THE MEANING OF MARRIAGE
Part 3 in a series on the Catholic Social Teachings
Here I continue my series on the nine encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, known as the Catholic Social Teachings. You can find part one here, and part two here.
Published on February 10th, 1880, the third encyclical is titled On Christian Marriage.
As with all encyclicals, it is also named after the first word or phrase in Latin with which it begins. This one is also called Arcanum Divinae Sapientae, as it begins with this:
Arcanum, divinae sapientiae consilium, quod Salvator hominum Iesus Christus in terris erat perfecturus, eo spectavit, ut mundum, quasi vetustate senescentem, Ipse per se et in se divinitus instauraret.
In English, it reads as:
The hidden design of the divine wisdom, which Jesus Christ the Saviour of men came to carry out on earth, had this end in view, that, by Himself and in Himself, He should divinely renew the world, which was sinking, as it were, with length of years into decline.
It begins with the invocation of the mystery of God, and the message that a world in obvious decline must and can only be restored in Christ.
Later, it charges the Bishops of the Catholic Church with the mission to defend the sanctity of Christian marriage, after warning of the dire consequences of its corruption.
What does this mean in practice?
The first encyclical (linked below) showed how the restoration of our world must be founded on the truth, and demonstrated that the correct theory of knowledge is that which corresponds to the natural order created by God.
The second (also linked below) examined the nature and limits of human liberty - raising the question as to whether Man is good enough to be absolutely free. It asks as well - what liberty is it to be liberated into evil? We can see the evidence around us today.
This third encyclical also has one subject, but as with all the others, its explanatory power extends to those of the foundations of our civilisation. Like the others, Arcanum shows how reality itself is to be understood in accordance with the Divine order, and that the defection from this order is chaos.
The nine encyclicals of the Catholic Social Teachings condense some of the most luminous and precious wisdom ever written down.
They can be understood as many things - as a guide as how to live, to determine what is the truth, and perhaps most vitally at this moment - as a manual as to how to reconstitute our civilisation from the dissolving counterfeit culture which sought, and failed, to replace it by artificial design.
WISDOM VERSUS NOVELTY
Speaking of the Church and its teachings may seem outmoded to some. Why bother? Why even seek to explain these dusty old writings from a time before mass production in machines and meaning?
What could they possibly have to say to us, belonging as they do to a world which has all but vanished from the earth?
The evidence of the charges made in this encyclical is all around us. In many cases, it is in us as well. As Arcanum predicted, the corruption of the sanctity of Christian marriage has unleashed a process of moral and social degradation that is rotting our way of life.
Yet these powerful testaments to the eternal Truth do not leave us without consolation. To read them is to read well the secrets of our sinful hearts, and of the sickness prescribed as medicine by the now-disintegrating and wicked liberal system.
There is a light in the darkness that will never go out. Read the Catholic Social Teachings and you will be illuminated.
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