71 articles from the existing collection.
“The lips of the Priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth.” Mai. II., 7. The married state is not exempt from God’s laws, and the Priests must know those laws. Every Priest studies all the possible duties of marriage from a moral point of view during a long course of theology before he enters a Confe…
I am not. But you are blind to the innate immorality of contraceptive practices, and your reasons are based upon expediency only. And if what is expedient is going to be lawful, then goodbye to morality. Slanderers of the Catholic Church have accused her of teaching the frightful doctrine that the end justifies the means. The Ch…
People who practice contraception certainly prevent souls from coming into existence. Did God ordain them to be born? Certainly not by His absolute will, or He would not permit people to succeed in their crime. But He does ordain them to be born conditionally, that is, provided the parents do the right thing He intended them to …
In many cases, yes. But sad experience has shown that some were not in good faith, and even granting good faith at the time there is no guarantee that such dispositions will persevere. Human nature is mutable. Why does the law of the land demand both signatures for the marriage itself in writing? Surely at the moment of marriage…
That is a general precept for the whole human race, and a general blessing upon marriage. But it does not bind each and every individual. If it did, every single marriageable man in the world is breaking God’s commandment and is in a state of sin. Or when would a man begin to sin by not being married? At 18? 19? 20? Or only when…
Why don’t Catholic priests marry? The Bible says that a bishop should be “blameless, the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2), which certainly indicates that Christ approves of marriage for the Christian clergy.
The Duke was a Protestant when the decision was given. Nor was it promptly given. The application was made to the Southwark diocesan court in 1925. This court, after scrutinizing all the evidence, gave judgment in February, 1926, that the first marriage was invalid from the beginning. Rome, not opposing the decision, but lest it…
That we must love as God has loved us shows at once that not any kind of love is lawfully indulged. Christ never loved us so as to break God’s laws because of us. Such love would be unlawful. God and conscience come first always. No human love can come before one’s love for God, and he who loves God observes the laws of His reli…
It is opposed to the natural dictates of morality. It is obvious, for example, that the accompanying pleasure in eating and drinking is secondary and in view of the primary end, that the individual life may be preserved by due nourishment. We have supreme contempt for the glutton who does not eat to live, but rather lives to eat…
Not in the sense in which birth-control is forbidden. Birth-control affect, those who enter married life, or those who live as married people without warrant. If people use privileges proper to the married state, they sin if they deliberately frustrate children. But there is no obligation to enter the married state.
No. Napoleon married Josephine in 1796, a marriage validated by a dispensation from the Pope. From that marriage Napoleon never secured any divorce by lawful ecclesiastical authority. He forced a declaration of nullity from some unauthorized clerics, and they put him through a second marriage ceremony in 1810, but this attempted…
For many reasons. Marriage is a Sacrament, and those who desire to receive that Sacrament should be duly and validly baptized Christians. The Church, however, has no certainty that any non-Catholic has ever been validly baptized at all. Again, it is a sacrilege to receive a Sacrament whilst one is in a state of grave sin. The Ca…
Yes, provided it takes place according to Catholic rites.
He did. But most certainly He intended no reproach to Mary. Her action was one of pure charity to others. Foreseeing the possible distress of others, she asked Him to relieve them; and He would not rebuke so unselfish a thought. Nor would He speak to her with any trace of disrespect. Then, too, had Mary asked a wrong thing, Chri…
The Catholic Church does not forbid people to marry. The vast majority of Catholics marry with the blessing of the Church. The text refers to people who declare all marriage evil, as did many early heretics. Marriage is not evil, nor is any Catholic forbidden to marry, as you would suggest. It is true that Priests may not marry.…
Yes. Every valid marriage between baptized Christians constitutes the Sacrament of Matrimony.
This means that, whilst the civil legitimacy of such children remains unaffected, the refusal of the Catholic party to comply with the marriage laws of the Catholic Church deprives the children of religious recognition and privileges. Such recognition and privileges are reserved by Canon Law for those children only who are born …
The sense is simply that one who does take a wife has a duty to her and to his children which is so binding that he must leave even his parents in order to fulfill it in his newly adopted state. But Christ gave a special blessing to those who would renounce father and mother, and the prospects of a wife and children also, for Hi…
The number of marriages outside the Church might be diminished, but the number of mixed marriages might greatly increase. By this law the mind of the Church is kept constantly before Catholics, and they do not think lightly of entering upon such alliances. If a Catholic would marry outside the Church because of such a law, she h…
Those who undertake the duties of married life are forbidden deliberate and artificial birth-prevention. Priests called, not to married life, but to a different state altogether, have neither the rights nor duties of the married state. There is a vast difference between preventing children by setting God’s natural laws in operat…
Because marriage is not the most important thing in life, whereas religion is.
You seem to think that it is a law made by unmarried men. Get that idea out of your head. God made the law. The celibacy of Priests has nothing to do with the question. God’s law has the same force whether a bachelor Priest declares the law, or a married layman. Would you say that the teachings of Christ are to be accepted in ev…
It is not a question of the money. If the conditions demanded by the Church are not fulfilled, $100,000 would not secure the marriage according to Catholic rites. Nor is the Church afraid of losing one of her members. She is afraid that one of her members will lose the advantages of the Catholic faith and perhaps her soul. The l…
If anyone is to complain, let the Priests do the complaining, who have to endure the burden. And believe me, if Priests were left free to marry, very very few would ruin their work and influence by taking upon themselves the duties of married life with its necessary division of their interest from their ecclesiastical vocation. …
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