The sacraments enfold and hallow all the chief events of our lives. "Ask, and you shall receive," He tells His disciples. But if prayer should fail in its purpose, due to our loss of friendship with God, then like a sweet, unfailing mother, His Church would ever be at our side from the cradle to the grave, ever ready to restore, repair, strengthen and consummate our union with Our Lord. Hardly have we opened our eyes to the things of this world than Holy Mother Church brings us forth to God through the sacred regenerating waters of baptism, making us sons and daughters of God and heirs to the kingdom of heaven.
When we have defiled our white baptismal robe, she restores it to us washed in the streams of redeeming Blood that flow in the cleansing Sacrament of Penance. She leads us to the Banquet Table of the Lord where we are refreshed through the Holy Eucharist. In the Sacrament of Confirmation she strengthens our weakness and makes us staunch and loyal soldiers of Christ. And when our life's journey is drawing to a close and the shadows are lengthening towards the valley of death, she is there to comfort us through Extreme Unction, and to shield us against the terrors that may accompany the last fierce fight to win the everlasting company of the Savior of immortal souls. And out beyond the borderland of death's valley she follows us with her indulgenced prayers.
These
five sacramental channels of heavenly graces are sufficient to supply the
needs of all Christians in general. But in order to furnish a continuous
flow of new members for Christ's spiritual kingdom, to propagate the human
race and raise children in a Christian manner, to aid parents to repopulate
the empty places in heaven made vacant by the fallen angels, Christ blessed
holy wedlock and raised matrimony to the dignity of a sacrament.
*****
From
the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this
cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his
wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two,
but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put
asunder (Mk 10:6-9).
The
first chapter of the first book of the Bible tells the story of creation.
After He had separated the night from the day, and the land from water,
after He had made the fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air, and the
other living creatures of the earth, God paused and said: "Let us make
man to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fishes
of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth,
and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. And God created
man to his own image" (Gen 1:26-27).
Adam
rejoiced over what he saw before him. But unlike all the rest, he, of all
creatures, was all alone. The joy of created things is enhanced when that
joy is shared with others. Mindful of this, one of man's deepest needs,
God said: "It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like
unto himself . . . Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when
he was fast asleep, He took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it.
And the Lord God built the rib ... into a woman, and brought her to Adam"
(Gen 2:18/21-22). The woman was Eve, which means "mother of all the living."
This
was the first contract of matrimony entered into between man and woman,
with God Himself bestowing His divine blessing upon this sacred union.
To this original contract, as we shall presently see, Christ later attached
special graces and blessings by raising it to the dignity of a sacrament
of His Church. But we must first fully understand the nature, object and
properties of the contract as ratified by God.
From
what transpired between Adam and Eve, with God as witness, we can learn
much about the nature and purpose of marriage. First and foremost, marriage
is a contract freely and mutually entered into between one man and one
woman through which is formed a spiritual and physical relationship. This
is manifested by the words spoken by Adam: "This now is bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken
out of man. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave
to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh" (Gen 2:18-24).
As
to the purpose for which marriage was instituted, it is made clear from
God's own words in the overall account of creation, when He blessed the
pair: "And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created
him: male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: increase
and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen 1:27-28).
It
is clear then, that the matrimonial state was instituted by God, who willed
that it should be the medium of the propagation of the human race. But
the obligation to marry and beget children does not fall on every individual.
The human race can be propagated by the millions who choose to marry, however
great the number of persons who do not become parents. In the case of our
first parents, however, there was a strict divine obligation of begetting
children, that the race might be propagated through Adam and Eve.
By
reason of the primary purpose of marriage, this contract is also called
matrimony (from the Latin mater: "mother"), indicating that,
from Eden on, marriage and motherhood were inseparably linked. Marriage
is sometimes referred to as a conjugal union, from the Latin conjugere,
to unite in marriage husband and wife. Unite, from the Latin
unus, "one," defines the nature of the joining. These words admit
of no other possible meaning than one single indivisible bond. These various
terms—matrimony and conjugal union, pointing to the primary object or purpose
of marriage, namely, the begetting of children—indicate what the qualities
or properties of marriage must be, if the purposes for which marriage was
intended are to be attained. These qualities are unity and indissolubility.
By
unity we mean that God instituted marriage as a union between one man and
one woman only. God took only one rib from Adam and created only one woman.
Had He intended Adam to have more wives, He could just as easily have taken
several ribs and made him several wives. Alternatively, had He meant marriage
to be a union between two men, He could have made another man from the
rib.
The
moment man and wife exist, Adam sees them as parents, and this by the revelation
of God. "Wherefore, a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave
to his wife and they shall be two in one flesh" (Gen 2:24). It was not
through experience of his own that Adam spoke of a man leaving father and
mother; Adam and Eve had none to leave. Hence, Adam’s words were prophetical,
spoken in behalf of his children and all future generations.
This
principle of unity was highly respected by the people of Israel in patriarchal
times. We are familiar with the history of Isaac and Rebecca (Gen 24:64-67;
chapter 26), and of Jacob and Rachel (Genesis, chapters 29 and 30). In
the beginning it was the same under the Law of Moses, as we find in the
marriage of Ruth and Booz (Ruth 2-4; their child was the grandfather of
David); of Sara and Tobias (Tobias, chapters 7, 8, 10). God confirmed their
unions and blessed them.
But
as the centuries wore on, before the coming of the Redeemer, darkness began
to gather. Not only individual families, but whole nations were soon wandering
far from the Commandments of God. His anger at this led Him to send the
Deluge to destroy the whole human race, leaving only Noë, his wife,
and his sons and their wives to repopulate the earth. Because of the smallness
of the group, and the heavy loss of men due to the constant warfare waged
by the Jews, God, for a special purpose, and for a time—to preserve the
Jewish race from extinction, at least until the coming of the promised
Redeemer—allowed the Jews to have several wives.
Although
the bond between man and wife never lost its sacred character in the Old
Dispensation, and continued a type and figure of marriage in the New Law,
this temporary concession was followed by many evils. Even the Jewish people
began to look upon woman as an inferior being. It became a matter of debate
whether she even had a human soul. Consequently, the good pleasure of the
husband, whose possession of a soul was not questioned, became paramount.
If the wife no longer pleased him, she could be dismissed with a bill of
divorce (Deut 24; Mt 19:3?12).
Other
nations followed the example of the Jews. Soon husbands became so depraved
that they would divorce their wives for the most trivial offenses; burning
the food was sufficient cause for dismissal. Hence, women were accustomed
to reckon time not by historical events or the number of months in a year,
but by the number of husbands they had had. This was the sad state of affairs
in family life when Christ came into the world. Man had become the slave
of his own depraved passions.
It
was part of His mission to restore marriage to its original state and dignity
as God the Father had instituted it in paradise. In His Sermon on the Mount
He assured His listeners that He was not come to destroy the Law or the
prophets: "I am not come to destroy, but fulfill" (Mt 5:17).
In
the theological schools of the Jews, there had developed two schools of
thought concerning marriage. One held that divorce was permissible only
in case of adultery; the other taught that divorce was permissible for
a great variety of reasons. On a day when Christ was beyond the Jordan
and a great crowd of people had gathered (Mt 19:1-2), "There came to him
the Pharisees tempting him [meaning 'putting Him to the test']. Is it lawful
for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" (Mt 19:3).
[1] The question was designed to force Him to take sides on the
much-disputed question. Note that they did not ask Him, "Is divorce permissible?"
but, "When is divorce permissible?"
Christ's
answer astounded them; He said that they were both wrong. Henceforth, He
declared, no reason at all could justify divorce, not for a slight grievance,
not for adultery, and repeated the words from Genesis, which they knew
very well:
Have
ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, made them male and
female? And he said: for this cause shall a man leave father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore,
now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together,
let no man put asunder. [The Pharisees] say to him: why then did Moses
command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away? He saith to them: because
Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away
your wives; but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, that
whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication,
and shallmarry
another, committeth adultery; and he that shall marry her that is put away,
committeth adultery (Mt 19:4-9).
The
commentary on Matthew 19:9 says that the Greek word used by Our Lord in
the italicized phrase means incestuous marriage within the degree forbidden
by the Mosaic Law (Lev 18:1-17).
[2] It is the offense for which St. Paul excommunicated the Corinthian
(1 Cor 5:13). This interpretation is substantiated by the decrees of the
Council of Jerusalem, convened in 49 A.D. This first council of the Church
directed the faithful of the time as follows: "As touching the Gentiles
that believe, we have written, decreeing that they should only refrain
themselves from that which has been offered to idols, and from blood, and
from things strangled, and from fornication" (Ac 21:25). These were
common practices of Gentiles which offended the Jews: eating things which
had been offered to idols, eating blood (meats which had not been drained),
things strangled, and fornication.
So
the fornication from which the Gentile converts are to refrain,
by order of the Council of Jerusalem, has to do with the degrees of kinship
between marriage partners observed by the Jews (see 1 Cor 5). The decree
ordered the Gentiles to conform to the same prohibitions.
Present-day
civil laws mirror the Levitical prohibition; all of them are meant to promote
the common good, and are dictated by the operation of inexorable laws of
nature. Any marriage practices, or even pairing of animals which ignore
these restrictions, result in the birth of defective offspring. In England
under the statute of 32 Henry VIII, c. 38, all marriages were made lawful
between parties not within the Levitical degrees of relationship; this
was interpreted to mean all marriages excepting those between relatives
in the direct line and in the collateral line to the third degree. In most,
if not all, of the states there are statutes covering this subject, and
in a number of them, marriages between first cousins are forbidden.
This
scholarly insight into Christ's actual words, from a closer scrutiny of
the Greek used in translating St. Matthew's Gospel, would, even if we had
nothing else, fully vindicate the infallible teaching authority of the
Church, as it vindicates the reliability of Catholic Tradition. The research
comes along some twenty centuries into her history, but the Church has
never depended on the Bible for her doctrine. As St. Irenaeus says: "For
indeed the Lord of all gave to His apostles the power of the Gospel; and
by them we have known the truth. . . For by no others have we known
the method of our salvation, than those by whom the Gospel [meaning, in
the context, the good news, glad tidings] came to us: which was
both in the first place preached by them, and afterwards
by the will of God handed down to us in the Scriptures. . . . For it never
can be right to say, that they preached before they had perfect knowledge;
as some venture to say, boasting themselves to be correctors of the apostles.
For after that Our Lord rose from the dead, and they were clad with the
power of the Holy Ghost coming on them from on high, were filled with all
things, and had perfect knowledge [the infallibility of the apostles];
they went out into the ends of the earth, bearing the good tidings. . .
."
[3]
In
the most indispensable book on the Bible
[4] that I know of, Msgr. Henry Graham speaks of the quandary
of the Christians subject to Diocletian's Edict. When he ordered that all
the churches be razed to the ground, and that all the Sacred Scriptures
be delivered up to be burned, the question arose as to what was
Sacred Scripture. If a Christian gave up an inspired writing to save his
life, he became an apostate, betrayed Christ, and denied the Faith. The
author says: "I am not bound to go to the stake for refusing to give up
some 'spurious' Gospel or Epistle. Could I, then, safely give up some of
the 'controverted' or disputed books, like the Epistle of St. James, or
the Hebrews, or the Shepherd of Hermas, or the Epistle of St. Barnabas,
or of St. Clement? There is no need to be a martyr by mistake. . . . What,
definitely and precisely, were to be the books for which a Christian would
be bound to lay down his life on pain of losing his soul?"
[5]
The
persecutions ended with the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. After consideration
at four Councils, that of Rome (374) and three in Africa (Hippo [393] and
Carthage [397 and 419]), at which St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was one
of the forty-four bishops who signed the proceedings, the canon of the
Old and New Testaments was firmly established. The canon of these
councils is the Catholic canon of seventy-three books, which includes those
seven books called by Protestants "Apocrypha,"—which originally meant hidden,
but in Protestantism has come to mean spurious—Tobias, Judith, Baruch,
Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, 1 and 2 Machabees, and parts of Esther and Daniel.
After
enumerating the books, the Council at Carthage in 419 added: "But let the
Church beyond the sea (Rome) be consulted about confirming this canon."
Rome had, in fact, already spoken. In a document issued about 374, Pope
Damasus listed the first (clearly inspired: protocanonical) and
second (those that required a second look: deuterocanonical) canon,
as the African Fathers now determined it. The same canon is found
in a letter from Pope St. Innocent I, to Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse,
dated February 20, 405.
All of this proves that the Church already had the doctrine, and had been
teaching it everywhere for several decades before the New Testament was
written, and for several centuries before the Bible as a whole was assembled,
and for fourteen centuries before printing was invented. And the Church
has never permitted remarriage after the dissolution of a valid marriage,
despite the numbers who today misrepresent and flout her teaching. Whatever
is discovered, she need not fear that she has been teaching the wrong doctrine.
About
adultery, there was no question. Christ had denounced divorce for
any reason when He answered the Pharisees (Mt 19:4-9), who pointed to Moses'
command "to give a bill of divorce" (Deut 24:1-4). On leaving Judea to
go into Galilee, Our Lord passed through Samaria (Jn 4:3-4). There, He
encountered the woman at the well, to whom He spoke about living water,
a perpetual spring efficacious for life everlasting, the theological name
for which is sanctifying grace.
[6] By verse 15, she wants this water, but there is an obstacle
to it: the moral disorder of her life. "Call thy husband" (verse 16), would
have seemed a very natural remark, for a long public discussion with a
woman was not according to custom: "His disciples . . . wondered that he
talked with the woman" (verse 27). The woman's denial, "I have no husband,"
was evasive, equivocal, and perhaps a lie, and it concealed ugly facts
which Christ, with merciless mercy, unmasked.
[7] He declared that her words were literally true, "For thou
hast had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband.
This thou hast said truly" (Jn 4:18).
The
indissolubility of marriage had been established as a principle, well understood
by the apostles (Mk 10:5-12; Lk 16:18). But in His Sermon on the Mount,
we see Him fulfilling the Law of Moses by elevating and perfecting it,
by strengthening it and raising it to a more spiritual plane, by turning
the minds of his hearers to a greater love and higher standards. Just as
forgiveness of enemies replaced revenge (Mt 5:21-24), to adultery was added
the occasion of sin and purity of heart:
You
have heard that it was said to them of old: thou shalt not commit adultery.
But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her,
hath already committed adultery with her in his heart . . . And it has
been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of
divorce. But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting
for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery: and he that
shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery (Mt 5:27-32).
After
the encounter with the Pharisees, Christ with His disciples retired into
a house. But His words had been so startling that even the apostles were
surprised. Hence, St. Mark says: "And in the house again, His disciples
asked Him concerning the same things. And He saith to them: whosoever shall
put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And
if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she
committeth adultery" (Mk 10:10-12).
These
are Christ's last words to His apostles on His future doctrine on marriage
and divorce. In this final instruction Our Lord made no further reference
to any exceptions. The note of finality is appropriate. He never deviated
from this teaching, nor has the Church.
Around
57 A.D., eight years after the Council of Jerusalem, St. Paul writes to
the Corinthians in words that differ not at all from the teaching of the
Church then and today: "To them that are married, not I but the Lord
commandeth, that the wife depart not from her husband. And if she depart,
that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. And let not
the husband put away his wife" (1 Cor 7:10-11). Therefore, to the question,
"Why does the Catholic Church forbid divorce and remarriage?" the answer
is simple: because Christ forbade it. (To distinguish divorce from
mere legal separation, in this discussion, we use the term in the sense
in which it is commonly understood outside the Church, as a severance of
the marriage bond with the consequent freedom of marrying again.) As the
institution founded by our divine Savior and commanded to teach His doctrines,
the Church could sanction divorce only by being faithless to the command
of Christ.
Although
Christ's real meaning is sufficiently clear (Mt 5:31-32; Mk 10:5-12; Lk
16:18), it is ignored by Protestants, who choose to interpret the word
fornication as adultery, and have long permitted remarriage
after divorce, claiming as authorization that Christ made an exception
for the latter: "And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife,
except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth
adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery"
(Mt 5:32; 19:9). This means, they maintain, that when a wife has been guilty
of adultery, her husband may not only put her away but may marry another.
No;
this means that if marriage between partners within forbidden degrees of
kinship has been attempted, the would-be wife shall be put away. When the
man remarries someone he is free to marry, that is, someone outside the
forbidden degrees of kinship and who has no spouse already, he does not
commit adultery. And he that marries the wife that was put away for fornication,
does not commit adultery. But he who puts away his wife for any other
reason, and "marries" another, commits adultery, as does the man who
"marries" the put-away wife. So remarriage during the lifetime of the other
party constitutes the sin of adultery, and is never permitted. When Christ
made the solemn and impressive proclamation, "What therefore God bath joined
together, let no man put asunder" (Mt 19:6; Mk 10:9), He made the marriage
bond indissoluble henceforth by any human power.
Christ
declares without any limitation: "He that shall marry her that is put away,
committeth adultery." This would not be true if the previous marriage is
dissolved. Christ's answer to the Pharisees is unambiguous: in case of
infidelity to her marriage vows, a husband may separate from his wife,
but the marriage itself is not dissolved except by death of one of the
partners, and if he contracts a new marriage he himself becomes an adulterer.
So even by their own interpretation, that adultery and fornication are
all the same thing, Protestant teaching on marriage stands exposed as false
and unbiblical. If one partner even in a real marriage, as distinguished
from an attempted marriage within forbidden degrees of kinship, i.e., fornication,
has committed real adultery, according to the teaching of Our Lord, he
is in reality still married. This?-certainly not the only case, only one
of the most egregious?-illustrates the plight of Protestants, who have
no infallible authority to preserve them in the teaching of Christ.
The
indissolubility of marriage was one of the doctrines which set Christians
apart from pagans, with their habitual practice of divorce, in the first
place. And the attack on the sanctity of marriage, with the excuse of a
misread and certainly misunderstood text, was led by Protestantism, taking
Christians back to the same level as their pagan neighbors, as though Christ
had not come.
The
guest on the 700 Club with the chortling Pat Robertson will have
overcome addictions to any number of things?-drugs, alcohol, gambling.
To round out his story, he will often add the seemingly insignificant detail
that in addition to his addictions, he left behind another marriage partner.
Matter-of-factly, he tells the world at large that he got a divorce and
remarried, and both he and the new partner "got saved," in keeping with
the Protestant dogma which holds that the declaration and attainment of
salvation are identical. And no one bats an eye.
While
the marriages of Protestants, contracted either before their own ministers
or before a civil officer, are valid marriages provided both parties are
free to marry, the questions raised by this public proclamation are neither
asked nor answered. Welcomed with glad cries on such "Christian" programs,
they are held up to the rest of us as examples of how "born-again Christians,"
exemplifying Christian ideals, ought to live.
A
marriage investigation can take months, or even years. No one on these
shows wastes one second determining the true status of these "converts."
Is either validly married to another, and both living presently in adultery?
Was the former partner of either validly married to another, meaning that
the immediately previous union was not valid? Was any one of the respective
previous unions a valid marriage? Was either free to marry anyone at all?
And
their manner! Only imagine St. Paul, or St. John, chuckling nonchalantly
to one who in all likelihood is living with someone else's lawful wife,
or living with someone to whom he is not married, but no longer bets on
the ponies! Only imagine them calling on such a "convert" to "witness"
to others! In the narrative of how he and the new partner came to "accept
Jesus" as their "personal savior," there will be not so much as one reference
to the Commandment which forbids adultery, although, from time to time,
mention will be made of the Bible. It says, "He became, to all
that obey him, the cause of eternal salvation" (Heb 5:9).
A
man and woman can enter into marriage only by an act of free consent. No
one is forced, whether by physical laws, by the moral law of God, or the
laws of civil society, to marry; the union, then, can be effected only
by the parties' free will. This free consent is a real contract, by which
each binds himself in justice.
There
is a great difference between the marriage contract and other contracts;
in the latter, the contracting parties freely decide on the terms of the
contract. For example, an independent contractor enters into a contract
with an employer, in which the amount of work to be done, the number of
hours to be spent in work, and the wage to be paid are specified to the
satisfaction of each. Both parties freely consent to these terms. This
free consent completes the contract.
But
in the case of the marriage contract, it is altogether different. The man
and woman who wish to marry find the terms of the contract already determined.
The two parties are free to enter into the contract or not, but if they
do enter into it, they can and must do so only on the terms which God has
set down. They assume all the obligations
and acquire all the rights which He has attached to the married state.
If they do not consent to marriage as God instituted it, if there is some
mental reservation, or some impediment on the part of one of them, their
marriage?-the contract?-is invalid, and therefore no marriage has taken
place.
For
fifteen centuries after Christ had spoken the words
which restored the original contract of marriage to the high dignity given
it by God in paradise (Mt 5:31-32), all Christians looked upon that sacred
bond as one that could be broken only by death. Within the Christian fold,
divorce was practically unknown until the Protestant Reformation, when
the so-called Reformers in the sixteenth century began again to wrest,
in the words of St. Peter, the words of Scripture from their context to
accommodate the flouting of God's laws.
King
Henry VIII of England, once known as the "Defender of the Faith" for writing
a treatise in defense of the seven sacraments (of which Holy Matrimony
was one) against the teachings of Martin Luther, had a saintly wife, Catherine,
but no son. He became infatuated with the lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn.
Because Pope Clement VII would not grant him a divorce from his lawful
wife, he repudiated the authority of the papacy, set up his own religion,
precipitated the bloody persecutions that followed, and ran up a total
of six wives before he died.
Martin
Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, did most to destroy the
Christian faith of the people in the unity and permanence of marriage.
He began by declaring that "marriage is a mere worldly thing."
[8] Then he encouraged divorces by announcing from his pulpit
that after the example of the Assyrian king, every husband who was not
satisfied with his spouse could substitute Esther for Vashti, and put the
servant in place of the mistress.
[9] Going even further, he sanctioned a plurality of wives. In
his sermon On the First Book of Moses, he declared: "It is not forbidden,
however, that a man have more than one wife, though I could not today advise
it."
[10]
Nor
did his teaching remain mere theory: he put it into practice. Together
with his fellow "Reformers," he authorized Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse,
to take a second wife while he was still living with his first, the mother
of his eight children, from whom he had no intention of separating. Here,
we see at work at the very birth of Protestantism those forces which have
been ceaselessly operative within her numerous divisions, and which under
the stress of human passions have so twisted and distorted the great ideal
proclaimed by Christ: the union of husband and wife in a marriage indissoluble
by any human power.
Because
the Church can change only her own laws, not God's, she has seen whole
nations torn away, helpless to do otherwise, if she is to remain true to
her commission by Christ. Replacing His clear teaching as found in Holy
Scripture and by the unbroken tradition of fifteen centuries with their
own opinions, the founders of the principal Protestant denominations began
by permitting divorce on the sole ground of adultery. It was the entering
wedge that was destined to pry apart millions of unions which Christ had
forbade any man to put asunder. Under the pressure of man's unbridled lust,
the grounds for divorce began to be multiplied, until today they are so
numerous as to permit people to sever the sacred tie for the slightest
and silliest of reasons.
Almost
without exception, all Protestant ministers, including Fundamentalists,
preside over the remarriages of persons divorced once, twice, or even more
times with no apparent recollection of the stern warning of the divine
Founder of Christianity: "What therefore Cod bath joined together, let
no man put asunder" (Mt 19:6; Mk 10:9). Thus is His teaching concerning
the holiness and the permanence of marriage torn into shreds and tatters.
The grounds on which divorce is granted have practically annihilated in
the sects the law of Christ concerning the sanctity and the indissolubility
of the marriage bond.
Because
the Catholic Church is the authorized teacher of Christ's doctrines, Catholics
must hear those doctrines. The situation may call for fewer happy "homilies"
and more sound doctrine, for example, the warning words which St. Paul
addressed to the Christian colony at Corinth more than nineteen centuries
ago: "Not I but the Lord commandeth" (1 Cor 7:10). The absolute
indissolubility of the bond of Christian marriage is not the invention
of the apostles, of the councils or pontiffs of the Church, or of any man,
but the plain unmistakable teaching of Jesus Christ Himself.
Splitting
the smallest unit of society, the family, unleashes destructive forces
of the same magnitude as those set loose by splitting the smallest unit
of matter, the atom?-forces as profoundly catastrophic to society as the
atomic bomb is destructive in nature. But unlike the Catholics who in the
last thirty to forty years unleashed this disorder in the Church, who may
well have known exactly what they were doing, neither individual Protestants
nor Protestant leaders associate these calamitous consequences with basic
Protestant principles. They cannot identify them as the result of a failure
to uphold the natural law and the Commandments.
Through
the legal destruction of the family, the state is undermined; no chain
is stronger than its weakest link. Hence, weaken the bonds of marriage,
and you weaken the solidity and strength of the state. The empires of ancient
Greece and Rome are typical examples. Both fell, not through the attacks
from other nations, but rather through the destabilization of the family
through divorce. As Bonald said: "When the state destroys the family, the
family avenges itself and ruins the state."
[11] Seeing the evils of divorce, Gladstone wrote to Sir Edward
Russell: "I have long thought that the battle of Christianity will have
to be fought around the sacredness of marriage." And he might have added
that the preservation of family and state will depend upon the successful
outcome of the struggle.
Figures
from 1972 indicate that 45% of families in the United States consisted
of two parents with children; by 1999, the figure had dropped to 26%. According
to the 1998 Statistical Abstract, reporting rounded figures from 1994,
there were 2,362,000 marriages and 1,191,000 divorces, more than one divorce
for every marriage; in 1997, there were 11,719,000 children living with
one parent only. These figures reflect only those couples legally married
and divorced. Not included are the children whose parents never bothered
with marriage at all. Senator Moynihan of New York stated on This Week
[12] that 52% of the children born in New York City are born
to single parents. In Philadelphia, the figure is 83%. "And that's not
just one child per parent," he added; "it can be two or three." There are
attendant evils. The evening news frequently features reports that a child
has been hospitalized, or even killed, after being abused by the mother's
"boyfriend."
We
have become accustomed to hearing of someone who has a child "by his girlfriend."
What this means is that the child was deprived of his right to two parents
from the start, and not by death, but by choice. Reason tells us that God
the Creator has assigned the care of children to their parents, because
to them alone God has given that deep and powerful love of the child which
they must have who are to undertake the long and trying task of bringing
him to bodily, mental and moral fitness. The obligation of parents, then,
of training their children, and the right and duty, given to them by God
directly, of caring for them, is difficult if not impossible of fulfillment
under these circumstances.
The
social evils of easy divorce are obvious. One of the most far?reaching
of these evils is the encouragement of lower conceptions of conjugal fidelity,
for when a person regards the taking of a new spouse as entirely lawful
for a multitude of more or less slight reasons, his sense of obligation
toward his present partner is subject to attenuation. Simultaneous
cannot seem much worse than successive plurality of intimate relationships,
although the much-married Elizabeth Taylor sees some virtue in it: she
declares that she "at least 'married'" her "husbands."
There
are cases which call for legal separation without the right to contract
another marriage. The Church permits this limited separation, chiefly,
when further cohabitation would cause grave injury to soul or body, for
instance, in cases of physical abuse of wife or children. In such situations,
a legal divorce is often required to ensure support of children, or to
avail oneself of legal means of protection from a violent spouse.
We,
as Catholics, know that God instituted marriage, and we know that the Catholic
Church does not tolerate divorce. But we are surrounded by those who do
not agree with us, and some of them are in the Church, masquerading as
Catholics. By manipulating the internal laws of the Church, these have
been managing for years now to annul valid marriages of Catholics. This
pernicious practice, the granting of annulments of valid marriages followed
by approved remarriage, constitute a departure from her teaching.
Hence
Catholics are subjected to evil influences inside the Church. Outside,
they encounter the spirit of the pagans around them, exemplified by the
feminists, the lobbyists for abortions, and the politically active deviates
who would undermine the family by giving it a new definition. The toleration/acceptance
of "temporary," "companionate," "trial," and even homosexual marriages,
which are entered into by mutual agreement and may be broken off at will
like any other agreement, makes a mockery of the concept of Christian marriage.
To
see them and their activities in the proper light, we need only recall
the Catholic teaching on marriage, restated, in this case, by Cardinal
Gibbons: "Marriage is the most inviolable and irrevocable of all contracts
that were ever formed. Every human compact may be lawfully dissolved
but this. Nations may be justified in abrogating treaties with each other;
merchants may dissolve partnerships; brothers will eventually leave the
paternal roof, and, like Jacob and Esau, separate from one another. Friends,
like Abraham and Lot, may be obliged to part company. But by the law of
God, the bond uniting husband and wife can be dissolved only by death.
No earthly sword can sever the nuptial knot which the Lord has tied; for
'what God hath joined together let no man put asunder.'" (Emphasis in original.)
This,
then, is the origin, nature, object, properties and benefits of the contract
of marriage. But is it a sacrament?
Calvin
in his "Institutions" (IV, xix, 34), says: "Lastly, there is matrimony,
which all admit was instituted by God, though no one before the time of
[Pope] Gregory regarded it as a sacrament. What man in his sober senses
could so regard it? God's ordinance is good and holy; so also are agriculture,
architecture, shoemaking, hair?cutting legitimate ordinances of God, but
they are not sacraments." Luther speaks in terms equally forceful. On the
first page of his German work, published at Wittenberg in 1530 under the
title Von den Ehesachen, he writes: "No one indeed can deny that
marriage is an external worldly thing, like clothes and food, house and
home, subject to worldly authority, as shown by so many imperial laws governing
it." In an earlier work he writes: "Not only is the sacramental character
of matrimony without foundation in Scripture; but the very traditions which
claim such sacredness for it are a mere jest." And two pages later: "Marriage
may therefore be a figure of Christ and the Church; it is, however, no
divinely instituted sacrament, but the invention of men in the Church,
arising from ignorance of the subject."
[13] Following, as usual, the Reformers and not Holy Scripture,
Protestants say no, marriage is not a sacrament.
In
the opening pages above, twelve citations from Holy Scripture document
the incompatibility between the Protestant toleration of divorce and remarriage
and the teaching of the Christ. This demonstrates the highly selective
use of the Bible in Protestantism. So when the charge is made that something
“does not appear in the New Testament,” Catholic have only to remember
what Protestants do with words that do appear in the New Testament.
According to the Council of Trent this dogma has always been taught
by the Church, and is thus defined (in canon i, Sess. XXIV): "If any one
shall say that Matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments
of the Evangelical Law, instituted by Christ, but was invented in the Church
by men, and does not confer grace, let him be anathema." This solemn declaration
was the response of the Church to the denial of the sacramental character
of marriage. That Christian marriage (i.e., marriage between baptized persons)
is really a sacrament of the New Law in the strict sense of the word is
for Catholics, then, an indubitable truth.
The
reason why marriage was not expressly and formally included among the sacraments,
and the denial of it branded as heresy earlier, is to be found in the historical
development of the doctrine regarding the sacraments, but the fact itself
may be traced to apostolic times.
With
regard to the several religious rites designated as sacraments of the New
Law, there was always in the Church a profound conviction that they conferred
interior divine grace. But the grouping of them into one and the same category
was left for a later period, when the dogmas of faith in general began
to be scientifically examined and systematically arranged. This is not
strange; anyone inheriting a number of valuables is going to take time
to identify, sort out, categorize, and determine their worth. He may even
call in an expert for an appraisal.
So
it was with the immense treasure left to us by Christ in the Church. The
appraisal took place only with the passage of time, often in response to
a denial of the value of one or the other. In the meantime, the Church
went on doing what the apostles, instructed by Our Lord, had done, with
the beneficiaries of the treasures, the faithful, none the worse off.
Moreover,
that the seven sacraments should be grouped in one category was by no means
self?evident. For, though it was accepted that each of these rites conferred
interior grace, yet, in contrast to their common invisible effect, the
difference in external ceremony and even in the immediate purpose of the
production of grace was so great that, for a long time, it hindered a uniform
classification. Thus, there is a radical difference between the external
form under which the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders
are administered, and those that characterize Penance and Matrimony. For
while Holy Matrimony is in the nature of a contract, and Penance in the
nature of a judicial process, the three first?mentioned take the form of
a religious consecration of the recipients.
To
prove that the Church has taught that marriage is a sacrament of the New
Law from apostolic times, it will suffice to show that, concerning marriage,
the Church has always taught those things which belong to the essence of
a sacrament. The name sacrament cannot be cited as satisfactory
evidence, since it did not acquire until a late period the exclusively
technical meaning it has today; both in pre?Christian times and in the
first centuries of the Christian Era it had a much broader and more indefinite
signification.
The classical scriptural text is the declaration of St. Paul, who emphatically
declares that the relationship between husband and wife should mirror that
between Christ and His Church:
Let
women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord: because the husband
is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the
savior of his body. Therefore, as the church is subject to Christ, so also
let the wives be to their husbands in all things. Husbands, love your wives,
as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it, that
he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of
life; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy, and without
blemish. So also ought men tolove
their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself.
For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and eherisheth it,
as also Christ doth the church: because we are members of his body, of
his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father
and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one
flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church
(Eph 5:22-33).
We
do not claim that the italicized phrase, "This is a great sacrament," proves
that marriage is a sacrament, for the meaning of the word, as has been
said, was at that time too indefinite. But considering the expression in
its relation to the preceding words, we are led to the conclusion that
it is to be taken in the strict sense of a sacrament of the New Law. This
conclusion is unavoidable if we bear in mind what a sacrament is, and what
it does. The sacraments are visible, outward signs, permanently instituted
by Christ, to confer grace. The sacraments therefore signify what they
effect, and effect what they signify.
St.
Paul is saying that the love of Christian spouses for each other should
be modelled on the love between Christ and the Church, because Christian
marriage, as a copy and token of the union of Christ with the Church, is
a great mystery or sacrament. It would not be a solemn, mysterious symbol
of the union of Christ with the Church, which takes concrete form in the
individual members of the Church, unless it efficaciously represented this
union, i.e. not merely by signifying the supernatural life?union
of Christ with the Church, but also by causing that union to be
realized in the individual members; or, in other words, by conferring the
supernatural life of grace.
Indeed,
there would be no reason why the apostle should refer with such emphasis
to Christian marriage as so great a sacrament, if the greatness of Christian
marriage did not lie in the fact that it is not a mere sign, but an efficacious
sign of the life of grace. Furthermore, it would be entirely out of keeping
with God's plan of salvation as revealed in the New Testament if we possessed
a sign of grace and salvation instituted by God which was only an empty
sign, and not an efficacious one.
Elsewhere,
St. Paul emphasizes in a most significant fashion the difference between
the Old and the New Testament, when he calls the religious rites of the
former "weak and needy elements" (Gal 4:9) which could not of themselves
confer true sanctity, the effect of true justice and sanctity being reserved
for the New Testament and its religious rites. If, therefore, he terms
Christian marriage, as a religious act, a "great sacrament," he means not
to reduce it to the low plane of the Old Testament rites, to the plane
of a "weak and needy element," but rather to show its importance as a sign
of the life of grace, and, like the other sacraments, an efficacious sign:
a sign which does what it is a sign of.
St.
Paul, then, does not speak of marriage as a true sacrament in explicit
and immediately apparent fashion, but only in such a manner that the doctrine
must be deduced from his words. Put another way, we know what he means
because he is describing a sacrament, what it is and what it does.
The Council of Trent (Sess. XXIV), in the dogmatic chapter on marriage,
says that the sacramental effect of grace in marriage is "intimated" by
the apostle in the Epistle to the Ephesians. For further verification of
the doctrine that marriage under the New Law confers grace and is therefore
included among the true sacraments, the Council of Trent refers to the
Holy Fathers, the earlier councils, and the ever-manifest Tradition of
the universal Church.
The
teaching of the Fathers and the constant Tradition of the Church set forth
the dogma of Christian marriage as a sacrament, not in the scientific,
theological terminology of a later time, but only in substance. Again,
the following elements belong to a sacrament of the New Law: (1) it must
be a visible sign, (2) permanently instituted by Christ, (3) which produces
the sanctifying grace by means of the visible sign. Hence, whoever attributes
these elements to Christian marriage, thereby declares it a true sacrament
in the strict sense of the word.
From
the time of Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107 A.D.), the Fathers give to matrimony
all the qualities required of a sacrament. Their doctrine can be summed
up under these three headings: (1): Matrimony is one of the "sacred things."
Tertullian (c. 160?-c. 225), for instance, asks: "How can we describe that
marriage which is made by the Church, confirmed by the Holy Sacrifice [oblatio],
sealed by the blessing, which the angels proclaim and which is ratified
by our Father in heaven?" (Ad uxorem, II, 9).
(2):
Matrimony is made holy by Christ. St. Ambrose (c. 339-c. 397) says, "Though
we praise virginity we do not deny that marriage was sanctified by Christ
when His divine voice spoke the words, 'They will be two in one flesh and
one spirit’" (Ep. 42 ad Sync. n. 3).
(3): Grace is connected with matrimony. The union between man and wife
is compared to the union between Christ and His Church. Just as the union
of Christ with His Church produces all the holiness in the Church, so does
marriage produce a permanent and sanctifying bond. By reason of the marriage
bond the union will be permanently sanctified and the partners will receive
the grace to sanctify their love and observe the duties of married life.
Moreover, in the New Law, the rites which signify sanctifying grace also
cause it?-these rites are the rites used in the six other sacraments. The
marriage rite then not only signifies but produces sanctifying grace.
There
is nothing in the teaching of Christ or the apostles concerning the matter
and form of this sacrament. According to the commonly accepted opinion,
the external sign or the matter and form are contained in the matrimonial
contract itself, being the words of the signs of mutual consent expressed
by the contracting parties. From the earliest times the fundamental proposition,
Matrimonium facit consensus, has been upheld: marriage is contracted
through the mutual, expressed consent. Therein is contained implicitly
the doctrine that the persons contracting marriage are themselves the agents
or ministers of the sacrament.
Since
the matrimonial contract is in itself the Sacrament of Matrimony, it follows
that the rite of the sacrament, its matter and form, must be looked for
only in the mutual consent of the contracting parties. The sacramental
rite of Matrimony is the mutual consent of the parties, externally expressed.
If
we wish to investigate further and determine precisely what element in
the mutual consent is the matter of the sacrament, and what clement is
the form, we find that various opinions are offered, none of which can
claim certainty. The explanation more commonly given is this: the words
of consent of both parties, inasmuch as they signify the matrimonial surrender
of self, constitute the matter of the sacrament; inasmuch as they signify
the acceptance of matrimonial rights they constitute the form of the sacrament.
In
all the other sacraments, the minister of the sacrament is always a person
distinct from the recipient. No one may baptize himself, no priest can
forgive his own sins. But in the case of the Sacrament of Matrimony it
is quite different?—the recipients of the sacrament are always the ministers
of the sacrament. It is not difficult to see why this should be so: the
minister of a sacrament is he who performs the sacramental rite. Since
in Matrimony the sacramental rite is made up of the mutual consent of the
parties, the ministers are those who give this mutual consent.
But
is not the priest the minister of the Sacrament of Matrimony? No; the part
played by the priest in marriage is that of witness. There are certain
conditions required (or used to be?) by the law of the Church, which conditions
must be fulfilled, or else the contract is invalid. One of the conditions
required for the valid marriage of two Catholics, or of a Catholic with
a non-Catholic, is that a priest should be present as a specially delegated
and authorized witness of the Church.
The
form for the celebration of the Sacrament of Matrimony in the "Rituale
Romanum" was remarkably simple. It consisted of the following elements:
(1): A declaration of consent made by both parties and formally ratified
by the priest in the words: "Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium in nomine
Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen." (I unite you in wedlock in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen). (2): A
form for the blessing of the ring which the bridegroom receives back from
the hand of the priest to place upon the ring finger of the bride's left
hand. (3): Certain short versicles and a final benedictory prayer. This
ceremony according to the intention of the Church was almost always followed
by (4): the Nuptial Mass, in which there were Collects for the married
couple, as well as a solemn blessing after the Pater Noster and another
shorter one before the priest's benediction at the close. At this Mass
also it was recommended that the bride and bridegroom should receive Holy
Communion.
Cana,
where Our Lord worked His first public miracle, is only six miles from
the little village of Nazareth, where He spent His childhood, with Joseph
and Mary watching over Him. We know them as the Holy Family, the
Family of Saints. And there is a reason. For in His omniscient wisdom,
the Divine Child could see far into the future. He could see all the other
families that are now, that have been, and that will be in time yet to
come. Already in Bethlehem and Nazareth, He had come, as He informed us
later, to be the way, the truth and the life. Already there, with Joseph
and Mary, He had formed the Holy Family, the model for all other families.
Since
He selected for Himself such an exalted ideal of Christian family life,
we should not wonder then that He should select a marriage feast as the
occasion for His first public miracle. Since Cana was so near, Our Lord
no doubt knew the young couple personally. They were probably poor, as
are the inhabitants of Cana today. St. John tells the story of the miracle
at the wedding feast: "There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee: and the
mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus also was invited . . . to the marriage.
And the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him: they have no wine
. . . His mother saith to the waiters: whatsoever he shall say to you,
do ye . . . And Jesus saith to them: fill the waterpots with water. And
they filled them up to the brim. And Jesus saith to them: draw out now,
and carry to the chief steward of the feast . . . The chief steward calleth
the bridegroom and saith to him . . . Thou hast kept the good wine until
now" (Jn 2:1-10).
Scarcely
a year goes by without some new and widely publicized charge that the Catholic
Church is the enemy of women. The only thing these books prove is the ignorance
of those who write them. One example, widely advertised and extensively
read, appeared some sixty or so years ago: Woman and the New Race.
Its author declares that her campaign for "new sex ideals" is "a challenge
to the Church." She sneers at the thought of original sin, and consequently
also at our Redemption by Jesus Christ, and scoffs at the idea that marriage
is a sacrament. She charges that, instead of uplifting women through the
institution of marriage, the "hierarchy created about the whole love life
of woman an atmosphere of degradation." The primary object of marriage
is excluded entirely. We would never guess the book is so old; we hear
the same ideas at least once a week.
This
woman's ignorance appears to be all-encompassing. Beginning with marriage,
it includes the history of the human race, and the debt womanhood owes
to the Catholic Church. It is no secret that before the time of Christ,
the position of woman was low and degraded. It was He who restored the
natural contract of marriage to all its pristine dignity as God had instituted
it in the Garden of Eden when He blessed the union between Adam and Eve.
The woman regained her proper place of honor when He reconfirmed the words
spoken by Adam: "For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother
and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be two in one flesh" (Gen
2:24; Mt 19:4). Then He added: "What, therefore God bath joined together
let no man put asunder" (Mt 19:6). This notion was so novel as to bring
on consternation: "You mean we can no longer turn her out of the house
and send her out into the night for burning the dinner?"
Now,
to say that Christ instituted the Sacrament of Matrimony is not the same
thing as to say that Christ instituted marriage. God instituted marriage
in the beginning; Christ added to the marriage contract the character of
a sacrament. Instead of creating about marriage "an atmosphere of degradation,"
as this woman contended, Our Lord did the very opposite. Having renewed
the ancient character of marriage, He also provided the means of sustaining
it, by adding to this original contract the graces and blessings of a sacrament.
He vivified the natural contract with supernatural, sacramental life.
Anyone
who sees the Church as the oppressor of women need only compare their lot
with that of women in Moslem, Buddhist, or Hindu lands where Christianity
has barely penetrated. The contrast is most striking, according to Father
O'Brien, who tells of the woman above in The Faith of Millions.
[14] About the time she wrote her book, he was traveling in the
Middle East. In the hold of the vessel, amid a squalor rarely seen in Christian
countries, were a number of Turkish families who were returning from Greece
to Constantinople. In one corner was a little group of six women and one
man eating out of a single large bowl. The faces of the women were veiled
down to their mouths. Upon inquiry as to the relationship existing among
the members of such an unusual combination, he was informed that the women
were the six wives of the Turk. Squatted on the floor, ministering to their
master like slaves, they presented a revealing picture of the condition
of women under paganism?-a condition which exists to a large extent still
in non-Christian lands, a fact easily verified by watching the scenes from
the lands of the Middle East on the daily news lately.
Other
evidence that things have not changed much in these countries, if at all,
is provided by an autobiography of an Arab woman published in a little
paperback called Unveiled, or another by an American woman who had
married a Moslem; her book is entitled Not Without My Daughter.
The advocates of women's liberation would do well to compare woman's degraded
status in such countries, where she is still a serf doing the drudgery
of her lord and a plaything ministering to his lust, with the position
of dignity and reverence accorded her in those countries where truly Christian
ideals prevail, says Father O'Brien.
Let
the women who chafe under the law of Christ concerning the permanence and
unity of marriage, Father continues, visit the excavated cities of Herculaneum
and Pompeii. In those old Roman homes dating from the pagan era, they will
see the quarters set aside for the concubines, upon whom the head of the
household frequently lavished the greatest luxury. Let them see this before
they agitate against the solitary lever which has lifted womanhood from
the foul morass of pagan lechery to the position of honor and reverence
which she enjoys today. That lever is the teaching of Christ?-a teaching
which His Church has held for almost twenty centuries as a beacon light
to guide the groping feet of mankind from the darkness of paganism to the
refinement of Christian life and culture.
[15]
The
influence of the Church can be seen also in the protection afforded women
in the states whose laws reflect the Catholic beliefs of their settlers.
In some (perhaps all?), unless there is a prenuptial agreement signed by
both parties, a wife discarded by her husband will find herself and her
children destitute only if he is. "Community property" laws dictate
that she gets half of everything, period. So if he subscribes to the maxim
that "he travels fastest who travels alone," and takes to his heels, he
will travel even faster, having left behind half of everything he owned.
We
sum up in the words of the Council of Trent, which says that "the holy
Fathers, the Councils, and the Tradition of the Universal Church have always
taught that marriage is rightly to be numbered among the sacraments of
the New Law" (Conc. Trid. Sess. 24, cap. de matrimonio).
But,
says the Protestant: "The word sacrament does not appear in the
New Testament. Protestants accept baptism and the Lord's Supper because
they are specifically instituted by Christ (Matt. 3:11-17; Mark 1:8-11;
Luke 3:15-16; Matt. 26:26-30; Mark 14:22-26; Luke 22:14-20; 1 Cor 10:16,
17; 11:23-29). Their position is stated officially in the Thirty-nine
Articles [of the Anglicans] as follows: 'There are two sacraments ordained
by Christ. The five commonly called sacraments, that is, confirmation,
penance, order [meaning Holy Orders], marriage, and extreme unction, are
not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel. They have no visible sign
or ceremony ordained of God.'"
[16] (Capitalization as in source.)
When
the leaders of the new churches met at the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire
at Speyer in April, 1529, it was resolved that, according to a decree promulgated
in 1524 at the Diet of Worms, communities in which the new religion was
so far established that it could not without great trouble be altered should
be free to maintain it, but until the meeting of the council they should
introduce no further innovations in religion, and should not forbid the
Mass, or hinder Catholics from assisting thereat. Against this decree,
and especially against the last article, the adherents of the new Evangel,
the Elector Frederick of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Margrave Albert
of Brandenburg, the Dukes of Luneburg, the Prince of Anhalt, together with
the deputies of fourteen of the free and imperial cities, entered a solemn
protest as unjust and impious. The meaning of the protest was that
the dissentients did not intend to tolerate Catholicism within their borders.
On that account they were called Protestants. In the course of time
the original connotation of "no toleration for Catholics" was lost sight
of, and the term is now applied to, and accepted by, members of those .
. . sects which, in the sixteenth century, were set up by the Reformers
in direct opposition to the Catholic Church.
[17]
It
would appear that in keeping with the origin of their name, they never
stop protesting. In this case, the large number of Bible verses in the
above Protestant's protest against Catholic teaching suggests to the reader
unfamiliar with Protestant apologetics that Holy Scripture is his authority.
All the numbers, along with the ceaselessly-broadcast Protestant myth that
the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the source of his beliefs, serve only
to reinforce the false impression. But despite all the numbers, Holy Scripture
is once again playing a bit part; it is mentioned, but not allowed to settle
the matter. And the shifting and conflicting opinions of quarreling sectarians
turns out to be authoritative enough for this man and millions of other
Protestants to scuttle five of the sacraments.
Let
us do what this Protestant spokesman failed to do: consult Holy Scripture.
We are examining the case of Holy Matrinmony at present; that leaves four
other sacraments which Protestants do not accept because, supposedly, they
were not instituted by Christ.
When,
at the Last Supper, Our Lord commanded that the apostles "Do [this] for
a commemoration of me" (1 Cor 11:24), He was instituting the Sacrament
of Holy Orders, and thus speaking to men with the powers of the priesthood.
Catholics,
who know better, do not expect to see every word and act of Our Lord recorded
in Holy Scripture. Just as some unrecorded events can be deduced from other
passages, for example, the Resurrection, we do not find the complete ordination
ceremony repeated. But St. Paul refers to the rite itself when he writes
to Timothy: “Neglect not the grace that is in thee, which is given thee
by prophecy, with imposition of the hands of the priesthood” (1 Tim 4:14;
2 Tim 1:6). Elsewhere, St. James refers to “the priests of the Church”
(Jas 5:4) in connection with Extreme Unction.
Late
in the same day on which He rose from the dead, He appeared in the room
where the apostles were gathered and said to them, "As the Father hath
sent me, I also send you" (Jn 20:21), conferring on them the same mission
which He, the Word Incarnate, had from the Father, to be exercised in the
name and with the authority of Christ Himself. And "When he had said this,
he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose
sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall
retain, they are retained" (Jn 20:22-23). This text depicts Christ instituting
the Sacrament of Penance.