Catholic Schizophrenia

The Catholic Church has long had a schizophrenic view of marriage. On one hand, the marriage of Mary and Joseph is the ideal towards which all married couples should strive. On the other hand, the couple didn't have sex, Mary remained perpetually virgin. Many a canonized saintly couple have entered into a Josephite marriage, in which the couple vowed never to have sex. Canon law indicates  sex forms the "firm foundation" of marriage, any married couple who has not had sex can much more easily have their marriage annulled precisely for that lack. Further, marriage exists in part for the procreation of children, yet a Josephite vow vitiates that purpose. 

To add to the confusion, the Church has long allowed men or women to leave behind their spouse and children as long as they are entering a monastery or convent. Several saints did that, which has long puzzled me. For example: 

• Blessed Rafaela Ibarra (1843-1900) married, then founded a religious congregation (Sisters of the Holy Guardian Angels). Twenty-nine years after taking marriage vows she left her husband, with his permission, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and entered the congregation she founded.
• Blessed Bartolo Long took vows of perpetual chastity. However, on the advice of his spiritual director, he entered a Josephite marriage with a rich benefactor in order to prevent gossip about how he used the funds of the rich woman he married. 
• Blessed Benedetta Frassinello, born 1791, married for two years with no children, both spouses take vows of perpetual chastity and live a Josephite marriage.
• Blessed Mary of the Incarnation (Marie Guyart Martin), born 1599, greeted the death of her spouse with the words, the Lord "freed me from the fetters of marriage... as soon as I became free, I felt a great repugnance for marriage..". Does anyone speak of being freed from the fetters of baptism, confirmation, reconciliation, the Eucharist, or anointing of the sick? Do priests revel in being freed from the fetters of Holy Orders? Are we permitted to show a "great repugnance" for any other sacrament? She left her 11-year old son Claude (born April 2, 1619) in order to join the Ursulines in January 21, 1631. As she herself said, "Everyone blamed me for leaving a child not yet twelve years old, especially leaving him without any secure means of support..." Pope John Paul II beatified her.
• Catherine of Genoa and her husband lived a Josephite marriage after he "came to his senses" and renounced a formerly dissolute life. 
• Blessed Seraphina (Sueva of Montefeltro) left her dissolute husband, entered the Poor Clare convent in Pesaro, got dispensation from Pope Callistus II and took solemn vows of perpetual poverty, chastity and obedience and eventually became abbess. Her husband occasionally visited. She's an incorruptible. 
• Blessed Mark of Montegall and Chiara dei Tibaldesch got married in 1451, never consummated their marriage, and both left it one year later. She entered a Poor Clare convent, he entered the Franciscan Friars of Observance.
• Saint Nicholas von Flue and Dorothea Wissling, married 1447. Abandoned his wife and ten children to become a hermit (not a priest, a hermit). His youngest son was 16-weeks old at the time. His spiritual director recommended it. He was canonized by Pope St. Pius XII in 1947.
• Blessed Galeotto Roberto Malatesta, married at 16, left his wife at 18, became a third order Franciscan, died at age 21.
• Blessed Dorothy of Montau was married in a "tortuous" marriage with a "pious" man, had nine children, eight died. Her last, Gertrude, born March 1380 alone survived. When Dorothy's husband died in 1390, she gave her ten-year old daughter to a convent. By May 1393, she was a cloistered recluse. Her canonization said she "persevered in marriage." Can anyone recall living the graces of any other sacrament described as "persevered in sacrament X"? She was beatified by Pope Pius VI in 1967.
• Yet, when Frederick Ozanam died, a cardinal remarked to Pope Pius IX on what a shame it was that a man as holy as Ozanam should have fallen into the trap of marriage. The Pope replied, "Oh, I did not realize that our Lord established six sacraments and one trap."

The Eastern Orthodox are no better. Consider, for instance, the Orthodox saint, Mary of Paris, considered one of the greatest saints of the 20th century. She was married twice, her son Yura being born in Tbilisi in 1920. Her bishop encouraged her to take vows as a nun, something she did only with the assurance that she would not have to live in a monastery, secluded from the world. In 1932, with her husband Daniel Skobtov's permission, an ecclesiastical divorce was granted, and she took monastic vows. That makes her son 11 or 12 years old at the time she took monastic vows, so she's no different than Blessed Mary of the Incarnation.

Taking monastic vows is NOT a sacrament. At most, it is a discipline. It provides no special graces, according to Catholic teaching.

Marriage, conversely, IS a sacrament. It DOES provide sanctifying, divinizing grace, special grace that is crucial (cross-bearing) for salvation itself. So, how does walking away from sacramental grace towards just a basic little discipline make one a saint?

St. Paul says we should be like him, no spouse, but if we MUST marry, then he supposes it is ok to do it. He makes very clear, however, that it is much better for everyone to be celibate, as he is. Conveniently, Paul considers himself the measure of man. 

His teaching in Corinthians certainly doesn't seem consistent. Why is he endorsing a celibate life, which is NOT a sacrament unless you are male and ordained, over married life, which IS a sacrament? Especially given that most of us CANNOT be like him, because we are either female, or we simply are not called to Holy Orders? So... I'm supposed to be a monk or a brother, instead of a priest, because being celibate, and/or monastic vows, is somehow superior to the sanctifying, divinizing, deifying grace of a sacrament? I'm supposed to be a monk instead of allowing the grace of a sacrament make me into a god? And, yes, that's what 2 Peter 1:4, CCC 460 and 1999 say sacraments do. Sacraments make us partakers of the divine nature... sacraments make us gods. Taking perpetual vows of celibacy, yeah, not so much. But apparently, becoming a monk or nun is superior to being married.

How does that even work? 

How can simple celibacy under disciplinary vows be superior to a DIVINIZING SACRAMENT??? From the perspective of saving grace, it makes zero sense. And notice, it isn't sex that makes the sacrament holy. True, once you've had sex, it's a lot tougher to get an annulment, but it isn't strictly necessary to have sex in order to gain the sacramental grace of marriage. Indeed, as you can see above, there are examples of spouses who never had sex at all, and are canonized saints. In fact, the two greatest saints of the Church were married but never had sex. That's an answer to people who say the Church just wants Catholics to have a lot of children so the Church has a lot of disciples. I mean, if that were the case, then deliberately celibate married couples would not be canonized saints.  

So, are Mary, Joseph and all the rest BETTER saints because they got married and lived celibately? It sure seems like that is part of the message, yes. But then what happens to the three goods of marriage, including marriage being a remedy for (sexual) concupiscence? Even more weird, how is it BETTER, through sexual abstinence, to deliberately AVOID bringing into existence immortal human beings who will praise God for all eternity? 

On the one hand, marriage is a divinizing sacrament. On the other hand, we are supposed to imitate all the saints who were "freed from the fetters of marriage" and consequently abandoned their spouses and under-age children so they could join a monastery or convent. A Josephite (i.e., physically barren) marriage is held up as better than a fecund marriage that produces numerous immortal images of God. Ignore those children and grand-children and great-grandchildren, the whole web of generational life of men and women who presumably would join their lower-rung saint-parents in praising God for all eternity. To all those thousands of generations of people, well to them, God, the Giver of Life, gives out lower-quality awards because those people actually... you know... physically participated in living out His image in their own bodies. 

That physical stuff, that's yucky. After all, it's not like God physically created man with His own hands out of dirt or anything... oh... well, it's still yucky. So even though they are divinized by the sacrament, married people are not as meritorious as the celibate people who aren't divinized by the sacrament, because, YAY CELIBACY! Which isn't, by itself, divinizing at all. 

Out of all the sacraments, the Catholic message on marriage is, perhaps, the most schizophrenic.

Does the Catholic Church Teach Pedophilia?

We know Muslims have no real issue with child marriage.

But we know Catholics are supposed to (1) obey the Church and (2) imitate the saints.

OBEY THE CHURCH

Check the 1983 Code of Canon Law.  Canon 1083 currently sets the age of marriage as 16 years of age for boys and 14 years of age for girls. This maintains the ages set in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1067. But, the 1917 code was a change from the pre-1917 code, which set the canonical ages of marriage at twelve for both ages (younger marriage was possible if the spouse had entered puberty). And for most of the Church's history, one could be betrothed to marriage by the age of seven, although younger betrothals were not uncommon. 

St. John Chrysostom (a Doctor of the Church) said young men should marry as soon as possible (before they turn 20), to keep them out of the whore houses and theaters.

Now, Catholics typically want their children baptized as infants (as early as possible), given first  Reconciliation and first Eucharist by age 7 (as early as possible), many Catholics want their children to be confirmed as early as possible (also age 7). 

For most of the Church's history, the canonical age for minor orders was seven to twelve. But, the canonical age for major orders was quite different: twenty-two for Subdeaconship, twenty-three for Deaconship, and twenty-five for the Priesthood, but there were exceptions. Pope John XI was perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four, and Pope John XII was not yet twenty-two. Reception into a monastery or convent was generally prohibited before age 15. 

The canonical age for Holy Orders is currently 25. Currently, a religious must be 21 in order to make final vows.

However, the canonical age for Holy Matrimony is 14 for women, 16 for men. So, why is marriage the only sacrament no one wants their children to receive at canonical age? 

Remember, Chesterton said tradition was allowing the dead to have a vote. Well, traditionally, the age of marriage was at minimum around 10 or 12. So, if you are a Chestertonian, you should support marriage at that age, right? 

And, remember, Chesterton was born in 1874. In an era when most people didn't know their exact birth date in the first place, British common law allowed girls to marry at 12 and boys at 14. In 1929, just seven years before Chesterton's death, the minimum age for a girl's marriage was set to 14 years (in India), 16 years (in England) and that for boys was fixed at 18 years.

Chesterton died in 1936. So, for most of Chesterton's life, the legal age of marriage for both the Church and the culture he lived in was 12 for girls, 14 for boys.  Chesterton would have had ZERO problem with a 12-year old woman marrying and consummating the marriage.

IMITATE THE SAINTS

    Betrothed at Age 10    

• In Confessions (Books 2 and 6), St. Augustine said his saintly mother had arranged for him to marry a 10-year-old girl when she became of legal age (i.e., 12). He was 30 years old at the time. He had been having sex since he was at least 16 (marriageable age was 12 for men too). He notes that his mother, St. Monica, could have arranged a marriage for him earlier to give him a legitimate outlet for his sexual urges, but she feared that marriage at that time would hurt his chances for a successful career.

    Married at Age 11

• Saint Frances of Rome, born 1384, married 1396, bore six children, 

    Married at Age 12

• The Blessed Virgin is assumed to have been about 12 to 14 when she got pregnant with Jesus. 
• Saint Godeleva married "very young"
• St. Rita married at age 12, bore two children
• Blessed Michelina of Pesaro, married age 12, bore one son, Pardino.
• Saint Frances of Rome, born 1384, married 1396 at age 12, bore three children.
• Blessed Jadwiga (aka Hedwig, Polish queen), born 1374, married 1386 at age 12, bore seven children
• Saint Hedwig of Silesia, born 1174, married 1186 at age 12. Her husband was between 16 and 21.
• Saint Joan of France, born April 23, 1464, married Sept 8, 1476 at age 12. Her groom was age 14.
• Marianne Frances, daughter of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal (d. 1641), married at the age of 12 to a 16-year old groom with her saintly mother's approval. 
• Blessed Thomas Percy, born 1528, married "at the age of eligibility" (i.e., 12 years old) to Anne Somerset. They had four children.
• Saint Elizabeth of Portugal married 20-year old King Dinis. She bore him a child at age 19.

    Married at Age 13

• Saint Melania the Younger, born 383, married 396 at age 13, bore two children. Her husband was 17.

    Married at Age 14

• Saint Kinga, born 1234, married 1248 at age 14.
• Blessed Mary of Oignies, married at age 14, never consummated.
• Saint Catherine of Vadstena, born 1331, married 1345 at age 14, never consummated.
• Saint Matilda, born 895, married 909 at age 14. Bore four children.
• Saint Bridget of Sweden, born 1303, married 1316, at age 13, consummated marriage 1317 at age 14, bore eight children, including St. Catherine of Sweden.
• Saint Elzear and Blessed Delphina.  Elzear was born 1285, Delphina 1282, married 1299, at ages 14 and 17 respectively.
• Saint Philip Howard, born 1557, married at 14 to Anne Dacre
• St. Elizabeth of Hungary married at age 14 to 21-year old Louis (Ludwig IV) Landgrave of Thuringia, and had her first child at age 15.

    Married at Age 15

• Edward Longshanks married at 15 to his 13-year old second cousin, Eleanor of Castile. They had 14 children. 
• Saint Joachima de Mas y de Vedruna, born April 16, 1783, married March 24, 1799 at age 15, mother of nine children.
• Saint Paula of Rome, born 357, married 372 at age 15 to a Roman senator, mother of five children.
• Blessed Virginia Centurione, born 1587, married at age 15 
• Saint Catherine of Genoa, born April 15, 1447, married January 13, 1463 at age 15.
• Blessed Seraphina, born 1434, married 1448 at age 15.
• Blessed Umiliana Cerchi, born 1219, married at age 15.
• Blessed Aleth and Tescelin, married at 15, had seven children (including St. Bernard of Clairvaux)
• Saint Adelaide of Burgundy, to 21-year old Lothair II of Italy.

    Married at Age 16

• Saint Adelaied, born 931, married 947 at age 16, bore five children.
• Saint Humility, born 1226, married 1242, at age 16
• Blessed Galeotto Roberto Malatesta, married at age 16.
• Blessed Louisa of Savoy, born Dec 2, 1462, Married 1479 at age 16.
• Blessed Victoria Rasoamanarivo was born in 1848 and married in 1864, at the age of 16.
• Blessed Mary of the Incarnation, born 1566, married in 1582 at age 16.
• Blessed Dorothy of Montau, born 1347, married 1363 at age 16.
• Blessed Joan Mary de Maille born 1331, married 1347 at age 16.
• Blessed Peter To Rote, aged 22, married 16-year old Paula Ia Varpit, who bore two children.
• Saint Thomas More, aged 27, married 16-year old Jane Colt, who bore four children.

    Married at Age 17

• Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, betrothed at age twelve, married at 17. bore two children.
• Saint Joan de Lestonnac, born 1556, married at age 17.
• Blessed Helena of Bologna, born 1472, married 1489 at age 17.
• Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, born 1271, married 1288 at age 17
• Saint Zdislava, born 1220, married at age 17. Mother of four children.
• Blessed Ida of Boulogne, born 1040, married 1057 at age 17, mother of three

QUESTIONS

So, if you are a faithful Catholic, are you preparing your children to joyfully accept the saving grace of the sacrament of marriage between the ages of 12 and 17? Are you encouraging them to marry before the age of 20, in imitation of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, and following the sage advice of a Doctor of the Church, in accordance with canon law?

Is it possible that the the problem of teen pregnancy is actually a problem involving the failure of Christians to prepare 12, 13, and 14-year-olds to be married between the ages of 14 and 16?

Even if it is not stressed, does the Catholic Church formally teach its adherents to accept marriage during the ages that the secular world would call "child marriage" and "pedophilia"? Is secular society correct about when to receive the sacrament, are the ancient laws, teachings and traditions of the Church wrong? Or is the Church correct and secular society the one that is wrong to prevent men and women in their teens from marrying? 

Does the Church instruct us to no longer imitate the saints? Are we to refuse the advice of the Doctors of the Church? Do we block our sons and daughters from being properly prepared to receive the eternal, life-giving grace of marriage at the age of 12, 13, 14, 15 or 16, when canon law has said, or currently does say, they are permitted to receive it? 

Traditionalists get upset when the Pope or the bishops say divorced spouses might still, under certain circumstances, receive the Eucharist, but they refuse the example and teachings of the saints, and look askance at the canons of the Church when it comes to encouraging teens to enter into marriage. Marriage is a sacrament. Why would you discourage or prevent its reception? 

A Timeline Leading To Middle-Eastern Crusades

The Crusades against Islam (as opposed to the Crusades against the Albigensians or the Crusades in Northern Europe) are commonly agreed to have occurred between 1095 and 1291.

• What happened prior to 1095? Well, Islam began it's expansion around 632. In that year, every piece of land which touched the Mediterranean was Catholic.
• By 647, Islam had begun to conquer North Africa. Crusade was not called.
• In 674, Islamic armies laid its first siege of Constantinople, capitol city of the Roman Eastern Empire. Crusade was not called.
• By 711, literally half of the Catholic Roman Empire had been conquered by Islam, and Islam had crossed the channel to invade Spain. Crusade was not called. For the next 600 years, Islamic armies would conquer most of the Iberian peninsula and fight Christian kings for control. Crusade was not called.
• 782, the Islamic invasion of Asia Minor began. Crusade was not called.
• 827, Arab Islamic armies attack and conquer Sicily. Crusade was not called.
• For the next two centuries, Islamic corsairs would raid all along the Spanish, French, Italian, Neopolitan and Asia Minor coast of Christian Europe, kidnapping and enslaving Christians. Crusade was not called.
• In 846, the Arab Muslims raided Rome. Islamic armies sailed up the Tiber, defiled the Church of St. Peter in Chains and St. Paul Outside the Walls, and attacked Rome itself. The papal response was to raise the wall around Rome, to make it one foot higher. Crusade was not called.
• The churches in Jerusalem were razed or defiled, with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher turned into a horse stable. Crusade was not called.
• Only when Muslims forbad Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem did the Popes finally declare that they had had just about enough of this, and declare Crusade.

Now, compare that to the modern situation. Can you imagine foreign armies invading the United States from the East, capturing every scrap of territory between the East Coast and the Mississippi river, laying siege to Los Angeles, raiding American cities all along the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi River, the West Coast and the Canadian border, and we don't respond militarily for four centuries?

That we don't respond even after they turn the Lincoln Memorial into a Chinese takeout, and destroy the Washington Monument? That we only respond militarily four hundred years later, when the stop America tourists from being able to visit Washington DC at all?

If you think the Crusades was unreasonable, then you must also have very serious objections to the US response after 9/11. And the reconquista of all that territory between the Mississippi and Washington DC... you would obviously object to American military force being used for that, right?