Catholic Marriage & Antecedent and Permanent Impotence

My new roommate, Erin, and I were discussing the issue de jour: homosexual marriage. During the conversation, I mentioned how consummation was an imperative for the Sacrament of Marriage in the Roman Catholic Church. Meaning, for a marriage to be valid, the couple must have sex.

She then theologically stumped me: “What if you couldn’t have sex? What if you were a quadriplegic?”

Initially, I thought the Catholic Church would insist on consummation, and hence those unable to have sex would not be able to partake in a Catholic marriage. However, I was far from sure.

The next day, I was talking to my good friend Andy who suggested that maybe the consummation was an ethical suggestion, but not an absolute imperative; something akin to the ethical equation: ought equals must.

A little research, however, provided me with Roman Catholic Canon 1084 §1. It states that “antecedent and permanent impotence” is a diriment impediment. Simply put: if your junk don’t work, you can’t tie the knot. This fascinating little ordinance is found in Book IV, Part I, Title VII, Chapter III of the Roman Catholic Canon.

Of course, this is classical Catholic doctrine. Catholic marriage requires consummation. So, if one cannot commence the marriage through consummation, then the marriage is invalid. The Church is at least consistent.

There is, however, a question of formally granted dispensation. For instance, dispensation is now granted regularly for ‘mixed-marriages’ – meaning marriages between a Catholic and a non-Catholic Christian or Jew (thank you, Vatican II).

I suspect that most bishops would grant special dispensation to those who may have antecedent and permanent impotence, but I myself am confused by what the rationale might be. Canon 90, found in (Book I, Tit. IV, Chp. V) states, “One is not to be dispensed from an ecclesiastical law without a just and reasonable cause…” Of course, it is not clear what a just and reasonable cause may constitute, though.

However, if I were a bishop – and hell, I’m not even really Catholic – the decision would be easy. If I found two people who loved each other and wanted to marry – despite the sobering matrimonial-actuary tables and the reality of a spouse with antecedent and permanent impotence – I wouldn’t just grant dispensation, I would offer blessings.

Addendum: My friend Ramil, made an excellent point. How would a 'good' Catholic even known they had antecedent impotence. Premaritial sex by yourself or with a partner is off limits. Plausibly a good - if not a perhaps somewhat naive - Catholic could never have an erection before marriage and just assume that all the plumbing begins to work when you marry... Anyways, thanks Ramil for the thought.

Liberalism’s Orthodoxy: Or Why We Should Defend Miss California

Dr. Stephen Long wrote in his book, The Goodness of God, “Liberalism has now become a dogmatic form of orthodoxy incapable of change.” Indeed, consider this for a moment. Theological liberalism seems to have no room in the inn for its own virtue of tolerance, only canonized dogma: God must suffer to love, missiology is eschatology, biblical miracles are literary myths, newer is better, and of course women and homosexuals must be able to be ordained or the Church is both oppressively patriarchal and an apostate.

Indeed, liberal theology has indentified numerous inviolable theological planks, crafting, slowly, a dogmatic platform. It has becomes an ideology demanding capitulation to hold-outs who have not yet converted. Outside of theology, we see that secular liberalism demands this same type of iron-clad orthodoxy. Recently, if not also infamously, Miss California was asked if she supported the recent ruling in Vermont that allowed for same sex marriages. Before answering that she in fact did not agree with same sex marriages, she opined, “Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose.” Indeed, while Aquinas thought a democracy was only a moderate well functioning government, as it was slow to act toward the good, and could only be moderately assured to enact the good, it nevertheless, was also slow to enact evil. More importantly, where is the well-spring of tolerance for Miss California that liberals so often demand be extended to everyone (and everything) else. Instead, the reaction was indignation. A particularly – if not peculiarly – urbanized cry of, “she didn’t, did she?!” was heard round the blogosphere.

Of course, the reason for the intolerance was that she was intolerant. And only intolerance can be matched with more intolerance. Here we realize the impossibility of diversity (liberalism). That no political claim can equate to perfect tolerance. That all beliefs – even beliefs in tolerance – are ultimately divisive. Otherness (diversity, liberalism) only identifies by being separate. The problem of perfect liberalism also makes us equally realize the impossibility of unity. No taxonomy will be able to perfectly organize everyone (and everything) into a single category. This is the problem of relationships – and it is also the mystery of Trinity and the Incarnation. We are the same and we are different. Oliver O’Donovan offers the term ‘pluriformity’. It offers to explicate the paradoxical claim that we are all one and all other. We realize that particularity rents violence in its necessary act of exclusion, but our limitedness – our humanness – does not offer recourse. Pluriformity is an anthropology for understanding theology that need not capitulate to late modern liberalism (our difference unites us), or conservative theology (our correct belief unites us), but rather a way to recapture the theology of the Body of Christ as the body of believers that are both diverse and universe.

We live in the tension between diversity and unity. However, I think some of my friends would argue that perfect diversity and unity come under God. And, I hope, they are correct. But it is an eschatological hope. Fidelity may hold more promise than either equality (liberalism) or certainty (conservatism).

Economics and Oikos: Christian Reflections on Polygamy

After reading Augustine’s ‘On the Good of Marriage’ and listening to Dr. Brent Waters wax eloquently on the essay, the question of polygamy in Christianity began to loom. Maybe the topic is currently captivating because of Mitt Romney’s run for President and the anachronistic Mormon polygamy that he engenders, maybe I am fascinated with polygamy because I can barely fathom what monogamy means in society where more than half the marriages end in divorce, maybe I am simply fascinated with it because of a banal and sophomoric interest in the possibility of two wives, and all that might entail… but I digress.

Of all the myriad reasons for interest the real reason is economic.

In Gary Becker’s Treatise on the Family he made an interesting observation about polygamy namely societies that condone polygamy help women and children.

Considering that married women want children (an assumption), women will need resources to support their children and herself. Monogamous societies restrict the supply of possible husbands. As any limited commodity marriageable (monetarily supportive) husbands will be scarce for some women (typically those who are least likely to have qualities to find a spouse). These women may then find themselves making a hard decision: marry the dud who proposed to them, or make it on there own.

If they marry the ‘dud’ they face the possibility of lack of resources to have children or even simply sustain the two-unit family. Further, if they have children they risk not being able to properly provide for them.

If the women choose to live a single life she may have to forgo motherhood in sake of livelihood. Or, as so many women do these days, they have children outside of marriage harrowingly raising the children on their own and on their own salary.

Polygyny – having more than one wife – allows women to have more selection in choosing a husband. Ostensibly this increase in choice will lead to husbands who are better able to support their wives and desired children.

If monogamy falls more in the realm of Christian convention than creed than can the practice of polygyny be acceptable in Christian communities? In most cases the answer will probably be a roaring, ‘No!’ I am sure Christian feminists and moral traditionalists could come up with numerous reasons for why it is a preposterous idea even while conceding that it may, at times, help support destitute women. In the United States the notion could never be entertained, besides nuanced theological, sociological or political arguments (the tax-code would probably have to be augmented, too) it just seems down right un-American. So, perhaps the lasting (yet, still distressed) institution of monogamous marriage is a symbolic vanguard to a culture that is beleaguered by quantitatively squared cost-benefit analyses that seem to forever champion pareto efficiency regardless of the moral costs.