Why is impotence an impediment to marriage, but not infertility?

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MarcoPG

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…since the spouses are to be open to procreation?

Can. 1084 §3
Sterility neither prohibits nor nullifies marriage, without prejudice to the prescript of ⇒ can. 1098.

Why doesn’t sterilityprohibit the marriage as well?

Thank you
 
The Church teaching is not that the marriage must be “open to procreation” in some vague way or that any marital act must result in conception but that each and every marital act must be ordered to procreation.

In marital consent, one exchanges the right to sexual intercourse. One cannot exchange that right when one does not possess the ability to engage in intercourse.

One must be able to engage in the marital act, which those with permanent impotence cannot do. The infertile can engage in a completed act of properly ordered intercourse.
 
1ke said:
The Church teaching is not that the marriage must be “open to procreation” in some vague way or that any marital act must result in conception but that each and every marital act must be ordered to procreation.

In marital consent, one exchanges the right to sexual intercourse. One cannot exchange that right when one does not possess the ability to engage in intercourse.

One must be able to engage in the marital act, which those with permanent impotence cannot do. The infertile can engage in a completed act of properly ordered intercourse.
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But how is a sterile couple ordered to procreation, even if it can perform intercourse?
 
MarcoPG said:
But how is a sterile couple ordered to procreation, even if it can perform intercourse?
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A completed act of vaginal intercourse is always ordered to procreation (it is as God designed it) unless the couple involved take an action to disorder it. Such an action would be contraception or replacing the marital embrace with something else like oral or anal acts. Those acts are not ordered to procreation.

Fecundy is secondary to the act, not essential. The ability to engage in the act is essential.
 
1ke said:
A completed act of vaginal intercourse is always ordered to procreation (it is as God designed it) unless the couple involved take an action to disorder it. Such an action would be contraception or replacing the marital embrace with something else like oral or anal acts. Those acts are not ordered to procreation.

Fecundy is secondary to the act, not essential. The ability to engage in the act is essential.
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So if the couple knows they are sterile and still have intercourse, this is nevertheless ordered to procreation, something they can’t achieve?
 
1ke said:
Yes.
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I understand that it is ordered towards it, but no child can come from that, never. Since marriage is ordered towards having offspring, I don’t see how this squares.
 
MarcoPG said:
I understand that it is ordered towards it, but no child can come from that, never. Since marriage is ordered towards having offspring, I don’t see how this squares.
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Children are a fruit of marriage, not a requirement of marriage.
 
1ke said:
Children are a fruit of marriage, not a requirement of marriage.
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Marriage then needs the ability of doing something that can also never result in what it was made for?
 
Sterility is hard to diagnose. Some people who thought they were sterile ended up conceiving. Even people who have had sterilizing operations have conceived. Thus, if such a person were open to life, they could marry, all else equal.
 
fencersmother said:
Children are the FRUIT of marriage as was said above.
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Yes, but as I asked before, why be needed to perform the act if it won’t ever resullt in this fruit?

If I read Canon 1055

The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.

§2. For this reason, a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament.

So either the good of the spouses is as much a fruit of marriage as children are, or children are needed. But since children aren’t needed to contract a marriage, isn’t the good of the spouses needed? If yes, then this fruit, the good of the spouses, is a needed fruit…

I just don’t see how something ordered also to procreation can be so, if intercourse may remain without result. I don’t see why it changes anything that sterility is hard to diagnose. There is surely always hope and openness towards these fruits, but in the case that sterility is for life, why is this a valid marriage? I don’t see why it is the mere act of sexuality, which would points towards nothing.

In the aticle “Why the Church cannot marry the impotent”, Trent Horn makes the following note to a passage:

" Infertility is not an impediment in and of itself, but it can be an impediment if it is known prior to the marriage and is not disclosed. This is what paragraph three refers to when it references canon 1098."

So in that case, if this is correct, sterility is an impediment, which would make sense to me.
 
MarcoPG said:
I understand that it is ordered towards it, but no child can come from that, never. Since marriage is ordered towards having offspring, I don’t see how this squares.
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Your thinking would mean that people past childbearing age couldn’t marry, which isn’t true.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Your thinking would mean that people past childbearing age couldn’t marry, which isn’t true.
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No, and how deacon Jeff showed, the great age of Sarah, for instance, doesn’t preclude the possibility of offspring, whereas sterility does. And I don’t talk about sterility which didn’t remain such, but life-long.
Plus Elizabeth was said to be, it isn’t sure she would have remained sterile.

Can someone address Trent’s remark on sterility?
 
1ke said:
You misunderstand. The impediment is not the sterility, it is the failure to disclose it.
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And why should you disclose something which isn’t of any impediment? It wouldn’t be dishonest. I wouldn’t feel the need to disclose something that I think wouldn’t be of any obstacle in a given goal.

By the way, I guess deacon Jeff made the best point: it is a sign of hope in God.
 
I know and I agreed with you. But where do I say they were ONLY old, since I clearly stated that Elizabeth, in the example i gave, was called barren but wasn’t? Is being called barren being barren?
 
Well ok, so being called barren is being barren. It is a way to say she was. But concede that the way it is phrased is confusing.

36 And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: 36 Et ecce Elisabeth cognata tua, et ipsa concepit filium in senectute sua: et hic mensis sextus est illi, quae vocatur sterilis:

If I call you blind, you are not blind 😃
 
Why should it matter what kind of sex you have if you’ve has a vasectomy already?
MarcoPG said:
Yes, but as I asked before, why be needed to perform the act if it won’t ever resullt in this fruit?

If I read Canon 1055

The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.

§2. For this reason, a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament.

So either the good of the spouses is as much a fruit of marriage as children are, or children are needed. But since children aren’t needed to contract a marriage, isn’t the good of the spouses needed? If yes, then this fruit, the good of the spouses, is a needed fruit…

I just don’t see how something ordered also to procreation can be so, if intercourse may remain without result. I don’t see why it changes anything that sterility is hard to diagnose. There is surely always hope and openness towards these fruits, but in the case that sterility is for life, why is this a valid marriage? I don’t see why it is the mere act of sexuality, which would points towards nothing.

In the aticle “Why the Church cannot marry the impotent”, Trent Horn makes the following note to a passage:

" Infertility is not an impediment in and of itself, but it can be an impediment if it is known prior to the marriage and is not disclosed. This is what paragraph three refers to when it references canon 1098."

So in that case, if this is correct, sterility is an impediment, which would make sense to me.
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Wait, can’t people who are impotent never marry or is it the case that if the male didn’t disclose this before the marriage that it’s seen as ground for annulment? Would seem very weird to me if a man who is impotant is denied to get married.

Edit: This is the only time I’m actually appalled at what the church teaches. I’m reading more about it as we speak, but I can’t believe what I’m reading. Mind is blown and not in a good way.
 
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