Marriage as Covenant
July 14, 2002

There is much talk these days about how family stability is an important part of the emotional growth of children.In a recent study the authors showed that chances for successful lives increase for those children born in families where the parents are married to one another. At the same time we find fewer couples getting married as more couples live together without anyone blinking an eye and, as one researcher put it, a culture of acceptance of “anything goes.” These cultural experiences contradict our understanding of Catholic marriage and we must challenge them. More and more our Catholic understanding of marriage stands in opposition to the understanding found in our society.

Marriage in the Catholic view is a life-long commitment to another that calls for emotional and sexual faithfulness to that one person. The total gift of self of one spouse to another is bound up in a union that cannot be divided. It means being intimate only with one’s spouse, both emotionally and physically. Since one cannot give self totally to more than one person, the Catholic understanding of marriage grew through the centuries to where it is today. A Catholic marriage is a life-long, exclusive, and public commitment to one’s spouse. With the help of God in the sacrament, persons pledge themselves to this life.

In our history there have been two aspects of this relationship that have developed and remain in place today, both of which contribute something essential to our understanding of marriage. The first comes from St. Augustine who had a relationship with a woman and experienced the birth of a child before he converted to Christianity. He never forgot this experience. His teaching, along with many since, found its height in the Church’s code of law back in 1917, which stated that marriage was a contract for the purpose of procreation and education of children. The purpose emphasized in this understanding was child rearing. Hence, if a married couple decides not to be open to having children, we do not accept that marriage as being valid.

The second traces its beginning before Augustine to Roman law that termed marriage a “union of a man and a woman and a partnership of the whole life.” This understanding of marriage found itself restated in St. Thomas Aquinas and other medieval thinkers and it emerged more clearly in the Church’s code of law in 1983. Here marriage was called a covenant, a promise to faithfully live with and support one’s spouse. Hence, if a married couple decides not to make a commitment to be faithful for life from the marriage’s beginning, we do not accept that marriage as being valid.

At the Second Vatican Council these two emphases were joined. “Marriage is not merely for the procreation of children. Its nature as an indissoluble compact between two people and the good of the children demand that the mutual love of the partners be properly shown, that it should grow and mature.” In this view, openness to children was seen as one of the essential elements of marriage, not its main purpose. Marriage, then, is important to the life of Catholics.

What are we to do with the lack of marriage or with couples living together without marriage? Loving the persons involved is not the same as endorsing their way of living. In fact, endorsing or agreeing with their living together promotes their actions. The culture of acceptance grows and marriages are weakened. The couples and their contemporaries then think that marriage truly makes no difference. Why should they bother with getting married? In the eyes of the Church effects do follow from living together without marriage.

Since the couple living together without marriage is living in a state of concubinage, that is, in serious sin, they are not allowed to participate fully in the life of the community. This means that they should not receive Holy Communion and cannot be involved in other ministries such as Eucharistic Minister or Reader at Mass. Others in the community are scandalized when people who are widely known to be living with someone out of wedlock act in these roles. This is not a punishment imposed by the Church. This is the natural result of the choices people make in their lives.

I suspect that many people have lost trust in others. Our society seems to be indifferent or even hostile to faithfulness, permanent commitments, and spiritual support in daily life. Nowhere does this societal stance affect us more than in our marriages and family life. The way to combat this growing cancer is not by agreeing and going along with it. Rather, it is in going against our society’s approach in our daily lives, showing that monogamous, life-long marriages are not only possible, but are essential to happiness and human growth and development.

The effects of successfully living our understanding of marriage will be seen in our lives. Couples will have a chance at happiness and fulfillment. Children will have stable homes in which they can grow and mature normally. Families will be the backbone and strength of our country and Church.

Living without such a goal will lead us to disaster, indications of which are already all around us. Living with high expectations of marriage will make a difference and make a necessary challenge to a culture of acceptance. Marriage is not easy. We, as Catholics, offer the world faith and communion: faith in a God whose love shines in marriage, and communion of two married people who let nothing come between them and live lives of fidelity empowered by God. This is our vision. Sadly, it is not the vision of the society in which we live.

Return to Father Ken's Archive Page