Back to Basics 2: Catholic Marriage (1)

When my husband Edek and I were engaged, I – a non-Catholic at the time – was given a book called How to Survive being Married to a Catholic.  It set the fundamental teachings of the Church on matrimony out in cartoon strip form and was rather funny as well as very useful.  The page on sex, I remember, began with a cartoon depicting a grim-looking Bishop pointing his crozier in rather threatening fashion at a romantic couple below.  He was perched high atop towering words which read, “NO YOU CAN’T”. 

 

“NO YOU CAN’T” does rather sum up the impression many both inside and outside the Church have of Catholic teaching on sex and marriage, especially just now with gay partnerships so much in the news.  However, the boundaries that the Church places on sexual relationships arise out of the desire to protect something beautiful, meaningful and overwhelmingly positive.  May I suggest an exploration of the Church’s great big “YES!” to the beauty of human sexual love, taking the quotation below as our starting point.  
 

It’s too big a topic to cover in one go, though, so will be covered in a trinity of posts (fittingly enough really, as we shall see...)

The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptised persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.  (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1601)

'TIL DEATH DO US PART

"The matrimonial covenant..."

The rate of change of modern life can be frightening at times.  It’s not just that we’re advancing so rapidly in technological terms: that in and of itself is a value-free thing which can be turned to good or bad according to the use we make of it.  However, it seems that our approach to every aspect of life has become transitory, marked by impermanence, the desire for change, a mistrust of commitment, a valuing of some nebulous concept we call “progress” at the expense of tradition.  The way we view relationships is no exception.  We cohabit, we expect easy access to divorce; increasingly, children live in single parent families or households where one partner is not their natural parent.  “If it breaks, rather than try to fix it we dispose of it and get a new one” doesn’t just apply to our treatment of toys, socks or computers.

Marriage, in the eyes of the Church, is a covenant.  It is a binding partnership which two parties, the man and the woman, make together in clear recognition that amongst its terms is that of indissolubility – for better, for worse.  Why would two people do that?  Because they recognise that permanence and stability are the only conditions in which love can flourish.  Where the cold winds of conditionality blow, the seedling plant of human love dares not grow and bloom.  “Accept me for who I am” is the clarion call of many these days – well, Catholic marriage is the ultimate manifestation of this desire, a promise of permanent acceptance, even if you mess up or get wrinkly.

That’s exactly the type of relationship that God has had with His people from the very beginning.  The history of humankind as related in the Old Testament is a series of Covenants, made by God so that His people could live in close relationship with Him.  It’s exactly the type of relationship Jesus came to reaffirm and secure when He established the "New Covenant in His blood" - and that's the reason why marriage reflects the union of Christ with His bride, the Church, and with every human soul.  As the Catechism says, 

         Seeing God’s covenant with Israel in the image of exclusive and faithful married love, the prophets prepared the Chosen People’s conscience for a deepened understanding of the unity and indissolubility of marriage.  The books of Ruth and Tobit bear moving witness to an elevated sense of marriage, and to the fidelity and tenderness of spouses.  Tradition has always seen in the Song of Solomon a unique expression of human love, a pure reflection of God’s love – a love “strong as death” that “many waters cannot quench”.  (CCC 1611)

 

Christ Himself affirms this in Matthew 19:8 when he “unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning: permission given by Moses to divorce one’s wife was a concession to the hardness of hearts” (CCC 1614).

God’s in it for the long run with each of us, just as he was with Israel throughout its chequered history.  He asks us to be in it for the long run with each other.

“...by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life...”
 

That’s all very well for God, you might say.  I’m only human and there’s only so much I can or think I should put up with.  (Before going on, it should be said that, of course, in cases of physical or mental abuse this is true and no-one should be asked to remain under the same roof as a spouse who, for example, beats them.)

Such cases aside, marriage does demand it all.  All of you, all of your love.  All your patience, tolerance and forgiveness. It’s because marriage demands it all that it is so wonderful and beautiful, such an unparalleled opportunity for growth and fulfilment as a human being.  “No pain, no gain” does not apply just to the gym.  Push your capacity for virtue and see how your moral muscle power and your heart's ability to pump out love both grow!

We all have bad days... wish I looked
this good when I was having one

God’s nuptial covenant with us brought Him to earth to suffer and die on the Cross so that He and we might enjoy each other in love for all eternity; similarly, married love is sacrificial.  Good marriages work so well because the sacrifice is mutual – the spouses, as encouraged by St Paul, “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21).  I don’t need to detail how one makes those sacrifices; big and little, they are called for every day. 

It can help to avoid two traps.  One: you are not two people living under the same roof; you are “one flesh” and each other’s priority (even when there are children on the scene).  Making that a lived reality rather than a pretty idea requires effort.  Two: don’t even vaguely hope for perfection.  God wants you to try for perfection, He helps you get closer to it, but He doesn’t send you packing because you haven't attained it yet.  Give your spouse the same leeway!

 

“... this covenant between baptised persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament....”

The disciples muttered and murmured amongst themselves when Jesus gave them the news that from here on in, marriage was forever.  It’d be better not to go near a woman in the first place, they decided.  However they were not allowing for the Jesus Factor.  Many engaged couples are told on marriage preparation courses that Jesus is the third person in their marriage.  Through Him, they receive what is known as a “grace of state” – supernatural aid to help them fulfil their vows.  The Catechism puts it beautifully,

          ...Jesus has not placed on spouses a burden impossible to bear, or too heavy – heavier than the Law of Moses.  By coming to restore the original order of creation disturbed by sin, he himself gives the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the Reign of God.  It is by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses that spouses will be able to ‘receive’ the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ.  This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ’s cross, the source of all Christian life. (CCC 1615)

 

It’s this presence of Christ in marriage that the Church has recognised in instituting it as a sacrament.  That is, like Baptism or Holy Communion, marriage is a vehicle of God's "grace" or life-changing power. It’s the one sacrament which the Latin Church does not bestow via an ordained minister; the man and woman confer it upon each other, with the minister there as witness on behalf of the Christian community (see CCC 1623).  It has to be bestowed with the free consent of both parties, and we’ll look at that in a further post.

Christians are ambitious for their marriages.  Man and wife, they are working together for a great and glorious ideal – to reflect in the world the love of God for humankind, of Christ for His Church and for every soul.  Together they aspire to offer themselves as a joint vessel of the grace and goodness of the Lord, a sacramental chalice of the Lord’s blood “poured out for many”.  That’s an ambition to make every other goal pale by comparison. 

As a married couple, you form the fabric of a living breathing sacrament.  You are a means through which God acts in the world. Next time you hold your spouse, then, remember how precious, how sacred their flesh is!

IT'S GOOD FOR YOU

 “...is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring...”
 

We’ve discussed that the stability and acceptance offered by a permanent marriage partnership offers the best environment for the flourishing of the human personality, secure in love and acceptance, and is even a necessary antidote to an increasingly transitory world. Marriage also, the Church teaches, shines a divine light on human nature so that we see it as God intended it.

        The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator.  Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures... These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics.  Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures.  “The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life.” (CCC 1604)

What are these "common and permanent characteristics"?  The Church refers back to Scripture, to the opening two chapters of Genesis where we see humanity created as male and female and given the command to be fruitful and multiply; where God sees that it is not good for the man to be alone and gives him woman as a “helpmate”, representing “God from whom comes our help” (CCC 1605).  In fact the human being, in his intrinsic need to love and be loved, is reflecting the nature of God, Three in One, who exists in a permanent relationship of love.  
 

Marriage reflects this Trinitarian love precisely in its composition as a relationship between man and woman, a relationship which is inherently fruitful (just as the Holy Spirit springs from the love of Father and Son within the Trinity). This is why gay marriage is not “marriage”.  It is a relationship of a different type.  One cannot separate out the procreative aspect of the sexual relationship from the “unitive” or loving aspect without denaturing it... but that will be the subject of one of the two further posts, when the call to have children will be looked at as well and we’ll finish our unpacking of the quotation above!

This is already a very long post and we haven’t covered:
 

“Free consent” and what about when it all goes wrong?

Sex, love and children

So watch this space!  Further “Back to Basics” are planned on euthanasia and embryo research amongst others but please do let us know if there’s a particular topic you’d like delved into.

Don't throw it all away...

Just found this on Reflections of a Paralytic and couldn't resist posting it!  Chelsea links to a great post too.

Funny how, these days, we understand "no pain no gain" in some areas of life - dieting or body-building for example - and not others... It's such a tragic shame, because I'm sure every couple who has been married for a good while will say that sticking with it through any bumpier times pays dividends (and there are bound to be bumpier times): in a stronger, deeper, more committed relationship when you've come through the difficulties; in a more powerful love (powerful in a different way from the erotic breathless feelings of the "falling in love" stage); and in a quiet but fathoms deep appreciation of this person you're married to and now know so well, warts and all, and who continues to accept you with all your wrinkles and blemishes. That's my experience, anyhow.  Thanks for hanging on in there Edek - I love you!

The Catholic Church on infertility

Everyone knows that the Catholic Church considers children to be “the supreme gift of marriage” – in fact the Church says “By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1652).  What then of married couples who struggle with infertility?  Many Catholics are not clear as to what the Church permits in this case.  If children are such a good thing, then surely medical practices to help couples conceive must be good?  If not, why not?  What are Catholics “allowed” to do about infertility?  Is this a grey area?

In fact the Church’s teachings are clear even in the face of all the scientific progress that has been made in this area and the various medical techniques available.  Any medical procedure must be evaluated in the light of the fundamental teachings of the Church’s gospel of life: 

Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.  From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognised as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life (CCC 2270).  This is specifically extended to embryos created in a laboratory:  “Human embryos obtained ‘in vitro’ are human beings and subjects with rights: their dignity and right to life must be respected from the first moment of their existence” (Donum Vitae I). 

Every human being is to be respected for himself, and cannot be reduced in worth to a pure and simple instrument for the advantage of others (DV I). 

Sexual intercourse has both a unitive and a procreative significance which “man on his own initiative may not break” (see CCC 2366).  This means that procreation cannot be separated out as an independent process; see point below.

Every human being is always to be accepted as a gift and blessing of God. However, from the moral point of view a truly responsible procreation vis-à-vis the unborn child must be the fruit of marriage (DV II).  Thus “the only acceptable way of conceiving a child is through sexual intercourse between a husband and wife” (Pope Benedict XVI, Pontifical Academy for Life General Assembly February 2012). 

A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift... In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights. (CCC 2378). 

Couples who discover that they are sterile suffer greatly. (CCC 2374)

Looked at in the light of these basics, most fertility treatments are easily enough understood in terms of their moral status.  The gravest difficulty with IVF is that it involves the destruction of human beings.  The woman is given a hormone to stimulate her ovaries to produce several eggs because, as the HFEA website puts it, “with more fertilised eggs, the clinic has a greater choice of embryos to use in your treatment”.  From the eggs that are successfully fertilised in the laboratory with sperm (from the woman’s partner or a donor), “the best one or two embryos” are chosen for transfer into the womb.  Remaining embryos can be frozen for the future use of this or another couple and destroyed at a later date if not used, or destroyed straight away.

As well as the destruction of human life, of course, IVF also involves conception outside of the context of sexual intercourse, and often use of sperm from a third party outside the marriage.  It should also be remembered that it has a relatively low success rate, can be catastrophically expensive and is not without medical risk.

Some Catholics, realising that IVF treatment involves the creation and destruction of “spare” embryos, ask what the problem is with techniques like GIFT (Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer) where the healthiest eggs and sperm harvested as above are placed together into a woman’s fallopian tubes for fertilisation to happen “naturally”, or artificial insemination using eggs and sperm from the couple only and no third party.  Especially in the case of artificial insemination where no surplus embryos are produced, they ask what the problem is.  Surely all that is happening is that a certain mechanical act is being bypassed?

This is a harder one to understand and explain, especially to non-Catholics who do not share a conviction that the two aspects of sex – procreation and intimacy – should not be artificially separated.  It is here that we need to explore the idea of the meaning of sex as the context in which a child is conceived.  Sex is an expression of the total self-giving of a man and a woman to each other, holding nothing back, with the inclusion of their fertility.  A baby is the fruit of this self-giving and thus natural conception speaks of the nature of the human being, created in, through, because of and for love.

Natural conception also speaks of the nature of the human being as an end in him/herself, a gift arising out of  the couple’s mutual love but not “something” they have a right to claim. The human person has a greater dignity than that.  For the same reason that we do not have a right to manipulate our fertility through artificial contraception, we do not have a right to “play God” through the use of artificial reproductive means to ensure a child.  We are, as Humanae Vitae prophetically claimed, “ministers not masters” of a plan bigger than us.  Once we start to regard ourselves as masters, to consider even our own biology as raw material for the use of our intellect – however worthy we feel our motives to be – and having no value or meaning inherent in itself, we are on that notorious "slippery slope".  This is why Pope Benedict XVI recently spoke (addressing the Pontifical Academy for Life General Assembly) of  “temptations leading scientists to offer unacceptable infertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization [which] include ‘easy money or, even worse, the arrogance of replacing the Creator.’  He noted that such pride endangers humanity itself.” (LifeSiteNews.com, 27 Feb).

So is that it?  Does the Church say something about the “great suffering” of infertile couples and then, feeling she has done the sympathy bit, get on with her scientist-bashing?  Not at all.  The human person’s rational intellect and creativity are gifts from God and reflections in us of God’s image.  The Pope also said, when making the remarks above, that medical research and treatment is “scientifically the correct approach to the issue of infertility,” but that it must respect the natural moral context for the creation of children.  He expressed fears that concentrating resources on the development of methods of assisted reproduction had led to a situation where “scientism and the logic of profit seem to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation, to the point of limiting many other areas of research”.

This view was echoed, on the same occasion, by Dr Thomas Hilgers (who opened the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in 1985 to develop infertility treatments which respect the dignity of human life).  Hilgers remarked, “Were it not for the race to create children artificially, we probably would have had a cure for infertility by now.”

So what of ethical fertility research?  It exists and its fruits can be found in NaPro Technology which, in the words of Chelsea Zimmerman, “can and has helped women successfully achieve and maintain pregnancy without having to resort to manufacturing their children in petri dishes or inject themselves with a stranger’s sperm. Using this technology, couples respect and cooperate with [God’s] divine plan for the creation of human life rather than taking the matters of life in their own hands and forcing God to cooperate with them.” It works with the woman’s natural cycle to identify and treat various causes of infertility and recurrent miscarriage and is available in the UK; see http://lifefertilitycare.co.uk/

For those needing persuasion, Chelsea links to a page which lists peer-reviewed academic papers supporting NaPro’s efficacy: http://www.naprotechnology.com/references.htm

I close with some more words from Chelsea, because I can’t put the case better than she does.  “To those who struggle with infertility, the Catholic Church is not your enemy. She wants what is best for both you and the children you so desire...  Never forget that no prayers go unanswered and all suffering, given over to the Lord bears fruit in some form... Whether you seek to welcome a new member to your family through (ethical) fertility treatment or even the always loving option of adoption,  remember that children are a gift, not a right. Keep the focus of your marriage on you and your spouse giving and receiving the total gift of self while loving God and trusting Him for the timing of children – if they should ever come.”