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.