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Catholic matrimonial |
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According to the fundamental theology of Roman Catholic Church, marriage, is called matrimony. Catholic Matrimonial considers matrimony as a permanent bond between a man and a woman that is created by human contract and sanctioned by divine grace. It is one of the seven sacraments and is generally celebrated in a Nuptial Mass. This is an agreement between two participants, one of which is a man and another a woman. The chruch sanctions that they be free to marry and that they willingly and knowingly enter into a valid marriage contract. The participants in a Catholic Matrimonial contract must be free to marry, and to marry each other. It means that they must be an unmarried man and woman, with no obstructions set out by Canon law. In the Catholic Church, it is consent that creates marriage.
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Both the man and the woman in a Catholic Matrimonial must be baptized before marriage. Marriage consent must be freely and validly exchanged. Consent is a human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other. If freedom is lacking, the consent is not valid. The husband and wife must validly carry out the marriage contract. In the Roman Catholic tradition, it is the spouses who are understood to assign marriage to each other. The spouses acting as ministers of grace confer upon each other the sacrament of matrimony by expressing their consent before the church. But this does not in any way eradicate the need for church involvement in the marriage. Under conventional circumstances, canon law requires the attendance of a priest or deacon and at least two witnesses for validity of a Catholic Matrimonial.
But this is different for the Eastern Catholic Churches, which follow the Eastern Orthodox beliefs regarding marriage. Therefore, the priest and not a deacon, is the minister of the sacrament. Through the act of "crowning" the couple with a pair of crowns while proclaiming that they are received into the Kingdom of Heaven exist in either cases. The vows are exchanged beforehand in the Byzantine ritual and are not binding. A marriage which was sufficiently defective if it does not meet the required criteria or any criteris is not valid. In such cases, the participants are considered not to have actually married.
Catholic theology proclaims that a validly contracted marriage is accompanied by divine confirmation, that eventually creates a permanent union until consummation, after which the marriage is completely nullified. An unconsummated marriage can in certain circumstances be dissolved by the Church through papal dispensation. Once a marriage is finished then, only a separation is possible. But, in generally, the marriage bond cannot be dissolved. Therefore, the term "divorce" has no meaning in the context of Catholic Matrimonial. An annulment is a declaration that the marriage was not valid at the time the vows were exchanged. In the cases of two baptized people, this also means that no sacrament ever took place. Annulment and divorce, therefore, are not the same thing in Catholic Matrimonial and differs in both in rationale and effect.
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