Previous Posts

Marriage upside down

Louie,

Marriage upside down2On Friday, the text of reports generated by the Synod’s circuli minori (small groups divided by region and language) were released.

According to Vatican Radio:

Altogether there were 13 groups, working in five different languages, and they all spoke in positive terms of the small group atmosphere with lay men and women, plus non-Catholic participants too. They also talked of the challenge of bringing together such diverging views from right across the globe.

Perhaps I missed it being reported earlier, but I don’t recall ever having read that the small working groups were to be comprised not only of bishops, but also of laity; some of whom are not even Catholic (and presumably, perhaps, not even Christian).

In any case, one can hardly be surprised given the Synod’s gratuitous use of surveys during the preparatory process, to say nothing of the common sense perception that where synodality reigns democracy necessarily lurks; even if, as in the present case, it’s all very likely for show.

Of the thirteen small group reports, the one most highly anticipated was that of the Circulus Germanicus given the outspokenness of some of its members; Cardinals Kasper, Marx and Schönborn chief among them.

An English translation of the German group’s report is available on the blog In Caelo et in Terra, a review of which reveals little of substance relative to the radical proposals previously put forth by each of the above mentioned Princes of Progressiveness.

Standing out just the same is the following:

We suggest and ask that a section is added at the beginning of the first chapter [of the Instrumentum laboris], which describes the beauty of marriage and the mission of couples and families, drawing on the concerns and considerations of Pope Francis.

We can, at the very least, applaud the German group for its transparency as it does not pretend to desire a section setting forth the “mission of couples and families” (otherwise known as the ends of marriage) according to the constant teaching of the Holy Catholic Church, but rather according to the “concerns and considerations of Pope Francis.”

As we will see, the difference is both noteworthy and considerable.

The report continues:

Gratefully and with wonderment we notice that marriage is called to take part in the Creation of God and in His work of salvation. Marriage is not just a topic of Catholic faith, but proves to be in the profoundest sense a fundamental desire of man. It shows itself to be remarkably constant across cultural and religious boundaries and beyond all social changes in time. Man desires to love and be loved. Love is the comprehensive and unconditional Yes to another human being – for his own sake, without ulterior motives or reservations. It is also a basic trait of humanity, that love always wants to give itself again. So marriage unfolds in the love of the children and others in the family. So grows the family out of marriage, which radiates in society and Church. Christian marriage is in this way a slice of living Church.

This is the language of men infected with the Conciliar disease; a language once described by Cardinal Danneels who said:

Up until that time [of the Council], the language of ecclesiastical authority was primarily juridical and legislative. It was rational, conceptual, concise, and clear‐cut. Vatican II chose a more pastorally‐oriented language: less clear‐cut, suggestive, not determinant, calm, and serenely dialogical.

In other words, when once our bishops spoke in the manner of men, today’s episcopo-castrati, after the example of the Council, are far more inclined to wax effeminate in language that I like to call pseudosacral homopoetic prose.

Compare the waltz around the barn offered by the German group with the language of the Catholic faith such as it had consistently been taught prior to Vatican II:

The primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children.  Its secondary end is mutual help and the allaying of concupiscence. (cf 1917 Code of Canon Law 1013)

As pointed out at the Angelus Press Conference this morning by Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara, SSPX, Professor of history, moral theology, and literature at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, the clear and concise teaching above was supplanted after the Council as evidenced by the following from the new Code of Canon Law which reads:

The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman establish themselves a partnership of their whole life, and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between baptized, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament. (1983 Canon Law 1055)

The observant reader will notice that the primary and secondary ends of marriage have been inverted in the 1983 Code; an error that invites an aberrant view of the family.

This is evident in the German group’s treatment of marriage and its focus on “love” described only as a fundamental human “desire to give of oneself.”

While it is true that “man desires to love and be loved,” this desire is laudably met in numerous ways outside of marriage, such as in religious and priestly vocations, but also in relationships between siblings and friends wherein it can rightly be said that the primary end toward which such bonds are also ordered is the well-being of the two.

Marriage, in other words, is not only primarily, but uniquely, ordered toward the procreation and education of children.

Once this awareness is obscured, living arrangements such as cohabitation and homosexual unions are all the more easily mistaken as praiseworthy.

As recounted in a recent article published by Life Site News, Fr. Anton Faber, Rector of Cardinal Schönborn’s Cathedral in Vienna, offered a blessing for unmarried couples on Valentine’s Day 2006 including homosexual partners.

Afterwards, Fr. Faber decried, “Today there is no possibility in the Church to bless a union of people with homosexual feelings,” saying that he explicitly welcomes “people with homosexual inclinations to receive a blessing for their longing for love.”

He also claimed to have the support of Cardinal Schönborn who recently went on record as saying:

We should give more consideration to the quality of homosexual relationships… [since] a stable relationship is certainly better than if someone chooses to be promiscuous.

There can be same-sex partnerships and they need respect, and even civil law protection. … The new Austrian law on same-sex partnership is very respectful but clearly distinguishes this situation from marriage.

We can and we must respect the decision to form a union with a person of the same sex, [and] to seek means under civil law to protect their living together with laws to ensure such protection.

This mindset is hinted, albeit subtly, in the report issued by the Synod’s German group, the same of which Schönborn is a member, saying:

In their respective cultural backgrounds family relationships beyond the nuclear family especially offer many kinds of possibilities of support in the raising of children and in family life.

If any among us are wondering why this group of bishops, certain members of which have spoken with unbridled boldness about the supposed virtues of family relationships beyond the nuclear family, just issued a report devoid of anything overtly controversial, I would suggest that there are but two likely reasons:

Either they have changed their mind with respect to their goals and desires, or they are convinced that Pope Francis already shares them.

Given the group’s desire for a Synod document “drawing on the concerns and considerations of Pope Francis,” the answer seems obvious enough.

In any event, writing as I am at this moment from the Angelus Press Conference, with Fr. Iscara’s presentation still fresh in my mind, it is clear to me that the seeds of the Synodal revolution presently underway were planted at Vatican II (see Gaudium et Spes 50) when our churchmen first succumbed to the urge to equivocate on the begetting and educating children as the primary end of marriage.

Blog Post

Comments (23)

  2. Unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs

    St Teresa of Avila

  6. This synod is Vatican II on steroids—more like Vatican III— the final nail in the coffin??? If this isn’t a wake up call for neo-Catholics to abandon the sinking ship, then I don’t know what it will take to wake them up.

  7. Why do we need a Synod on the Family? Did the Catholic Church, founded by Christ Himself, get it all wrong? Has the New Order Church been miraculously inspired to make things right? Should we have a Synod on Math and discover that two plus two equals five? The faith of Newchurch is Modernism at its “Best” or more accurately at its “Worst”. The wolves are running the show!!!

  8. Who can say? The prophet said ‘fear of God is the beginning of wisdom’…anyone with a wit of this seeks the Intercession of Our Lady, but not…like the perverted spin heresiarchs, as a means to use devotion to mock God.

  9. Thank you, Louie for your excellent work. A wicked Synod brought about by the false precepts of the wicked Second Vatican Council. When the Pope and his bishops [in concert] consecrate Russia to Our Blessed Mother’s Most Immaculate Heart and reveal the entire contents of the 3rd Secret of Fatima, then and only then, will I give my attention to what comes form Rome. Until then my only recourse is to Our Blessed Lord, His Blessed Mother, the Traditional Mass, my Rosary, and my Brown Scapular. I have a strong premonition that Rome is about to burn.

  10. Either we are the brides of this great King or we are not

    St Teresa of Ávila, The Way of Perfection

  11. “In other words, when once our bishops spoke in the manner of men, today’s episcopo-castrati, after the example of the Council, are far more inclined to wax effeminate in language that I like to call pseudosacral homopoetic prose.”

    Louie, lets call this Synod and the Conciliar Church of Nice what it is.
    It is the full blown predicted Apostasy within the Church led by pansy priests from the Society of Judas formalized by this heretical gathering aka The Synod of Pansy Prelates and Priests. “Marriage” is the decoy. “Homosexual approval is the goal”
    However, it looks like they are going to inflict and cram down a 2 for 1 poison

  12. Permit me to quote Chris Ferrara over at the Remnant, an article that picks apart the ridiculous and sophmoric “fast track” annulment of the heretic in Rome:

    “Fifty years after the imaginary “renewal of Vatican II” began, the episcopal ideologues who have presided over an unprecedented collapse of faith and discipline confront what John Paul II admitted is “silent apostasy” in the once Christian West. Led by Francis, the First Merciful Pope Ever, the same hierarchs are now contriving to accommodate the very apostasy their own negligence has fomented. Having allowed their sheep to wander to the edge of the pit of iniquity in blissful ignorance of the danger, the shepherds now invite them to dive in.

    Yet, it is fair to ask, what can we do about it? Considerably more than nothing—more even than prayer and penance, as important as they are. Saint Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Church, tells us what we must do when faced with a Pope who is causing grave harm to souls and the ecclesial common good:

    Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff that aggresses the body, it is also licit to resist the one who aggresses souls or who disturbs civil order, or, above all, who attempts to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist by not doing what he orders and by preventing his will from being executed….”

    [Ryan Grant. De Controversiis: On the Roman Pontiff (Mediatrix Press: 2015), Book II, Chapter 29, p. 303].

    It is no longer possible honestly to deny that Francis, having aligned himself with the Modernists now infesting almost the entire hierarchy, many of whom are his closest advisors, is the very sort of Pope that Bellarmine envisioned: one who “aggresses souls” and “attempts to destroy the Church,” no matter what he thinks he is doing or is subjectively guilty of. Our duty, therefore, which is above all the duty of bishops and cardinals, is to resist this Pope by not doing what he wants or approving of it, by objecting to it and militating against it publicly, and by using any licit means at our disposal in “preventing his will from being executed.” And even if we fail, that duty remains—a sacred duty to Christ and His Holy Church, infinitely surpassing mere human loyalty to a wayward and dangerous pope the likes of which the Church has not seen in twenty centuries .”

  14. Dear Michael,

    I have read the above article. While, on the whole I found it very helpful, I fear that this use of the quote attributed to Bellarmine will only serve to secure Bergoglio in his position rather than to discomfort him. That is, rather than representing an objective measure of Bergoglio’s legitimacy, I suspect that the quote will simply be used by some to “prove” that a man can still be the Vicar of Christ even if he is trying to destroy Christ’s Church.

  16. Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one Glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.

    St Teresa of Avila

  18. The true Christian is missionary. A proselityser for and of truth. Yes, all should brush your teeth and take a bath, but first things first.
    –
    No one out of communion with the deposit of faith, is ‘in the Church’. If God continues to have mercy on the Sodom and Gomorrah Novus Ordus, on the basis of even ten folks keeping the Faith on their behalf, time might be given. Free will – God gives it. And He is patient, but never self-contradictory.

  19. Dear Louie,

    Music to my ears Louie! Music to my ears! Way to go Louie – The primary purpose of marriage is procreation and education of children!

    Let us not forget that this primary purpose of procreation and education of children is for God’s glory not man’s glory. The primary purpose is not to mindlessly populate the world with very little consideration of populating Heaven with citizens of God. The secondary purpose’s meaning, unity, depends on the primary purpose, procreation, to get its meaning. In other words. The secondary purpose is not separate from the primary purpose it is very SUBORDINATE to. It is not even at the primary purposes same level. The secondary purpose it it is not understood to be, ‘love’, but to be unity of the couple, plain and simple for the sake of the grand mission of procreation and the sacrificially this grand mission demands of both husband and wife.

    2. that the heresy from NFP that teaches that one can separate procreation from unity by planning to exclusively have recourse to the infertile period during conjugal relations in order to avoid having children is the cancerous heresy that MUST BE DESTROYED if we are to get anywhere in understanding the teachings of the Catholic Church on God’s purpose and order and natural laws of marriage.

    I will link quotes from Scripture,the magisterium and Church Fathers on this in my next comment. Not only is there a hierarchy of purposes but there is also a hierarchy of roles that have been totally destroyed and abolished with the hijacking modernists and feminists within our church and families.

    Marriage is sacrificial. The conjugal act is sacrificial. It is sacrificial because of its grand mission of the primary purpose and its potentiality to bring souls into the world and the obligations that are due to our Lord Who desires many souls and Who obliges all to respect His laws on purity and marriage and Whose laws are based on the justice that is due to Him, the faithful husband and the most vulnerable, the women who participate in this mission and the possible children who are conceived from it.

  20. Here is a start.

    St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 198 A.D.): “To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature.” (The Paedagogus or The Instructor, Book II, Chapter X.–On the Procreation and Education of Children)

    St. Caesarius of Arles (c. 468-542): “AS OFTEN AS HE KNOWS HIS WIFE WITHOUT A DESIRE FOR CHILDREN…WITHOUT A DOUBT HE COMMITS SIN.” (W. A. Jurgens, The Faith of The Early Fathers, Vol. 3: 2233)

    St. Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence, A.D. 419: “It is one thing not to lie [with one’s wife] except with the sole will of generating [children]: this has no fault. It is another to seek the pleasure of the flesh in lying, although within the limits of marriage: this has venial fault [that is, venial sin as long as one is not against procreation].” (Book I, Chapter 17.–What is Sinless in the Use of Matrimony? What is Attended With Venial Sin, and What with Mortal?)

    St. Jerome, Against Jovinian, A.D. 393: “But I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children? … He who is too ardent a lover of his own wife is an adulterer [of his God and of his wife].” (Book 1, Section 20; 40)

    St. Augustine, De Conjugiis Adulterinis, A.D. 396: “Since, therefore, the institution of marriage exists for the sake of generation, for this reason did our forebears enter into the union of wedlock and lawfully take to themselves their wives, only because of the duty to beget children.” (Book II, Chapter 12)
    Pope St. Clement of Rome (1st century A.D.): “But this kind of chastity is also to be observed, that sexual intercourse must not take place heedlessly and for the sake of mere pleasure, but for the sake of begetting children. And since this observance is found even amongst some of the lower animals, it were a shame if it be not observed by men, reasonable, and worshiping God.” (Recognitions of Clement, Chapter XII, Importance of Chastity)

    Athenagoras the Athenian (c. 175 A.D.): “Therefore, having the hope of eternal life, we despise the things of this life, even to the pleasures of the soul, each of us reckoning her his wife whom he has married according to the laws laid down by us, and that only for the purpose of having children. For as the husbandman throwing the seed into the ground awaits the harvest, not sowing more upon it, so to us the procreation of children is the measure of our indulgence in appetite.” (A Plea For the Christians, Chapter XXXIII.–Chastity of the Christians with Respect to Marriage)

    St. Finnian of Clonard (470-549), The Penitential of Finnian #46: “We advise and exhort that there be continence in marriage, since marriage without continence is not lawful, but sin, and [marriage] is permitted by the authority of God not for lust but for the sake of children, as it is written, ‘And the two shall be in one flesh,’ that is, in unity of the flesh for the generation of children, not for the lustful concupiscence of the flesh.”

    More to come when I have time.

  21. Some more.

    The Holy Bible, Tobias 6:22; 8:9 “And when the third night is past, thou shalt take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children than for lust, that in the seed of Abraham thou mayest obtain a blessing in children… [Tobias said:] And now, Lord, thou knowest, that not for fleshly lust do I take my sister to wife, but only for the love of posterity, in which thy name may be blessed for ever and ever.”

    Tobias 6:16-17 “Then the angel Raphael said to him [Tobias]: Hear me, and I will show thee who they are, over whom the devil can prevail. For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power.”

    For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power.” (Tobias 6:16-17)

  22. And some more.

    Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (#’s 53-56), Dec. 31, 1930: “And now, Venerable Brethren, we shall explain in detail the evils opposed to each of the benefits of matrimony. First consideration is due to the offspring, which many have the boldness to call the disagreeable burden of matrimony and which they say is to be carefully avoided by married people not through virtuous continence (which Christian law permits in matrimony when both parties consent) but by frustrating the marriage act. Some justify this criminal abuse on the ground that they are weary of children and wish to gratify their desires without their consequent burden. Others say that they cannot on the one hand remain continent nor on the other can they have children because of the difficulties whether on the part of the mother or on the part of the family circumstances.
    “But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural powers and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.
    “Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death. As St. Augustine notes, ‘Intercourse even with one’s legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Judah, did this and the Lord killed him for it (Gen. 38:8-10).’
    “Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, TO WHOM GOD HAS ENTRUSTED THE DEFENSE OF THE INTEGRITY AND PURITY OF MORALS, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: ANY USE WHATSOEVER OF MATRIMONY EXERCISED IN SUCH A WAY THAT THE ACT IS DELIBERATELYFRUSTRATED IN ITS NATURAL POWER TO GENERATE LIFE IS AN OFFENSE AGAINST THE LAW OF GOD AND OF NATURE, AND THOSE WHO INDULGE IN SUCH ARE BRANDED WITH THE GUILT OF A GRAVE SIN.”

  23. And some more on the hierarchy of marriages purposes even from Karol Wojtyla before he became Pope in his book “Love and Responsibility”.

    “The Church, as has been mentioned previously, teaches, and has always taught, that the primary end of marriage is “procreatio”, but that it has a secondary end, defined in Latin terminoly as “mutuum adiutorium”. Apart from these a tertiary aim is mentioned- “remidium concupiscentiae”. Marriage, objectively considered, must provide first of all the means of continueing existence, secondly a conjugal life for man and woman, and thirdly a legitimate orientation for desire….. By reason of the fact that they are persons a man and a woman must consciously seek to realize the aims of marriage according to the order of priority given above, because this order is objective, accessible to reason, and therefor binding on human persons……The same principle also guarantees that the ends will be achieved in the order of importance accorded to them here, for any deviation from this is incompatible with the objective dignity of the person. The practical realization of all the purposes of marriage must then also mean the successful practice as love as a virtue – for only as a virtue does love satisfy the commandment of the Gospel and the demands of the personalistic norm embodied in that commandment. The idea that the purposes of marriage could be realized on some basis other then the personalistic norm would be uterly un-Christian, because it would not conform to the fundamental ethical postulate of the Gospels. For this reason we too must be on guard against trivialization of the teaching of the purposes of marriage.
    With this in mind, it seems equally clearly indicated that the “mutuum adiutorium” mentioned in the teaching of the Church on the purposes of marriage as second in importance after procreation must not be interprted as it often is- to mean ‘mutual love’. Those who do this may mistakenly come to believe that procreation as the primary end is something distinct from ‘love’, as also is the tertiary end, “remidium concupiscentiae”, whereas both procreation and “remedium concupiscentiae” as purposes of marriage must result from love as a virtue, and so fit in with the personalistic norm. “Mutuum adiutorium” as a purpose of marriage is likewise only a result of love as a virtue. There are no grounds for interprting the phrase “mutuum adiutorium” to mean ‘love’. For the Church, in arranging the objective purposes of love in a particular order, seeks to emphazise that procreation is objectively, ontologically, a more important purpose than that man and woman should live together, complement each other and support each other (mutuum adiutorium), just as this second purpose is in turn more important than the appeasement of natural desire. But there is no question of opposing love to procreation nor yet of suggesting that procreation takes precedence over love.”

Comments are closed.