Encyclical
of Pope Leo XIII Arcanum On Christian Marriage Feb. 10, 1880
19. Marriage has God for its Author . . . . is holy by its own power, in
its own nature, and of itself, it ought not to be regulated and administered
by the will of civil rulers, but by the divine authority of the Church.
. .
20. Next, the dignity of the sacrament must be considered, . . . it is
plainly absurd to maintain that even the very smallest fraction of such
power has been transferred to the civil ruler.
23. Let no one, then, be deceived by the distinction which some civil jurists
have so strongly insisted upon - the distinction, namely, by virtue of
which they sever the matrimonial contract from the sacrament, with intent
to hand over the contract to the power and will of the rulers of the State.
. . A distinction, or rather severance, of this kind cannot be approved;
for certain it is that in Christian marriage the contract is inseparable
from the sacrament, and that, for this reason, the contract cannot be true
and legitimate without being a sacrament as well. For Christ our Lord added
to marriage the dignity of a sacrament; but marriage is the contract itself,
whenever that contract is lawfully concluded.
24. Neither, therefore, by reasoning can it be shown, nor by any testimony
of history be proved, that power over the marriages of Christians has ever
lawfully been handed over to the rulers of the State.
29. Truly, it is hardly possible to describe how great are the evils that
flow from divorce.
39. . . . marriage was not instituted by the will of man, but, from the
very beginning, by the authority and command of God; . . . Christ, the
Author of the New Covenant, raised it from a rite of nature to be a sacrament,
and gave to His Church legislative and judicial power with regard to the
bond of union. On this point the very greatest care must be taken to instruct
them, lest their minds should be led into error by the unsound conclusions
of adversaries who desire that the Church should be deprived of that power.
41. . . no power can dissolve the bond of Christian marriage whenever this
has been ratified and consummated . . .
What are the merely civil effects of marriage?
Apostolic
Exhortation of Pope John Paul II On The Family, Familiaris Consortio
20. It is a fundamental duty of the church to reaffirm strongly, as the
synod fathers did, the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage.
46. . . . Institutions and laws unjustly ignore the inviolable rights of
the family and of the human person; and society, far from putting itself
at the service of the family, attacks it violently . . . Thus the family,
which in God's plan is the basic cell of society and a subject of rights
and duties before the state or any other community, finds itself the victim
of society, of the delays and slowness with which it acts, and even of
its blatant injustice. For this reason the church openly and strongly
defends the rights of the family against the intolerable usurpations of
society and the state.
Pope
John Paul - January 28, 2002
8. ... It could perhaps seem that divorce is so firmly rooted in certain
social sectors, that it is almost not worth continuing to combat it by
spreading a mentality, a social custom and civil legislation in favour
of the indissolubility of marriage. Yet it is indeed worth the effort!
Actually, this good is at the root of all society, as a necessary condition
for the existence of the family. Its absence, therefore, has devastating
consequences that spread through the social body like a plague.
9. ... Among the initiatives should be those that aim at obtaining
the public recognition of indissoluble marriage in the civil juridical
order. Resolute opposition to any legal or administrative measures that
introduce divorce . . . must be accompanied by a pro-active attitude, acting
through juridical provisions that tend to improve the social recognition
of true marriage in the framework of legal orders that unfortunately admit
divorce.