Contending For The Faith---Part 37

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month.  This is the next installment.

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.

Recovering Into Modernism

Pity Andrew Mioni of "Trad Recovery" (TR), a website of former Traditionalists (tradrecovery.com). Now a full blown Modernist and apologist of the Vatican II sect, he went on a YouTube channel run by "Kevin" who describes himself as "Catholic as an atheist Jewish man is still Jewish." During that video, Mioni decries those horrible Traditionalists. Forgive me if I shed no tears for Andrew. As one of his myriad complaints, I find it interesting that Mioni cites "sexual issues" that the Vatican II sect has "developed" and Traditionalists reject. (See the full video here: youtube.com/watch?v=4ciSP4nnANg). 

So what has the Vatican II sect developed regarding sexuality?  "Blessing" sodomites and allowing (de facto) contraception, to mention only two things. Now, Mioni has written a blog post entitled Did Vatican II really reverse the ends of marriage? (See tradrecovery.com/post/did-vatican-ii-really-reverse-the-ends-of-marriage). Although the Robber Council did not overturn the traditional teaching outright, it provided the groundwork for its subversion which has already taken place. The Vatican II sect teaching is opposed to the true doctrine of the Church. The heretical view on the ends of marriage is now in the sect's Canon Law and Catechism of Wojtyla (1992). 

In this post, Church teaching regarding the ends of marriage will be set forth, followed by the heretical position of Vatican II and Mioni's failed attempt at defending it.

The Teaching of the Church: The Ends of Marriage

The perennial teaching of the Church is enshrined in the 1917 Code of Canon Law: “The primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children; the secondary [end] is mutual support and a remedy for concupiscence” (Canon 1013, section 1).  It is also explicitly taught in many Magisterial documents:

For, first, there has been vouchsafed to the marriage union a higher and nobler purpose than was ever previously given to it. By the command of Christ, it not only looks to the propagation of the human race, but to the bringing forth of children for the Church, “fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God”; so that “a people might be born and brought up for the worship and religion of the true God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” (Pope Leo XIII, Arcanum Divinae, para. #10). 

No human law can abolish the natural and original right of marriage, nor in any way limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage ordained by God’s authority from the beginning: “Increase and multiply.” (Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, para. #12).

Thus amongst the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place. And indeed the Creator of the human race Himself, Who in His goodness wishes to use men as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when, instituting marriage in Paradise, He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” As St. Augustine admirably deduces from the words of the holy Apostle Saint Paul to Timothy when he says: “The Apostle himself is therefore a witness that marriage is for the sake of generation: ‘I wish,’ he says, ‘young girls to marry.’ And, as if someone said to him, ‘Why?,’ he immediately adds: ‘To bear children, to be mothers of families’.”

(Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, para. # 11). 

The primary purpose for marriage is procreation. Other purposes, such as mutual support and regulation of carnal desires, are not excluded, and indeed sometimes the primary end cannot be attained at all for reasons beyond the spouses’ control, but any other ends are necessarily subordinate to the primary end. Thus the traditional Catholic teaching is clear. 

Vatican II: The Attack on Matrimony

Beginning with the document Gaudium et Spes ("Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World"), Church teaching was undermined regarding Holy Matrimony. For the first time, instead of teaching about the "ends of marriage," the "benefits and purposes" of marriage are discussed. These "benefits and purposes" are written about without any distinction between which are primary and secondary, and no mention of any particular one(s) being subordinate to others. 

The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one. For the good of the spouses and their off-springs as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes. All of these have a very decisive bearing on the continuation of the human race, on the personal development and eternal destiny of the individual members of a family, and on the dignity, stability, peace and prosperity of the family itself and of human society as a whole. By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown. Thus a man and a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love “are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matt. 19:ff), render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union and the good of the children impose total fidelity on the spouses and argue for an unbreakable oneness between them. (para. #48; Emphasis mine). 

One may wonder, "Is that really a change in doctrine? Maybe the change is merely accidental and not substantial." From the record of the Council Fathers, we see that the intent of the Modernists was to change Church teaching:

Although a number of fathers took their stand firmly on the positions found in [Pope Pius XI’s] Casti connubii, others wanted a renewal in what the Church had to say about marriage and the family. The first two interventions illustrated the difference between the two approaches.

As soon as the debate began Cardinal Browne brought up for discussion the distinction between “the primary end, that is, the end which essentially determines the nature of the object of the conjugal covenant, namely, the procreation and rearing of children,” and “secondary ends, or essential concomitants,” namely, “mutual help and a remedy for concupiscence.” This statement would be repeated, as in a litany, by Ruffini and Alonso Muñoyerro. Immediately after Browne it was Leger’s turn to speak. While acknowledging that the new draft of the schema was better than the preceding one, he feared that in its present form its teaching would deeply disappoint the legitimate expectations of the faithful. The main defect of the schema was that it continued to describe marriage as “an institution ordered to the procreation and rearing of children,” instead of basing the description on the persons that marriage brings together into a community of life and love. According to the Archbishop of Montreal, to describe marriage as an institution in the service of procreation “is certainly both false and destructive of the dignity of love.” The need was to think within another perspective, that of “an intimate community of love.” (See Alberigo and Komonchak, eds., History of Vatican II, [2006], pgs. 154-155; Emphasis mine). 

The Modernists were seeking the overturning of the traditional concept of marriage. While the Catholic prelates fighting the Modernists were able to prevent it, they were unable to stop the watering down of Church teaching with the elimination of the clear and unambiguous concepts always used prior to the Robber Council. 

The next innovation comes from "Pope" "St." Paul VI when he taught a two-fold "meaning" of marriage with neither "meaning"  subordinate to the other, and lists the traditional ends of marriage in reverse order:

That teaching, often set forth by the Magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man’s most high calling to parenthood. We believe that the men of our day are particularly capable of seeing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle. (See Humanae Vitae, para. #12; Emphasis mine)

This led up to the memorialization of a false tenet in Wojtyla's 1983 Code of Canon Law with the ends of marriage inverted:

The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized. (Canon 1055, section 1). 

Quite logically, a new ground for annulment was manufactured by the Vatican II sect: the inability to live in union (whatever that means). It has also been referred to as "mental immaturity" and has generally been described as the "incapacity of fulfilling the burdens and obligations of marriage."

The "evidence" of this inability most generally comes in the form of "expert testimony" about the mental state and maturity of the parties, something entirely subjective and not able to be pinpointed to the time of the wedding. An annulment means the marriage was defective and invalid from its inception for once a Christian marriage is ratified and consummated, only death can break the marriage bond. When Vatican II ended, there were about 300 to 500 annulments granted worldwide. Now, about 60,000 are granted each year with roughly 60% coming from the United States. (See e.g., theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/the-vaticans-new-policy-on-annulments-the-first-hint-of-shake-ups-to-come/404182). 

When "the good of the spouses" is equal or superior to procreation as an end of marriage, use of contraception becomes de facto acceptable. Many Vatican II sect "priests" will tell penitents (the few who go to Confession at all) that it's not a sin. According to a Pew Research poll in 2024, an astounding 83% of Vatican II sect members in the U.S. approve of artificial contraception--- surpassed only by Argentina at 86%--most fittingly, the home of Bergoglio. 

(See pewresearch.org/religion/2024/09/26/many-catholics-in-the-us-and-latin-america-want-the-church-to-allow-birth-control-and-to-let-women-become-priests). 

Finally, we have Newsweek magazine reporting this in 2002:

... Catholics narrowly opposed legally sanctioned gay marriages, 47 percent to 44 percent, but they are more liberal than non-Catholics, 61 percent of whom don't think such marriages are a good idea. The arguments against it run from the conservative reading of Scripture to an abiding sense that the purpose of marriage from the Garden of Eden forward is procreation. This is a heartfelt position for many, but you could argue it another way. Isn't the role of the Church to encourage people to enter into stable relationships? The purpose of marriage, or "unions," or whatever we choose to call them, should be the establishment of a committed, loving family. Heterosexuals who do not reproduce are no less "married." Meanwhile Catholics in the United States are more likely than non-Catholics to accept a homosexual priest in a committed relationship with someone of the same sex, 39 percent to 29 percent. (See May 6, 2002 edition, page 29). 

Recently, from Pew Research:

In the United States, about six-in-ten Catholics (61%) said in a 2019 survey that they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry... In Western Europe, large majorities of Catholics said in 2017 that they support legal same-sex marriage. That was the case in the Netherlands (92%), the United Kingdom (78%), France (74%) and Germany (70%).(See https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/02/how-catholics-around-the-world-see-same-sex-marriage-homosexuality).

Ideas (especially heretical ones) have consequences.

Mioni's Feeble and Flawed Attempt to Salvage Vatican II

Andrew Mioni's blog post takes the position that Vatican II did not reverse the ends of marriage. He begins:

I can recall being told in my SSPX marriage classes that we “should have nothing to do with the Novus Ordo” because “they reversed the ends of marriage.” This is a fairly standard grievance in traditionalist circles against the “Novus Ordo church”- that traditionally, it was understood that having children and educating them was the primary end of marriage, and that mutual spousal support was the secondary end. This is reflected in the 1917 Code of Canon Law (canon 1013.1, to be precise). The implication of these ends being reversed was that children were now somehow "secondary" to your well-being, thereby weakening the importance of sacramental matrimony and providing a clear explanation for low birth rates, high divorce rates, and so on. (Yet another classic example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but that's for another time.)

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, is a logical fallacy, the name of which means "After this, therefore because of this." It is a fallacy in which an event is presumed to have been caused by a closely preceding event merely on the grounds of temporal succession. Example: "Every time after the rooster crows the sun comes up. Therefore, the rooster's crowing caused the sun to rise." Traditionalist are not arguing that because the teaching on the reversal regarding the ends of marriage came first in time, low birth rates and other evils necessarily followed. 

When the Modernist indoctrinated "priests" of the sect tell you that birth control is no big deal, that those living in open adultery can receive "communion" at the Novus Bogus bread and wine service, that sodomite "couples" can be "blessed," and "annulments" are easy to come by, people will get the idea that marriage is not nearly as sacred as once taught.  Holy Matrimony becomes about coupling and the happiness of the individuals, with children only a secondary consideration. Were there other factors that contributed to the evils of contraception and the rest? Yes. However, the case can be logically made that the change in Catholic doctrine was a primary cause (pun intended). 

Logicians will tell you, "For in many instances, a positive correlation, even a weak one that only has one instance, is a perfectly good and reliable indication that there may be a causal connection between two states of affairs." (See Walton, Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach, [2008], pg. 277). 

Mioni continues:

There is no disputing the fact that when the 1983 Code of Canon Law was promulgated, it did indeed list these two things in a different order (which is also quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in its section on matrimony):

Can. 1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.

There is a conspicuous difference, however; the terms “primary” and “secondary” have been dropped. In an effort to better express the Church’s teaching on marriage and not imply that one is more important than the other, the Church elected not to use these terms. As the Catechism says in paragraph 2366, "[C]onjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment."

But this article does not intend to get into the details of canon law and specific verbiage. It intends to respond to the claim that the church had always taught one thing and then changed her teaching. Is this actually the case? Does the 1917 Code of Canon Law reflect the norm of the Church at the time? (Emphasis mine).

Two points:

1. Mioni admits that of the two ends of marriage, one is not more important than the other.

2. He further claims this is NOT a change in teaching, but a "better expression" of what the Church has (allegedly) always taught. 

Mioni sets out to prove his case:

The often-cited encyclical Casti Connubii ("On Christian Marriage") from 1930, written by Pope Pius XI, says the following:

23. […] This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; [it] must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbor, on which indeed “dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets.”

24. This mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof.

Note several things here:

1) Pius XI says that matrimony is to be viewed "as a whole", as a "blending of life," and that to exclusively focus on having children and educating them would be to understand matrimony in a "restricted" sense.

2) He draws his teaching from the Roman Catechism, another name for the Catechism of the Council of Trent. What does it specifically say on this subject?

The Motives And Ends Of Marriage

We have now to explain why man and woman should be joined in marriage. First of all, nature itself by an instinct implanted in both sexes impels them to such companionship, and this is further encouraged by the hope of mutual assistance in bearing more easily the discomforts of life and the infirmities of old age.

A second reason for marriage is the desire of family, not so much, however, with a view to leave after us heirs to inherit our property and fortune, as to bring up children in the true faith and in the service of God.”

This is not only reflected in the Catechism of Trent. It is also in the Baltimore Catechism, which is the definitive Catechism in traditionalist circles. Volume 3, Question 1010 says the following:

Q. 1010. What are the chief ends of the Sacrament of Matrimony?

A. The chief ends of the Sacrament of matrimony are:

To enable the husband and wife to aid each other in securing the salvation of their souls (i.e., mutual support)

To propagate or keep up the existence of the human race by bringing children into the world to serve God (i.e., procreation and education of children)

To prevent sins against the holy virtue of purity by faithfully obeying the laws of the marriage state.

A final example, and one that may be the most surprising, is that it is also listed in this order in the Catechism of Pope St Pius X!

The Sacrament of Matrimony

Nature of the Sacrament of Matrimony

1 Q. What is the sacrament of Matrimony?

A. Matrimony is a sacrament, instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, which creates a holy and indissoluble union between a man and woman, and gives them grace to love one another holily and to bring up their children as Christians.

These examples should suffice to prove that the wording of the 1983 Code of Canon Law and of the current catechism is not without precedent, and in fact is supported by sources that traditionalists champion for their orthodoxy. This is not a "change in teaching" or a "reversal". It is clearly consistent with the Church's previous teachings.

Mioni seems to think that merely listing the ends in reverse order, in and of itself, somehow "proves" that Church always taught the ends of marriage are equal. 

First, the mere listing of the ends, without more, proves nothing. It was demonstrated that the change in the 1983 Code of Canon Law was a culmination of gradual changes in doctrine introduced by the Modernists at Vatican II. 

Second, at no place in any of those Catechisms cited will you see the ends of marriage spoken of as equal, nor is the primary purpose of marriage (procreation and education of children) denied. 

Most importantly, Mioni's citation to Pope Pius XI in Casti Conubii means the exact opposite of what he thinks it means.

According to theologian Sola, in the 20th century there arose certain authors (e.g., theologians Doms and Krempel) who proposed a theory that the essence of marriage consists it the mutual perfection of the spouses. For these (censured) theologians, the primary purpose of marriage is the spiritual coming together of the spouses. Therefore, from the union various "goods or fruits" are the result: personal fulfilment, and in the biological order, procreation and education of children, resulting in the total perfection of marriage. One of the arguments used to advance their untenable theory is the citation to the 24th paragraph of Casti Connubii cited by Andrew Mioni: "This mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, ..."

Theologian Sola then refutes the argument thus:

Regarding the document of Pius XI, it is true that those are the words of the Supreme Pontiff, but the whole context should be kept in mind. For the Supreme Pontiff says, "...it can be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof." (Emphasis in Original).

And so it is. For what these authors [theologians] are proposing pertains more to marital social living rather than to marriage considered in itself. (Emphasis in Original).

(See Sacrae Theologiae Summa, IVB,[1956], pgs. 153-154). 

Andrew Mioni simply doesn't understand his own sources, and stands refuted. However, theologian Sola cites the following decree of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office as a perfect finishing blow to those like Mioni:

Hence, the Holy Office published this decree:

[In certain writings it is asserted] that the primary purpose of matrimony is not the generation of offspring, or that the secondary purposes are not subordinate to the primary purpose, but are independent of it.

In these works different primary purposes of marriage are designated by other writers, as for example: the complement and personal perfection of the spouses through a complete mutual participation in life and action; mutual love and union of spouses to be nurtured and perfected by the psychic and bodily surrender of one’s own person; and many other such things.

In the same writings a sense is sometimes attributed to words in the current documents of the Church (as for example, primary, secondary purpose), which does not agree with these words according to the common usage by theologians.

This revolutionary way of thinking and speaking aims to foster errors and uncertainties, to avoid which the Most Eminent and Very Reverend Fathers of this supreme Sacred Congregation, charged with the guarding of matters of faith and morals, in a plenary session, on Wednesday, the 28th of March, 1944, when the question was proposed to them “Whether the opinion of certain recent persons can be admitted, who either deny that the primary purpose of matrimony is the generation and raising of offspring, or teach that the secondary purposes are not essentially subordinate to the primary purpose, but are equally first and independent," have decreed that the answer must be: In the negative.

(Ibid, pg. 154). 

Conclusion

Andrew Mioni of "Trad Recovery" has inadvertently proven the very thing he sought to refute: there was a substantial change in the teaching regarding the ends of marriage by Vatican II and the sect it created. The 1917 Code of Canon Law did accurately reflect the perennial teaching of the Church and Vatican II changed that teaching. Moreover, a universal disciplinary law such as the 1917 Code of Canon Law is infallible:

Proof: According to theologian Van Noort, "The Church's infallibility extends to the general discipline of the Church...By the term "general discipline of the Church" are meant those ecclesiastical laws passed for the direction of Christian worship and Christian living." (See Dogmatic Theology, 2: 114-115; Emphasis mine). 

According to theologian Herrmann:
"The Church is infallible in her general discipline. By the term general discipline is understood the laws and practices which belong to the external ordering of the whole Church. Such things would be those which concern either external worship, such as liturgy and rubrics, or the administration of the sacraments…. If she [the Church] were able to prescribe or command or tolerate in her discipline something against faith and morals, or something which tended to the detriment of the Church or to the harm of the faithful, she would turn away from her divine mission, which would be impossible."
(Institutiones Theologiae Dogmaticae, Vol. 1, p. 258)

Pope Gregory XVI teaches: "[T]he discipline sanctioned by the Church must never be rejected or be branded as contrary to certain principles of natural law. It must never be called crippled, or imperfect or subject to civil authority. In this discipline the administration of sacred rites, standards of morality, and the reckoning of the rights of the Church and her ministers are embraced." (See Mirari Vos, para. #9).

(I would also argue the traditional understanding of the ends of marriage is infallible as it is taught by the Universal and Ordinary Magisterium).

Hence, the perennial teaching of the Church that procreation and educating children is the primary purpose of marriage ("ordained by God’s authority from the beginning" as Pope Leo XIII teaches). The secondary end is subordinate to it. Yet Vatican II changed it. Now Andrew Mioni must be honest and draw the only logical conclusion: The Church cannot give that which is erroneous or evil to Her members. However, the new teaching on the ends of marriage contradicts the infallible and perennial teaching of the Church. The new teaching is heretical and evil. Therefore, it did not come from the Church but the man-made sect of Vatican II.

Pray for Andrew Mioni and the apostate Traditionalists of "Trad Recovery" that they may see the errors of Vatican II and come back to the Truth, no matter the cost. “For what doth it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”(St. Matthew 16:26).