2008 Woodie Awards
Sex is Sacramental
A Defense of Catholic Marriage
Chris Sparks
Issue date: 2/15/06 Section: Faith
The Catholic view of marriage has been unpopular for a while now. To mention just a few issues, the contemporary Church is faced with demands for gay marriage because permission to marry the person you love is considered a right by many; claims that its restrictions on divorce are too prohibitive and the annulment process causes unnecessary pain; a general view that the encouragement of large families and discouragement of birth control is ridiculous, outmoded and impractical. While on the surface all of these appear to be valid complaints, a deeper understanding of the Catholic concept of the nature of marriage reveals the source of the Church's stance.
Marriage is a sacrament in the Catholic Church, one of seven. These seven sacraments are all "visible signs of invisible realities" and ways in which God's grace acts. When the man and the woman speak the words of their marriage vow in the presence of a priest and then consummate their marriage through sex, they truly become one flesh (Genesis 2:23-24). The visible signs of the sacrament (the vows, the rings, sex) are the outward signs of the reality that these two people are now one. The man and the woman have entered into a covenant with one another, an exchange of persons, saying, "I am yours, and you are mine."
As Dr. Scott Hahn lays out in his book Swear to God, covenants can be made between men and women, humans and God, God and creation, nations, families, tribes, on and on. They can be signified through many physical symbols and acts, all of which indicate a reality as true and binding as anything material. The outward signs and the conditions of covenants vary. It is the nature of the marriage covenant that it can only be enacted between a man and a woman. It is, if done properly, a permanent state of relationship, and its natural end is a family. This definition of marriage as a sacrament and a covenant explains why the church holds the aforementioned controversial stances.
Take, for example, the Church's stance on gay marriage. Marriage is confined to a man and a woman because the act through which the marriage covenant is renewed, sex, has several fundamental characteristics. If properly ordered, sex will be a source of mutual pleasure, will result in the birth of children, and will renew the covenantal and sacramental bond between the two. If sex does not fulfill all of these purposes because of actions taken by the sexual partners, it fails to serve the purposes for which it was created by God. Gay sex cannot result in the production of children; hence, it is forbidden. Marriage in the absence of the sexual act is not marriage at all; gay sex is forbidden; hence, gay marriage is forbidden.
Marriage is a sacrament in the Catholic Church, one of seven. These seven sacraments are all "visible signs of invisible realities" and ways in which God's grace acts. When the man and the woman speak the words of their marriage vow in the presence of a priest and then consummate their marriage through sex, they truly become one flesh (Genesis 2:23-24). The visible signs of the sacrament (the vows, the rings, sex) are the outward signs of the reality that these two people are now one. The man and the woman have entered into a covenant with one another, an exchange of persons, saying, "I am yours, and you are mine."
As Dr. Scott Hahn lays out in his book Swear to God, covenants can be made between men and women, humans and God, God and creation, nations, families, tribes, on and on. They can be signified through many physical symbols and acts, all of which indicate a reality as true and binding as anything material. The outward signs and the conditions of covenants vary. It is the nature of the marriage covenant that it can only be enacted between a man and a woman. It is, if done properly, a permanent state of relationship, and its natural end is a family. This definition of marriage as a sacrament and a covenant explains why the church holds the aforementioned controversial stances.
Take, for example, the Church's stance on gay marriage. Marriage is confined to a man and a woman because the act through which the marriage covenant is renewed, sex, has several fundamental characteristics. If properly ordered, sex will be a source of mutual pleasure, will result in the birth of children, and will renew the covenantal and sacramental bond between the two. If sex does not fulfill all of these purposes because of actions taken by the sexual partners, it fails to serve the purposes for which it was created by God. Gay sex cannot result in the production of children; hence, it is forbidden. Marriage in the absence of the sexual act is not marriage at all; gay sex is forbidden; hence, gay marriage is forbidden.