Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/63

 DISPARITY

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DISPARITY

considered doubtfully baptized. There is a difference of opinion among the jurists and theologians as to the influence of this diriment impediment upon the mar- riage of two doubtfully baptized, if after investiga- tion it turns out for a certainty that one was cer- tainly unbaptized. The more common opinion is that disparity of worship does not nullify this marriage. Gasparri gives as reason that the consuetudinary law never contemplated this case, and hence does not in- fluence it (DeMatrimonio, I,nos.597 and 601). Wernz (IV, 772, note), Gury-Ballerini (II, 831), and others say that the marriage is valid, but give as reason the Church's dispensation, either special or general. Lehmkuhl (II, 5156) distinguishes and asserts that if a dispensation from the prohibitive impediment of "mixed religion" has been granted antecedent to the marriage, the union is valid ; his reason, however, that the Church in dispensing with the prohiliitive did im- plicitly dispense with the diriment impediment, seems to be at variance with a decree of the Holy Office (29 April, 1840, n. 2) which clearly states that the Holy See dispenses with the impediment of disparity of worship only in express terms. Where no dispen- sation has been granted, he holds that the marriage is null on account of the existing disparity of worship and must be revalidated. He recognizes, however, as valid the marriage of the doubtfully baptized, if they had been considered and had considered themselves Catholics, and had followed Catholic practices, and afterwards it was discovered that one of them had not been baptized (loc. cit. in note).

Origin of the Impediment. — This impediment, inasmuch as it is diriment, is not enjoined by the natural. Divine, or written ecclesiastical law, but has been introduced by a universal custom and practice in the Eastern and Western Churches since the twelfth century. The natural and Divine laws do, however, repudiate and prohibit such marriages as tend to frus- trate the primary ends of marriage by exposing be- lievers and their offspring to the loss of their Catholic faith, and this prohibition continues in force so long as the danger exists and no proportionately grave cause dictates the necessity of such marriage. The Mosaic Law (Deut., vii, 3) prohibits marriage between the Israelites and the Chanaanites, and even the Samari- tans (who kept the Law and had the Book of Moses), on account of the heathenish ceremonies they ob- served, lest the Jews might be turned away from the service of the true God and cling to the worship of the false gods of their pagan wives. The Pauline injunc- tions (I Cor., vii, 39), "... let her marry to whom she will but only in the Lord" and (II Cor., vi, 14): "... bear not the yoke with [i. e. do not marry] un- believers", do not, indeed, declare invalid the mar- riages of Christians with unbelievers, but certainly do earnestly forbid the faithful to marry unbelievers un- less the ends of Christian marriage are safeguarded and grave and weighty reasons exist for the union. Certainly in the time of St. Paul and immediately afterwards the proportionately small number of Christians was sufficiently grave cause for permitting such intermarriages with the hope of the conversion of the unbelieving partner.

With the development of the Church and its growth in mnnbers, opportunities for Christian marriage in- creased, proportionately grave reasons for mixed unions (unless in rare cases) ceased, and then the nat- ural and Divine laws asserted their right to prohibit such marriages as tended to frustrate the ends of the matrimonial sacrament by exposing the Catholic to a weakening or loss of faith, the offspring to a lack of Christian education, and the family to a want of that Christian love which is its very comer-stone. The Christian laity, as well as clergy, realized from sad experience and observation the ordinary tendency of mixed unions to a compromise or loss of faith on the part of the Catholic, and the un-Catholic bringing-up,

or at least religious indifference, of the children, and, finally, injury to domestic peace and happiness by the constant exposure to disputes, and sometimes bitter quarrels, about the fundamental principles of Catholic Faith, and the consequent weakening, if not total ex- tinction, of Christian love between husband and wife (St. Ambro.i^e, De Abraham, Bk. I, ch. ix, says: " There can be no unity of love where there is no unity of faith"). At different periods and in different countries (especially Spain and Gaul) particular councils inveighed against them, and although these canons were not strictly observed, and there were many mixed marriages in the days of Sts. Jerome (Lib. I in Jovinianum) and Augustine (Lib. de Fide et operibus, ch. xix), yet after the death of the latter, and especially from the seventh to the twelfth century, the detestation of them so increased, and the conviction that they were not Christian marriages, and therefore to be shunned and not contracted, grew so strong and gen- eral throughout the entire Church that as far back as the twelfth century it was a universal custom and practice which even had the force of a universal church law (Bellarmine, De Controversiis, III, De Sacramento Matrimonii, Bk. I, ch. xxiii; Benedict XIV, Constit. "Singulari nobis", paragraphs 9 and 10).

This impediment is binding on Christians of newly converted or even pagan countries, where there has been no such custom inasmuch as there have been no Catholics. The opinion of Lessius and others to the contrary is clearly refuted by the granting of faculties by Gregory XIII to the Christian missionaries of Ja- pan to dispense with this impediment in the cases of newly converted Japanese Catholics. Many theolo- gians and canonists say that there is one exception to this nullifying law, and that is the instance of an emi- grant Catholic family settled in a pagan country without a single Catholic neighbour, forty or fifty days journey removed from the nearest Catholic, and un- able on account of the distance or want of means to leave the country or procure a dispensation from the impediment, and thus compelled to remain their whole lives single or marry pagans (Santi-Leitner, IV, 74; Gasparri, De Matrimonio, I, 429). It does not seem that disparity of worship holds in a case of this kind; the ecclesiastical law under such circumstances does not bind a man so as to deprive him of his natural right to marry. Wernz, however (Jus Decret., IV, 775, n. 37), holds the opposite opinion.

DiSPENS.VTION FROM THE IMPEDIMENT. The

Church can dispense from this impediment, inasmuch as itisof ecclesia-stical institution. It never doesso unless for gravest reasons and upon the fulfilment of certain condi t ions and guarantees that safeguard, as far as pos- sible, the ends of the Sacrament of Matrimony. The natural and Divine laws, before permitting mixed mar- riages, exact the removal of all danger to the faith of the Catholic and to the baptism and Catholic bringing-up of allot the children of the marriage. The Church cannot dispense with this necessary requirement, and, the bet- ter to ensure its presence, insists upon certain conditions and promises, which must be committed to writing and signed and, in some instances and countries, also sworn to, by the unbaptized party to the pact. The unbeliever promises faithfully to comply with the re- quirements of the Church, and the Church on her part grants the permission for the marriage. The prom- ises on the part of the unbaptized party are: (1) that he (or she) will afford the Catholic partner full and per- fect freedom to practise the Catholic Faith, and that he (or she) will abstain from saying or doing aught to weaken or change that faith, and, if he be an inhab- itant of a pagan country, that he will not practise polygamy; (2) that he (or she) will permit all children of their union to be baptized and reared in the Catho- lic Faith and practice, and that he (or she) will do or say nothing calculated to lessen their faith or turn