THE REASON AND PURPOSE OF MATRIMONY by Matthew Buckley

The controversy that has arisen is the charge that the “good of the spouses” has now taken an equal place alongside that of the procreation and education of children in the ends of matrimony, and that this represents a change in the Church’s teaching. This assertion is deserving of a critical response.

Before discussing these passages in detail, the history of the matter requires some reflection. The Church had typically spoken of the ends of marriage in a hierarchical manner, ordering them as primary or secondary and emphasising the subordination of the secondary to the primary end. Now, in Gaudium et Spes, the section on matrimony does not contain this traditional terminology. This fact is cited as evidence that the Church has radically changed her understanding on the matter.

The claim that Gaudium et Spes represents a retreat by the Church on this teaching is one that has already been responded to by the Magisterium, which rejected this weakly-founded interpretation of the conciliar text. In a doctrinal note on the book Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated the following, appealing to the comment of the theological commission on the text during the drafting stages of Gaudium et Spes:

“Furthermore, in regard to the teaching of Vatican II, we note here another mistaken notion. This book repeatedly states that the Council deliberately refused to retain the traditional hierarchy of primary and secondary ends of marriage, opening ‘the Church to a new and deeper understanding of the meaning and value of conjugal love’ (p. 125 and passim). On the contrary, the Commission of the Modi declared explicitly, replying to a proposal brought forward by many Fathers to put this hierarchical distinction into the text of n 48, ‘In a pastoral text which intends to institute a dialogue with the world, juridical elements are not required… In any case, the primordial importance of procreation and education is shown at least ten times in the text’ (cf. nos. 48 and 50).”22

In other words, the Council keeps intact this teaching, which is evidently brought out by the text whilst refraining from using the hierarchical terminology, not because it is rejecting it as wrong, but because of the pastoral nature of a document issued to the whole world. As we shall see, this general approach has been retained by the Magisterium since that time. For the Code of Canon Law in turn makes no mention of this hierarchical language, but rather states nothing with respect to priorities. It does, however, list “the good of the spouses” first, which would appear to be the foundation of the claim that it is out of accordance with tradition.