trouble??

 

[Mongo]

When you signed up for a Google account, or one at your local hardware store, or even to get on Catholic Answers … did you really read and digest the licence notes you approval ticked to apply? I don’t anymore because I pretty much know what it involves and the risks to me (minimal) if I am mistaken and things later don’t go the way I thought they would or should.

Whether I read the terms of the agreement or not, I am still bound by them. I can’t go back later and claim that I wasn’t bound because I didn’t read the agreement. My signature is binding on a contract. It doesn’t matter what I understood or didn’t understand, I assented to it.

I think you know the answer to this.
But yes you are right, many marriages are probably only “cemented in” many years after the ceremonial frills/“consent” boxes have been ticked. My professors and Canon Law teachers even back in the 1980s were regularly admitting this.
One doesnt have to be a rocket scientist to eventually mature and realise that ceremonies, no matter how great the gravitas, do not maketh the man/woman or wedding.
That doesn’t mean they are invalid - validity is always assumed until successfully challenged. Thats how it works.

And ceremonies don’t make bread into flesh.

Correct, it is foolish to think that a ceremony with all the boxes ticked assures absolute certainty about what God sees. We assume certitude in this life only. It has always been so, the legal judgments of man and priest are fallible and always will be.
The real problem I think is why we clean, “older brother” Catholics have been brought up to believe and desire a certainty in this life that is unreal. We live by faith even in men/priests, it has ever been so.

By the same logic it is foolish to think that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist at the words of institution. It is foolish to assume the gift of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of baptism and confirmation. It is foolish to assume the forgiveness of your sins when the priest pronounces the words and gives you your penance. The sacraments are all foolish, because we can’t trust in the words that the Church considered binding only a decade ago. It used to be believed that when the priest spoke the words ‘this is my body’ it was actually a true statement in the person of Christ. It is the body of Christ. It was also believed that when the two people getting married spoke their vows before witnesses it was transformative act. The words actually had meaning and consequences. Now both the words of the couple, and the testimony of the witnesses is meaningless. In addition, we can no longer trust that God will act and give the grace of the sacrament.

All the sacraments are now in doubt because they no longer depend on the power of God, but on the will of man. You might as well assert that the Eucharist isn’t valid if the priest is a sinner or his mind isn’t fully involved in the act of the mass. It was once dogma that the Eucharist was truly the body of Christ even if the priest was a heretic who denied the presence of Christ in the Eucharist because it isn’t the power of man that brings about the sacraments, but the power of God. That seems to no longer be the case.

Yes, proven immaturity of a partner is a major ground for granting of Annulments.
If we accept that Annulments are not de facto Church divorces then we must accept this.

That is a distinction without any meaning anymore. You can call it what you want, but either way you have declared a mans word and his vows to be meaningless.

If you really believe this then I think you may be rejecting the theology behind Church Courts of Annulment.

Not only did he destroy indissolubility, he also destroyed the sacramentality of marriage. There is no longer any divine grace or action in it.

 

[Tomdstone]

Here’s some tidbits on the subject of Cohabitation (Fornicators) having the grace of a real marriage.

1 Corinthians 6:9
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,

Hebrews 13:4
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Matthew 15:19
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

So which is it are they full of grace or are they in trouble??

Some Catholics say that we are not to take the Bible literally, at least in some passages. Maybe the Pope is adjusting Catholic teaching to the modern era of secular thought?

 

[Tomdstone]

Not only did he destroy indissolubility, he also destroyed the sacramentality of marriage. There is no longer any divine grace or action in it.

Do you think that there are conditions where a cohabiting couple can receive the grace of a real marriage?

 

[Mongo]

Do you think that there are conditions where a cohabiting couple can receive the grace of a real marriage?

The grace of marriage is received in marriage, and no other way.

With this new idea of the pope, why get married. Not only do you get sex without marriage, you also get the grace. What a great deal. We don’t even have to take any vows. Besides, we might not understand the vows so why take the chance? Then your stuck with sex but no grace.

 

[Tomdstone]

The grace of marriage is received in marriage, and no other way.

With this new idea of the pope, why get married. Not only do you get sex without marriage, you also get the grace. What a great deal. We don’t even have to take any vows. Besides, we might not understand the vows so why take the chance? Then your stuck with sex but no grace.

But the Pope is the Vicar of Christ ?

 

[graciew]

The grace of marriage is received in marriage, and no other way.

With this new idea of the pope, why get married. Not only do you get sex without marriage, you also get the grace. What a great deal. We don’t even have to take any vows. Besides, we might not understand the vows so why take the chance? Then your stuck with sex but no grace.

He is not saying why get married. He is precisely telling us about God s presence in our lives.
We are not faithful,He is faithful.
He made that Covenant with us,long before we made any covenant to each other,can you see how great to see a sparkle of that may be?
God in the fidelity of that couple. That is huge. God with us in spite of our distance…That draws closer,and pours gratitude and helps cross doors ,more than probably anything.
And it doesn’t t even have to be related to a wedding.
Finding God in all things and the capacity to guide persons to find Him in our own lives is beyond anything than a thousand pages can tell.

 

[Tomdstone]

He is not saying why get married. He is precisely telling us about God s presence in our lives.
We are not faithful,He is faithful.
He made that Covenant with us,long before we made any covenant to each other,can you see how great to see a sparkle of that may be?
God in the fidelity of that couple. That is huge. God with us in spite of our distance…That draws closer,and pours gratitude and helps cross doors ,more than probably anything.
And it doesn’t t even have to be related to a wedding.
Finding God in all things and the capacity to guide persons to find Him in our own lives is beyond anything than a thousand pages can tell.

So if a Catholic couple is cohabiting with sex and are not married, it is not fornication, because they can receive the grace of a real marriage? This seems like a new teaching to me. Has this been taught in the past before Vatican II ?

 

[KSU]

What a mess! I can just imagine what some prelates are saying to Pope Francis in private.

 

[Chipper]

And it doesn’t t even have to be related to a wedding.
.

So is the bible going to be updated? If what you say is so then, don’t we need more clarity from the “Word of God”. I read the bible and I clearly see fornication as a grave sin.

Fornication is listed among murderers and thieves. Are we to assume that they are filled with grace even though they murder innocent people? What happened to the ten commandments - Are they being updated too?

 

[Chipper]

Some Catholics say that we are not to take the Bible literally, at least in some passages. Maybe the Pope is adjusting Catholic teaching to the modern era of secular thought?

I’m under the impression that “some catholics” do not necessarily follow the guidance of the church.

Some catholics do not attend church every sunday.
Some catholics do not go to confession for years.
Some catholics think catholics and christians are not the same thing.
Some catholics can’t tell you the list of the 10 commandments.
Some catholics etc… etc…

 

[Chipper]

Some Catholics say that we are not to take the Bible literally, at least in some passages. Maybe the Pope is adjusting Catholic teaching to the modern era of secular thought?

By the way, I am not picking on you. In fact I appreciate your comments, very much.

One more thing on Literal.

Catechism 115: Cat’ 115 …The** literal sense** is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: **"All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.
**
Not to take the bible literally is wrong. It is both literal and spiritual.
Just as I said earlier about two components of the law - Spiritual sense of the law and the letter of the law. You have to have both. Not one without the other.