In a recent address to the Roman Rota, the Vatican Tribunal which is largely tasked with adjudicating appeals in marriage annulment cases, Pope Francis focused his remarks on the role of conscience and reiterated his call for a “marriage catechumenate”.
“The conscience assumes a decisive role in the demanding choices that couples must face to welcome and build the conjugal union and hence the family according to God’s plan,” Francis said.
“It will be a long undertaking and not easy, requiring Bishops and Presbyters to work indefatigably to enlighten, defend and support the Christian conscience of our people,” the Holy Father stated.
He added that the Church must work to help engaged couples “to build and preserve the intimate sanctuary of their Christian conscience,” and said his document Amoris Laetitia indicated “pastoral pathways” to help engaged couples to discern “without fear” their choice to enter into marriage.
“A continuous experience of faith, hope and charity is all the more necessary so that young people may again decide, with a sure and serene conscience, that conjugal union open to the gift of children is great joy for God, for the Church, for humanity,” Pope Francis said.
He further stated that the Church must recognize the “necessary relationship between the regula fidei, that is, the fidelity of the Church to the untouchable Magisterium on marriage, as well as on the Eucharist, and the urgent attention of the Church herself to the psychological and religious processes of all persons called to the choice of marriage and family.”
The only sense I can make of this address is to relate it to previous remarks the Pope has made indicating his belief that the vast majority of marriages celebrated in Church are invalid due to the fact that couples today lack the ability to discern the obligations to which they bind themselves in the marital covenant.
If I am correct in this interpretation of the Pope’s address to the Rota, then the Church must ask itself some serious and penetrating questions regarding the Sacrament of Marriage.
One such critical question regards the quality of the discernment which Pope Francis is indicating is necessary for a valid marriage to be established.
In making a discreet judgment whether or not to enter into marriage, is it sufficient that the couple give lip service to the Church's teaching that marriage is a relationship of mutual and exclusive fidelity, permanent until the death of the spouses, and open to children? Or must their understanding of the essential nature of marriage be more profound? And if so, to what extent and how can that be objectively determined?
Moreover, to what extent do factors of age, family experience, society and culture impair a couple’s ability to make the discreet judgment necessary to validly contract marriage?
And finally, can any program (such as a “marriage catechumenate”) addressed to couples who have publicly proclaimed their intention to marry really have any impact upon their decision to actually exchange their wedding vows?
For centuries, and mostly for reasons that had nothing to do with the sacredness of the marital covenant, the Church reduced marriage to a legal contract which, as all contracts do, focused upon an exchange of certain rights and obligations.
Little attention has ever been paid to the spirituality of marriage, or even the faith-commitment of the couple.
Whether or not a spouse was practicing the faith, or even continued to believe in God Himself, it was sufficient that a baptized person who exchanged vows with another baptized person automatically contracted a sacramental union which was indissoluble.
As I studied the history of the theology of Marriage both in under-graduate seminary formation and afterward in Canon Law courses, I always had the impression that the Church's understanding and governance of Marriage had more to do with questions of property and inheritance than it had to do with a sacred pathway to Heaven.
I also found it remarkably curious that the theological idealism of the nature of marriage came from the reflections of celibate Clergy rather than from the real life experiences of married people themselves.
For centuries, the attention which the Church gave to the Sacrament of Marriage and married couples ended when the bridal couple left the church building on the day of their wedding.
Sadly, the Church until now has lacked any practical understanding of the marital relationship as it is lived and breathed in real life.
No wonder, as I have said, since a celibate Clergy both defined and governed the definition of married life with no experiential knowledge of the demands couples were being asked to fulfill.
Celibate Clergy will continue to have only a vicarious understanding of what marriage truly requires through the anecdotes of successful or failed marriages which have been communicated to them.
How, then, can couples be expected to discern the both the nature and practical demands of the marital bond when the Clergy itself does not possess such intimate knowledge?
The history of the Sacrament of Marriage in the Latin Rite Church is complicated and convoluted, to be sure.
It is an article of faith (defined by Council after Council) that there are 7 Sacraments, Holy Matrimony being one of them.
No Catholic can deny any of the Sacraments and remain in full union with the Body of Christ.
And while I accept both the sacredness and sacramentality of Marriage, I agree with Pope Francis that the nature of the covenant itself needs more profound investigation and, perhaps, redefinition as to what constitutes its nature and how it is validly effected.
Pope Francis has highlighted the conundrum which the Sacrament of Marriage constitutes for the Church today.
How the Church responds to couples in the process of discernment to marry and how the Church decides to provide pastoral care to couples who remain married as well as those who marriages have failed will be the single most important challenge facing the Body of Christ for generations yet to be born.
Only the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Life-giver and Paraclete, can provide the wisdom so necessary in this daunting mission. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in us the fire of Your Love.
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