Tametsidubitandum non
estclandestinamatrimonia libero contra hentiumconsensufacta rata et
veraessematrimoniaquamdiu ecclesia eairrita non fecit…eos sancta synodus anathema
tedamnat qui eavera ac rata essenegant...
Although is not to be doubted
that clandestine marriages contracted by free consent are made authoritatively
and truly to be marriages as long as the Church has not made them void...the
holy Council condemns with anathema those who deny they are true and
authoritative...
Some
translate rata as "valid" and irrita as "invalid," which is
acceptable but not the only possible meanings. The more precise terms are
validus and invalidus. For example, validus is used in Session 24, Canon 9
condemning those who hold that clerics or those with solemn vows of chastity
may contract a valid marriage.
It
is taught by Pope Leo XIII (Arcanum, 23-24) and other Popes that the Sacrament
of Matrimony is not some second thing added to Christian marriage. Rather, the
marriage-contract itself is the sacrament, for Christ sanctified marriage
itself.
“Let no one, then, be deceived
by the distinction which some civil jurists have so strongly insisted upon -
the distinction, namely, by virtue of which they sever the matrimonial contract
from the sacrament, with intent to hand over the contract to the power and will
of the rulers of the State, while reserving questions concerning the sacrament
of the Church. A distinction, or rather severance, of this kind cannot be
approved; for certain it is that in Christian marriage the contract is
inseparable from the sacrament, and that, for this reason, the contract cannot
be true and legitimate without being a sacrament as well. For Christ our Lord
added to marriage the dignity of a sacrament; but marriage is the contract
itself, whenever that contract is lawfully concluded.
Marriage, moreover, is a
sacrament, because it is a holy sign which gives grace, showing forth an image
of the mystical nuptials of Christ with the Church. But the form and image of
these nuptials is shown precisely by the very bond of that most close union in
which man and woman are bound together in one; which bond is nothing else but
the marriage itself. Hence it is clear that among Christians every true
marriage is, in itself and by itself, a sacrament; and that nothing can be
further from the truth than to say that the sacrament is a certain added
ornament, or outward endowment, which can be separated and torn away from the
contract at the caprice of man. Neither, therefore, by reasoning can it be
shown, nor by any testimony of history be proved, that power over the marriages
of Christians has ever lawfully been handed over to the rulers of the State.
If, in this matter, the right of anyone else has ever been violated, no one can
truly say that it has been violated by the Church. Would that the teaching of
the naturalists, besides being full of falsehood and injustice, were not also
the fertile source of much detriment and calamity! But it is easy to see at a
glance the greatness of the evil which unhallowed marriages have brought, and
ever will bring, on the whole of human society.”
Once
this is accepted, the position held by all Catholic theologians practically
follows, as sententia certa. Marriage as such is a contract, and the essence of
a contract (i.e., that which makes it a contract) is the consent of the parties. Since marriage between Christians and the Sacrament of
Matrimony are one and the same thing, the essence of the sacrament must be the
same, i.e., the consent of the parties. From this it follows that the betrothed
are the ministers of the sacrament.
The
blessing of the priest may be made a necessary condition for canonical
validity, but this does not imply that the blessing is the essence or even the
efficient cause of the sacrament. Earth and sky may be necessary conditions for
a horse's existence, but they are not what makes a horse a horse, nor do they
cause the horse to be. Likewise, the execution of a contract may require
certain conditions, such as the presence of witnesses or a notary, but the
essence of the contract remains the consent of the parties who thereby bring it
into effect.
The
modern Orthodox may find it scandalous to speak of the Sacrament of Matrimony
in such worldly, juridical terms. Yet to refrain from this is to ignore in this
case that Christ has the power to sanctify the earthly, not by adding something
alien to it, but by operating within its essence.
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“From the earliest times this fundamental
proposition has been upheld: Matrimonium facit consensus, i.e. 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. However, it has been likewise
emphasized that marriage must be contracted with the blessing of the priest and
the approbation of the Church, for otherwise it would be a source not of Divine
grace, but of malediction.
….
The opinion of Canus finds but
little support in the expressions of the Fathers or in papal letters, which
state that marriage without the priest is declared unholy, wicked, or
sacrilegious, that it does not bring the grace of God but provokes His wrath.
This is nothing more than what the Council of Trent says in the chapter
"Tametsi" (XXIV, i, de ref. Matr.), namely, that "the Holy
Church of God has always detested and forbidden clandestine marriages".
Such statements do not deny the sacramental character of marriage so
contracted; but they do condemn as sacrilegious that reception of the sacrament
which indeed lays open the source of grace, yet places an obstacle in the way
of the sacrament's efficacy.”
(Augustinus
Lehmkuhl, "Sacrament of Marriage," The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9)
“It is likewise erroneous to
consider the priest the minister of the sacrament; he is the authorized witness
of the Church to the contract. The parties contracting really administer the
sacrament to themselves.
Those who marry do so by
signifying their consent to be man and wife. Consent is of the very essence of
marriage, and it is in consequence of their free, deliberate consent that a man
and a woman become husband and wife. Marriage being a contract forming
essentially an indissoluble union, it is important to know whether the consent
can be so defective as to make a marriage morally and canonically invalid.
As it is certain, therefore, from
the point of view of the Church that marriage as a sacrament is fulfilled only
through the mutual consent of the contracting parties, it is a matter of
secondary consideration, how and in what sense the matter and form of this
sacrament are to be taken.
As citizens of the State,
Christians should certainly comply with the civil laws regulating marriage for
certain civil effects, though they must not consider the marriage contract as
something distinct from the sacrament, for the two are inseparable. One result
of the defection from the Church in the sixteenth century was a belief that
marriage is a civil ceremony. The opinion of several canonists, who, wishing to
justify this view taught that the contract of marriage might possibly be
separated from the sacrament, was condemned in the syllabus of Pius IX in 1864
(numbers 65 and 66). It is likewise erroneous to consider the priest the
minister of the sacrament; he is the authorized witness of the Church to the contract.
The parties contracting really administer the sacrament to themselves.”
(Joseph
Selinger, "Moral and Canonical Aspect of Marriage," The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 9)
In
a pastoral statement on Orthodox/Roman Catholic Marriages, the Joint Committee
of Orthodox and Catholic Bishops had this to say:
“In
the teaching of our churches, a sacramental marriage requires both the mutual
consent of the believing Christian partners and God's blessing imparted through
the official ministry of the Church. At the present time, there are differences
in the ways by which this ministry is exercised in order to fulfill the
theological and canonical norms for marriage in our churches. The Orthodox
Church, as a rule, accepts as sacramental only those marriages of Christians
baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity which are sanctified in the Church's
liturgy through the blessing of an Orthodox bishop or priest. The Catholic
Church accepts as sacramental those marriages of Christians baptized in the
name of the Holy Trinity which are witnessed by a Catholic bishop or priest
(or, in more recent discipline, a deacon), but it also envisages some
exceptional cases in which, whether by law or by dispensation, Catholics may
enter into a sacramental marriage in the absence of a bishop, priest or deacon.
There are also differences in our theological explanations of this diversity.
As older presentations of sacramental theology indicate, Orthodox theologians
often have insisted that the priest is the proper "minister of the Sacrament",
whereas Roman Catholic theologians more often have spoken of the couple as
"ministering the sacrament to each other".” (cf. CCC § 1623)
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