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PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, October 4,1973
VATICAN WEEKLY SAYS
Reports on Church Law, Loveless Marriages Wrong
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The Vatican
is trying to scotch reports that
Church law, now being rewritten, will
eventually consider a loveless marriage
null and void.
Such widespread reports-published
on both sides of the Atlantic-grew out
of a public speech by a consultor of the
Pontifical Commission for the Revision
of the Code of Canon Law, predicting
that the projected code of canon law
will invalidate any marriage contracted
with the intention on either party’s part
to exclude love from married life.
The consultor, Prof. Orio Giacchi of
Milan’s Catholic University, said in that
speech at the second International
Congress of Canon Law in Milan:
“The new Code of Canon Law will
lay down a norm establishing the nullity
of a marriage celebrated with the
exclusion of conjugal love.”
The Vatican weekly, L’Osservatore
della Domenica, complained that
Giacchi’s speech had been “badly
interpreted.” Some newspapers had
interpreted it to mean that a marriage
undertaken for any motive other than
love would be null. Elsewhere it was
taken to mean that a marriage drained
of all love became no marriage at all,
and was null, though Giacchi expressly
ruled that out in his speech.
The jurist who wrote in the Vatican
weekly, Giuseppe dalla Torre, accused
anticlerical newspapers in Italy of
seizing the norm for nullity that Giacchi
had unveiled and twisting it into an
attempt by the Vatican to compete with
civil divorce, which was introduced into
Italy just under three years ago.
Dalla Torre’s article did not quote the
crucial passage in Giacchi’s speech.
Although the article explained at great
length that Giacchi had been
misinterpreted, it left readers in the
dark as to exactly what the professor
had said.
That was probably because Prof.
Giacchi’s statement itself does not meet
with anything like universal approbation
within the Vatican. One key person
within the apparatus for the reform of
canon law told NC News that Giacchi’s
formulation was “unhappy.”
Where Giacchi speaks of the
exclusion of “conjugal love” from the
marriage contract as a basis for nullity,
the draft of the Church’s projected law
on marriage speaks of the exclusion of
“communion of life” as a basis for
nullity.
Giacchi told NC News that he used
the term “conjugal love” as a synonym
for “communion of life.” But both
terms, however valid they may be to
describe a basic element of marriage, are
extremely difficult to define in such a
way as to give the jurist a manageable
tool in judging whether a marriage is
null. That raises considerable doubt
about the eventual inclusion of either
term in a reformed code of canon law.
That is another aspect of Giacchi’s
speech that has raised eyebrows in the
Vatican. He spoke in the simple future,
predicting unconditionally that the new
code of canon law “will lay down a
norm establishing the nullity of
marriage.”
No one can predict that with any
degree of certainty. The commission to
which Giacchi is attached is a simple
study commission, even though it bears
the name “Pontifical Commission for
the Revision of the Code of Canon
Law.” It cannot revise. It can only
recommend revision. The Pope, or the
college of the world’s bishops acting
together with the Pope, is the legislator.
At this point in history it is not even
known whether the Pope will himself
enact the new marriage code, or
whether he will first submit it to the
world’s bishops for their opinion. If he
sends it to the bishops, as he is
universally expected to, it will not be
before 1974. Published reports that it
has already been circulated among the
bishops are false.
The part of current canon law to
which Giacchi referred in his speech is
the second paragraph of Canon 1086,
dealing with the parties’ consent to
marriage at the moment they marry.
The present law reads: “But if either or
both parties, by a positive act of the
will, should exclude marriage itself, or
every right to the conjugal act, or some
essential property of marriage, they
make an invalid contract.”
The essential properties of marriage
referred to in that canon are set down in
Canon 1013, paragraph two, as unity
and indissolubility.
Paragraph one of Canon 1013 states
that the primary end of marriage is the
procreation and education of offspring,
and that the secondary end is mutual
help and a remedy for concupiscence.
The revision of Canon 1086 proposed
by the Pontifical Commission for the
Revision of the Code of Canon Law
would identify another ground for
nullity, besides the exclusion of
“marriage itself, or every right to the
conjugal act, or some essential property
of marriage.”
It would be the exclusion of “the
right to communion of life.”
That is the element Prof. Giacchi calls
“conjugal love.”
The term “communion of life” is
found in the section on marriage (No.
48) of the Second Vatican Council’s
document on The Church in the Modern
World. This document is described by
the council itself as “pastoral.”
Giacchi referred in his speech to “the
diversity of approach and of
consequences between pastoral care and
canon law.” And the example he cited
of a pastoral notion was the
indispensability of love “for the moral
and spiritual value of marriage.”
He asked: “But is it possible from
that to conclude that within the
canonical order a marriage into which
one of the spouses has entered without
love is null?”
His own answer was no. And he later
expanded on that for NC News, saying
that a marriage in which one or both
partners had lost the love with which
they began the marriage was still
perfectly valid, although “unworthy.”
Giacchi in his speech held that such a
positive act of exclusion of love at the
moment of entering marriage would
have to be carried out “explicitly or
through the presence of circumstances
that contradict it,” that is, contradict
conjugal love. That section of Giacchi’s
speech clearly refers to judicial proof
necessary for a declaration of nullity.
Hands Across the 6 Age Gap
BEGAN IN RELIGION CLASS -- Michael D. The program began when Sister Ann sent two boys
Hornung of St. Monica’s School in Indianapolis talks from her religion class to talk to the elderly instead of
with wheelchair patient Robert Tillford at Three attending a class on life experiences. (NC Photo)
Sisters Nursing Home during a Red Cross club visit.
CHARGED WITH DEFAMING STATE’S BISHOPS
Conservative Catholic Weekly Draws Fire of Michigan Priests
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (NC) - The
president of the Michigan Federation of
Priests’ Councils (MFPC) has
complained to the Catholic Press
Association that THE WANDERER, a
conservative national Catholic weekly
published in St. Paul, Minn., has
defamed the Catholic bishops, priests
and people of Michigan.
MFPC president Father Charles E.
Irvin, a chaplain for Catholic students at
the University of Michigan, has filed a
complaint with the CPA concerning a
three-part series of articles by Farley
Clinton entitled “Notes on a Schism in
Michigan” and published in THE
WANDERER last October.
Among other things, the articles said:
“The bishops in Detroit are certainly
responsible for the task of instructing
Catholics in the doctrines of the Holy
Roman Church. But today the Catholic
people in Detroit are, as a whole,
shockingly ignorant of their religion,
and many priests and nuns know less
than anyone else. Just as in Holland,
you have a clergy today in Michigan
which hates Rome so that the teaching
of the Pope is dismissed without any
question.”
Of Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit,
the articles said: “Many people think he
is a major heretic, one of the worst the
Catholic Church has ever suffered from.
And of course there is a good deal of
evidence for that view.”
In a statement, Father Irvin said he
had asked A.J. Matt, Jr., associate editor
of THE WANDERER, to retract
statements made in the articles and
apologize for them.
The priest said that Matt “is certainly
aware of what constitutes libelous and
defamatory material but he is adamant
in his refusal to apologize and retract
Evidently he and Mr. Farley Clinton
fancy themselves to be the ecclesiastical
counterparts of Sen. Joseph McCarthy
and believe themselves to be
commissioned by God to ferret out and
crush anything that deviates from their
own hyper-orthodoxy, using any means,
however uncivilized, to accomplish their
purpose.”
Predicting that THE WANDERER
would withdraw from the CPA to avoid
censure, Father Irvin said such a
withdrawal “will be a moral victory for
the Michigan Federation of Priests’
Councils because THE WANDERER
will thereby place itself in isolation
from the responsible elements in the
Catholic press in the United States.
Virulent disease should always be placed
in isolation.”
“I frankly don’t know what Irvin’s
ploy is,” Matt told NC News. “His
charges seem to be a little late.
“At the time we supported in general
Clinton’s assertions,” Matt said, saying
the assertions had been “corroborated
by evidence we picked up
independently of Clinton.”
“It was pretty well our judgment that
Clinton’s articles were a fair assessment
of the situation in Michigan,” the editor
said.
Although there was “no formal
schism” in Michigan, Matt said, “all the
ingredients for schism” were there.
Quoting from an editorial the
newspaper ran at the time the articles
were published, he said that “there can
be little doubt that many Catholics are
confronted by priests who counsel them
to ignore the Church’s teachings . . .”
He cited the dismissal of Pope Paul’s
encyclical condemning artificial birth
control, Humanae Vitae, as an instance
of such counselling.
Matt said that “in the intervening
time, we see nothing to alter our
judgment.”
LIVERPOOL, England (NC) - A
telegram of blessing from Cardinal John
Matt said he does not subscribe to the
view that Cardinal Dearden is a heretic,
but said that the bishops of Michigan
have been too permissive in allowing the
expression of views contradicting those
of the Pope.
As far as the CPA is concerned, Matt
said, “Technically, we’re not a member
of the CPA anymore.” Although THE
WANDERER has not formally
withdrawn from the association, he said,
he has not paid dues for this year.
There was a “substantial increase” in
dues this year, he said, and he
concluded that the “steep price for
membership” was bringing THE
WANDERER a “rather thin return by
way of tangible benefits.”
The CPA is primarily structured to
serve the diocesan press, he explained.
“We’re an independent paper, not
operating as a religious, non-profit
corporation. The lobbying efforts of the
CPA do not apply to us. We pay the
standard freight paid by any second
class mailer.”
Heenan of Westiminster was read at the
wedding of Pat Whelan and John
Skelland, held recently at St.
Philomena’s church here.
Fifteen years ago the cardinal, then
archbishop of Liverpool, gave the bride
her first Communion at the Marian
shrine at Lourdes, France.
Pat’s mother, Mrs. Maude Whelan,
was badly injured in a wartime air raid
on Liverpool. Her only child then, a
three-year-old infant, died in her arms.
Mrs. Whelan has spent most of the
rest of her life in a wheelchair, but
became the mother of two more
children--Tom, born three years after his
mother was injured, and Pat, bom in
1951.
When expecting Pat, Mrs. Whelan was
advisted by doctors to have the
pregnancy terminated because of the
risk to her own life. She refused and the
child was born safeiy.
Later, Mrs. Whelan and her husband,
Tom, a Lourdes stretcher-bearer, went
on a British Broadcasting Corporation
television program on abortion after
Archbishop Heenan told her: “You can
speak with better authority than me on
the mother and child issue.”
Since then Mrs. Whelan has
campaigned publicly against Britain’s
Abortion Act, which in practice permits
abortion on demand.
He emphasized that the paper’s
technical withdrawl had nothing to do
with Father Irvin’s complaint.
CPA executive director James A.
Doyle said the priest’s complaint had
(NOTE: In the following article the
use that is presently being made of the
St. Benedict’s School building,
Savannah, is explained for the Catholics
of the Diocese and of Chatham County
who may be wondering what became of
the school building after St. Benedict’s
school was closed in 1970. The article
was written by Mr. Jerry Hagan,
Director of a program in operation at
the school.)
The Chatham County Day Center,
located in St. Benedict’s parish school
building at 552 East Gordon Street, is a
program of the Court Services Section
of the State Department of Human
Resources. The program provides an
alternative to the institutionalization of
boys between the ages of twelve and
seventeen who have been adjudicated
delinquent by the local juvenile court
and committed to the custody of the
State.
Rather than being placed in a State
Youth Development Center, the boys
are allowed to remain in their own
home. This allowance is made provided
the youth attends the Day Center.
been passed along to the association’s
Fair Publishing Practices Committee,
which will make an evaluation and
recommendation to the executive
board. This would be done by January,
he said.
If the youth refuses to attend or gets
into further difficulty with the law, he
is transferred to a State institution.
At the Day Center the boys are
involved in a school curriculum,
recreation, counseling, and “cultural
enrichment.” Activities the boys engage
in include camping, basketball,
mini-bike riding, swimming, and the
publishing of a school paper.
Many activities have been paid for
through the boys own efforts. They
have sponsored car washes, doughnut
sales, and the sale of toys to provide
funds for various activities.
The counseling aspect of the program
emphasizes the importance of personal
resonsibility for one’s own behavior.
Personal responsibility implies a
conscious choice and a consequence
stemming from that choice.
The Day Center Staff tries to convey
to the youth that his actions are the
result of a decision on his own part and
that he pays the price or receives a
reward as a result of his own decision.
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Wedding that Almost Wasn’t
MISS JOYCE STILES, instructor at the Chatham County Day Center
supervises work of three students in classroom of the former St.
Benedict’s parish school, Savannah.
IN SAVANNAH
Closed School Still Serves