Marriage: sixteen questions

God himself. The call to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the Creator's hand. Made in the image of God who is love, man and woman are created for one another, and their love becomes an image of God's faithful love. "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Gen 2:24).

Every person meets evil around and within. The union of man and woman has always been threatened by discord, domination, unfaithfulness and jealousy. This disorder comes not from marriage itself but from sin. The order of creation remains, though wounded, and to heal it man and woman need the grace God in his mercy never refuses.

He worked his first sign at a wedding in Cana, at his mother's request, and the Church sees there the goodness of marriage and the sign that Christ would be present in it (Jn 2:1-11). He taught clearly that marriage is indissoluble: "what God has joined together, let no one separate" (Mk 10:9). He did not lay an impossible burden on spouses; by restoring the order of creation he gives the strength to live it.

Christ raised the marriage covenant between baptized persons to the dignity of a sacrament. Christian marriage becomes an effective sign of the covenant between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:31-32). Because it signifies and gives grace, marriage between baptized persons is a true sacrament of the New Covenant; the Eastern Code says the spouses are united by God and, as it were, consecrated by it.

Christ is the centre of all Christian life, and from the beginning some have given up the great good of marriage to follow him with an undivided heart. Both marriage and virginity for the kingdom come from the Lord and need his grace. Esteem for virginity and the Christian view of marriage support each other: whoever belittles marriage also lessens the glory of virginity.

In the Latin Church it is ordinarily understood that the spouses themselves, as ministers of Christ's grace, confer the sacrament on each other by expressing their consent before the Church. In the Eastern liturgies, where the rite is called the Crowning, the minister is the priest or bishop who, after receiving the spouses' consent, crowns bridegroom and bride. For the Eastern Churches, the blessing of a priest belongs to the sacred rite needed for validity.

Consent is the indispensable element that "makes the marriage": without it there is no marriage. The parties must be a baptized man and woman, under no constraint and with no impediment of natural or Church law. Each gives himself or herself to the other: "I take you to be my wife", "I take you to be my husband". It must be a real act of the will, without force or grave fear; no human power can supply it.

If true consent was lacking, or for other reasons that make a marriage null, a Church tribunal may examine the case and declare that the marriage never existed. This is not a divorce: it states that no valid bond was formed. The parties are then able to marry, while keeping any natural obligations from the earlier union, for example toward children.

Marriage is a liturgical act and a state of life in the Church, with rights and duties toward one another and toward children. So the Church's minister receives the consent and gives the Church's blessing, before witnesses, which gives certainty and protects the "I do" once given. The Eastern Code requires a sacred rite with a priest who assists and blesses; Latin Church law, since 2016, also says that only a priest validly assists at a marriage where one party is Eastern.

A marriage between a Catholic and a baptized non-Catholic needs particular care; in the Latin Church it needs express permission. A marriage with an unbaptized person needs even greater care and a dispensation for validity. Both parties must know and accept the essential ends and properties of marriage, and the Catholic party's promise about the Baptism and Catholic upbringing of the children. A difference of Church need not be an insurmountable obstacle when the spouses share what each has received and learn from each other, though its difficulties must not be underestimated.

From a valid marriage arises a bond that by its nature is lifelong and exclusive. God himself seals the consent. A marriage between baptized persons, concluded and consummated, can never be dissolved: the Church has no power to go against this arrangement of God's wisdom. The Eastern Code says the same: only death ends it.

Its proper grace perfects the couple's love and strengthens their unbreakable unity, so that they help one another to grow in holiness and to welcome and raise their children. Christ is the source of this grace. He stays with them, gives them strength to carry their crosses, to rise after falling, to forgive one another and to bear one another's burdens.

Married love involves the whole person and seeks a deep unity, one heart and soul, which by its nature requires faithfulness and indissolubility. Unity is shown in the equal dignity of husband and wife, and polygamy is contrary to love that is undivided and exclusive. Love wants to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement "until further notice". The Eastern Code names unity and indissolubility as the essential properties of marriage.

Where living together becomes practically impossible, the Church permits separation; the spouses remain husband and wife before God and may not marry again, and reconciliation, if possible, is the best way. Those who divorce and remarry civilly while the first marriage is valid are in a situation that goes against God's law, and so cannot receive Communion while it lasts. Yet priests and the whole community must surround them with care, so that they do not think of themselves as separated from the Church: they should hear the word of God, attend Mass, pray, do works of charity and raise their children in the faith.

Marriage and married love are by nature ordered to the procreation and education of children, who are the supreme gift of marriage. Parents are the first educators of their children. Couples to whom God has not given children can still have a married life full of meaning, fruitful in charity, hospitality and sacrifice.

Christ chose to be born and grow up in the Holy Family of Joseph and Mary, and from the beginning whole households came to faith together. The Second Vatican Council calls the family the "domestic Church", where parents are the first heralds of the faith to their children. The home is the first school of Christian life, where all learn work, love, forgiveness, prayer and the offering of one's life.