In the wake of the supreme decisions of this week, I would like to return to a question I have Asked before: Are we coming to a point where we should consider dropping our use of the word “marriage?”Posted on 06/27/2013 5:14:21 PM PDT by markomalley
In the wake of the supreme decisions of this week, I would like to return to a question I have Asked before: Are we coming to a point where we should consider dropping our use of the word “marriage?”
It is a simple fact that word “marriage” as we have traditionally known it is being redefined in our times. To many in the secular world the word no longer means what it once did and when the Church uses the word marriage we clearly do not mean what the increasing number of states mean.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines “Marriage” (i.e. Holy Matrimony) in the following way:
The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament (CCC # 1601)
The latest actions by numerous states and the hat-tip that the Supremes gave Same sex unions mean that increasingly, the secular world’s definition of marriage no longer even remotely resembles what the Catechism describes.
To be fair, as we have previously noted, this is not the first redefinition of marriage that has occurred in America. The redefinition has actually come in three stages:
Proposal: So the bottom line is that what the secular world means by the word “marriage” is not even close to what the Church means. The secular world excluded every aspect of what the Church means by marriage. Is it time for us to accept this and start using a different word? Perhaps it is, and I would like to propose what I did back in March of 2010, that we return to an older term and hear what you think.
I propose that we should exclusively refer to marriage in the Church as “Holy Matrimony.”
According to this proposal the word marriage would be set aside and replaced by Holy Matrimony. It should be noticed that the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to this Sacrament formally as “The Sacrament of Matrimony.”
The word “matrimony” also emphasizes two aspects of marriage: procreation and heterosexual complementarity. The word comes from Latin and old French roots. Matri = “mother” and mony, a suffix indicating “action, state, or condition.” Hence Holy Matrimony refers to that that holy Sacrament wherein a woman enters the state that inaugurates an openness to motherhood. Hence the Biblical and Ecclesial definition of Holy Matrimony as heterosexual and procreative is reaffirmed by the term itself. Calling it HOLY Matrimony distinguishes it from secular muddle that has “marriage” for its nomen.
Problems to resolve – To return to this phrase “Holy Matrimony” is to return to an older tradition and may sound archaic to some (but at least it isn’t as awkward sounding as “wedlock”). But clearly a new usage will be difficult to undertake. It is one thing to start officially referring to it as Holy Matrimony. (Which, by the way I have done in my parish – we no longer prepare people for marriage, but for “Holy Matrimony”) But it is harder when, for example, a newly engaged couple approaches the priest and says, “We want to be married next summer.” It seems unlikely we easily train couples to say, “We want to enter Holy Matrimony next summer.” or even just to say, “We want to have a wedding next summer.” Such dramatic changes seem unlikely to come easily. Perhaps you, who read this blog can offer some resolutions to this problem.
Perhaps, even if we cannot wholly drop the terms “marry, ” “marriage” and “married” a more modest form of the proposal is that we at least officially discontinue the use of the word marriage and refer to it as the “Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.”
What do you think? Do we need to start using a new word for marriage? Has the word been so stripped of meaning that we have to use different terminology to convey what we really mean?
When I proposed this two years ago this very time, many of you we rather unconvinced and some were even perturbed that we were handing on over our vocabulary to the libertines. That may be, but we already know that “gay” will never mean what it used to, and it would seem that “marriage” will never again mean what it did.
A secondary but related proposal is that we begin to consider getting out of the business of having our clergy act as civil magistrates in weddings. Right now we clergy in most of America sign the civil license and act, as such, as partners with the State. But with increasing States interpreting marriage so differently, can we really say we are partners? Should we even give the impression of credibility to the State’s increasingly meaningless piece of paper? It may remain the case that the Catholic faithful, for legal and tax reasons may need to get a civil license, but why should clergy have anything to do with it?
Frankly, I am uncomfortable signing DC Marriage licenses, and do so only because my Ordinary has indicated we should continue doing this. I am happy to obey him in this and defer to his judgment in the matter. There is a reason his is the Ordinary and I am not. That said, I have told him what I think. But for now, it seems clear we must stay the course and still sign them until the Bishop says, no more.
If we did stop signing civil licenses, we would surely need a strong catechesis directed to our faithful that reiterates that civil “marriage” (what ever that means anymore) is not Holy Matrimony and that they should, in no way consider themselves as wed, due to a (meaningless) piece of paper from a secular state that reflects only confusion and darkness rather than clarity and Christian light.
Here too, what do you think? Should the Catholic Bishops disassociate Catholic clergy from civil “marriage” licenses?
So do I. Instead of a “wedding”, you could have a “Celebration of Holy Matrimony”. That distinction could give the cake bakers a way around the onslaught being unleashed on them.
I suppose that priests and ministers would have to forgo signing the legal paperwork. A “Certificate of Union in Holy Matrimony” would be a separate document, like a baptismal certificate, issued by the church. We need to find more succinct terminology for all this, but I guess that is where it will have to go.
That is already what happens (except the State license is signed as well). A certificate is given and the spouses' records in their respective baptismal registries are annotated with the date they received the sacrament.
But please bear in mind what I said in post #15: the sodomites will start whining that it's not fair that they can't have ___(whatever term you come up with____. Think I'm kidding? See this thread with an op/ed published by a sodomite shortly after the NY law was changed a couple of years ago.
What about calling it hetero-marriage (vs homo-marriage)? As in, My hetero-marriage is a Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
I agree with all of that, but I suggest that the cake bakers and the florists go ahead and accept all the gay wedding business...”the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous” after all......
I second that but, the words husband and wife are also being redefined.
Joe + Joe = husband and husband
There are tax advantages, too, since our overlords have decided that legally married people should be punished financially.
I agree with you except that I think it is much more malicious than whining. They are going to try to legislate religious doctrine. We can only hope the SCOTUS draws the line there.
Remember, the National Cathedral is NOT Catholic, it's Episcopal, and those folks went crazy years ago.
I remembered that the church is Epicopalian. Actually I’m not Catholic either, still curious as to how far they will go to spit in God’s face.
What baffles me is the argument. 87 congress members and a president are racist because sodomizers have rights ?
The Chief Justice can set the rule of the the arguments of merit to the case before the court. It’s done every day it’s known as “the judge won’t allow”. Because the administration now favors “gay marriage” I wouldn’t expect what could be called a healthy defence from them. Sodomy wasn’t the issue . The issue was protecting the integrity and intention of a basic unit of society through a mechanisim known as marriage to encourage familys.
What should we expect from a political party which itself has gone through a marriage with one world socialist radicals known to many as communists who can’t even use the word God. They’ve hyphenated into Demo-Coms.
No just because a radical bunch have taken over and edicts changes in customs and values to conform to their idology should we set back and accept it. Time to stand up and be counted.
This is a good idea. We Christians need to talk about Christian marriage. And those bakers and florists who are now getting sued for not providing for “gay weddings” need to make clear they only provide services for “Holy Matrimonies.”
“Holy Matrimony suggests that other Marriages are Un-Holy and makes those people fell bad. Thus the Catholic Church is Unconstitutional”. - Injustice Anthony Kennedy, some time in the next few years.
Catholic ping!
Hmmmm...What would we use to replace the verb, “to marry?”
(Also thinking about all the forms we have to fill out asking if we are single, married, etc...)
“You must not give that which is holy to dogs”
-Matthew 7:6
Ever hear of the "marriage penalty?"
You get taxed less and receive more government largess if you are NOT married.
Why do you think there are so many "single mothers?" Single-motherhood is now right up there with sainthood.
Then they will start using that term for themselves. There’s no limit to the ways the language can be enslaved and distorted.
Single-motherhood is a separate issue.
Couples get benefits by being married, from visitation and medical authority in hospitals to inheritance to sharing insurance to preferential insurance rates. There’s a reason that gay couples want to marry rather than enter into separate individual contacts to get those bennies.
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