Responsibility of parents
Love and Marriage
View of the Church
Man has to find out for himself how he can best correspond to the commonly valid norms in his concrete situation. After a conscious consideration of the decrees of the Church and verification of all circumstances, even a Catholic Christian can come to a responsible decision which differs from the view of the Church.
Responsibility of parents
It is natural that marriage and family have to do with new life and with children. The Church retains the principle that having a child can be justified only in marriage and that it should not be the result of a coincidental sexual encounter. Only in the continuous love of parents can a child find the security needed to grow into a mature human being. Moreover, for Christians the close connection between love and procreation corresponds to the creative will of God.
Married couples themselves have to make Christian and humanely responsible decisions regarding the number of their children. They have to consider their own well-being, the welfare of their off springs and the material and spiritual situation of the times and of their lives. (Second Vatican Council, the Church in the World of Today, No. 50 ff.)
But sexual relationship in a marriage is also rich in meaning and good if, after serious consideration, procreation is not intended or effected. "Marriage is not only established to produce children. The personal spousal community requires this expression of love between married partners. Faithfulness and the welfare of children can suffer should the intimacy of life be abandoned. (The Church in the World of Today, No. 47 ff.)
Abortion
It is the conviction of the Church that killing of germinating life in the womb can never be allowed. From conception onward, new life must be protected like every human life. Fertilization starts the process of bringing into existence a new human being. For a Christian, forced intervention is a serious sin. No one who has based his life on Christian principles should be tempted to believe that abortion is less reprehensible if it is not considered an offense against the civil law.
The value of life has priority above all economic, social or psychological afflictions which could burden the mother, father or family. This shows that the question of abortion is predominantly a social problem. When women decide to have an abortion, people around them usually have to accept part of the blame if these women feel left alone, overburdened financially, without adequate sex education and counseling, when they see only narrow-mindedness and hear nothing else than a moralistic "I-told-you-so" .
....life and faces (cartoon puzzle) wdd
Matrimonial exceptions? - Sexual morals
Love and Marriage
Proof of invalidity
Usually, such a process takes a long time, since a marriage is always assumed to be valid and it is up to the married couple to unquestionably prove invalidity. A validly concluded and consummated marriage cannot be declared invalid by the Church unless there are reasons for invalidity such as fraudulent marriage intentions, force, deception, or when partners are too closely related.
With reference to the Gospels, the Church is certainly right in maintaining that a marriage is insoluble. But the question is: what can the Church do when a marriage does not succeed, perhaps without any personal fault? Is it not beyond the strength of many people to have to go through life alone, perhaps after having been married for just a few years? Are there not clauses for exceptions in the writings of Paul and Matthew (see Cor 7, 12-15; Mt 5,32)?
However, on the other hand: does not every exception weaken the stability of a marriage? Looking at the whole picture, does a divorce not bring more suffering than the tragedy of an unsuccessful marriage? The possibility of legal separation takes away the support a married couple needs, especially in a crisis situation.
For many years the Church has been facing these pressing questions. She must, without any doubt, follow Christ's demand: "preach the word, be it urgent in season and out of season..." (2 Timothy 4,2). But when a marriage has finally failed and a new civil marriage been concluded, should the Church in these cases refuse to give the strength of the Sacraments to the persons involved who need it so urgently? The Church has seriously concerned herself with this problem and there are suggestions that this issue should be cleared worldwide. God does not abandon anybody who turns toward Him and no man will be written off by the Church either. There is always a way of faith out of a ruined life. A personal conversation with a priest is recommended in cases like this.
Matrimonial and sexual morals
Apart from the position of the Church regarding divorce, it is above all her attitude toward the questions of matrimonial and sexual morals which causes the most heated discussions. Here, the discrepancies between generally accepted social opinions and those of the Church become particularly evident. What is right ... being socially "in" or agreeing with what the Church says?
We cannot and do not want to discuss every single question, so we will limit ourselves to the basics: Man's conscience needs points of orientation. These are the regulations of the Church which no one may ignore as long as he or she wants to Popes Paul VI and John Paul II do not intend to make final, authoritative and binding decisions. Furthermore, the Church resolutely defends any personal decision of conscience. She knows that every human being is a unique and distinct person with freedom, responsibility, conscience and an individual life history.
Marriage and faith
Love and Marriage
Marriage and faith
Many young couples hesitate to proceed with this final commitment, knowing that marriage is exposed to unforeseen developments. But we cannot plan, secure and test everything to the last detail. Sometimes, we have to make a decision, because we cannot leave things forever revocable. Having been together for some time, many couples decide to get married, especially with the prospect of raising a family, in order to put their relationship into a firm and legally protected framework.
The celebration in the church reinforces the consciousness of finally and forever belonging together. Should a crisis emerge, the fact of a church wedding can give an important support. Many older and experienced married couples confirm this. It is true that marital difficulties cannot simply be resolved by faith and prayer. But faith in the God of love and reconciliation gives us confidence in the possibility of lifelong faithfulness. This faith helps the spouses to accept each other, forgive and allow and dare a new beginning should they disappoint each other and fail.
This shows how important it is not to put the religious life into a file after the wedding day, but to continuously care for it together.
Divorce
Jesus voiced the opinion that divorce is essentially directed against love. "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matthew 19, 6). The Church derives the insolubility of a validly concluded marriage from this sentence. She does not intend to bind and force people to hold on to the past. Rather, the thought of insolubility reinforces the endeavor to exhaust all possibilities of living in marital community.
Divorce shows that a couple has stopped looking to the future together and trying to find each other always anew. Therefore, Jesus radically opposes people continuously looking for new circumstances under which a married couple might eventually be divorced. Jesus demands of us free decisions for a faithfulness which excludes loopholes right from the start. The aim of this exigency is not only to avoid marriage breakup but to influence the partnership in such a way that divorce becomes out of the question.
Reality, however, proves that even with a Christian marriage, breakup and the entailing separation of partners cannot always be avoided. Separation is often the lesser of two evils. In such cases the Church permits partners to live separately from each other and get a civil divorce because of the civil law consequences. But this does not change the legal view of the Church regarding the continuity of the marriage concluded before the altar.
Sometimes, it is said that a married couple was "divorced" by the Pope. In reality the Pope made a declaration of invalidity which has nothing to do with divorce. In this case, it is established through proceedings before the matrimonial court of the Church that a valid marriage was not concluded in the first place.