But in marriage, better a Church of the pure

Like Fr Jim, I cheered Cardinal Bergoglio’s view — also Pope Benedict’s — about the importance of liberality in granting access to the Sacrament of baptism. Infants cannot be disqualified, because there are no proper grounds for disqualifying the innocent, even if their parents show little sign of faith. But in marriage, I think the Church should be tighter in whom it allows to the Sacrament.

I know of many priests who tell me that they have married couples whom they know, from their long pastoral experience, are ill-suited, and are going into marriage for the wrong motives or with inadequate preparation. One priest friend always writes a note, which he leaves with the church records, explaining his reservations, so that if the couple later seeks an annulment it’ll likely be a slam dunk. He says he is helpless to refuse the Sacrament, because the baptised have a right to it — as long as they have attended the pre-marriage course, which in most parishes is just a few evenings.

To which you might say: What’s the problem? Better to leave it to Grace and the Holy Spirit. And if that fails, there is always the annulment process.

Except that there are others involved — especially the children that result. Growing up, as I did, in a household scarred by the deep unhappiness of marital breakdown (an unhappiness almost without parallel in human existence, with profound psychologcial consequences for children), it’s hard for me to share that view.

The Church teaches that there are two essential vocations — one religious and clerical, the other marriage — and both are routes to salvation. Yet the Church applies strict criteria about whom it allows to the first, carefully discerning, through vocation programmes and novitiates, whether it is really God calling them to a life of vows. But with marriage, a few hours in a parish marriage preparation course and a chat with a priest are enough; and if they’re not enough, the priest has little choice anyway but to marry the couple.

I’ve raised this issue over the years in conversation with many priests and other Catholics and never got a good answer. Perhaps the comment boxes will supply one. The only substantial objection to restricting the Sacrament of Marriage is that there might be couples whom God really is calling to marriage, yet a priest blocks them. But this happens with vocations, too. If the vocation is there, they’ll keep knocking, and the door will eventually open. Why is this not true of marriage? A couple really determined to marry can always do so civilly, and after a time, when it’s clear that it’s working, the priest can have no objection to marrying them sacramentally.

At least this way, fewer children will be born to discord. Catholic divorce rates would plummet. And it would be easier to take seriously the Church’s belief that both religious vocations and marriage are equally paths to salvation.