PASTORAL LETTERS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 9, 4 March 1909, Page 332

PASTORAL LETTERS

ARCHDIOCESE QF WELLINGTON

(Concluded from last week.)

Whence came the' great social revolution which reversed the servitude of woman and enabled her to share in equal degree the restoration of man? From the cave of Bethlehem. When the Creator and Redeemer, coming in man's own likeness, living and dying, teaching and suffering for him, claimed him as His own, and disclosed to him his inheritance, woman recovered her rank too. When man had been discrowned, she had been enslaved; for the discrowning had been in some sense her special work, and she had been the mother by her own fault of a degraded race. In virtue of that birth in the cave of Bethlehem, and of that Child Who was Man Himself, but Son of woman alone, the Christian woman at once took a rank no longer merely relative and dependent, but absolute and her own, as' co-heiress with' man in all Christian rights and promises. In the beginning of man's history, the messenger of darkness had tempted and overcome the first woman, and severed the bond which united her race with its Maker; many thousand years later, the messenger of light appeared to that second Woman. Once more the whole lot of man hung upon a creature; but she did nob sink under the burden; rather, armed with incomparable humility, she bore the destiny of the race entrusted to her up to the very throne of God; a Divine Person became her Son, and she, by accepting the rank of Virgin Mother, restored to her sex, so long a byword for weakness and untrustedness, far more than the honor it had lost. Eve, the occasion of her husband's disinheritance and her children's fall, "marks the position held by woman through all the centuries prior to Christ, which are simply the carrying out of the Fall in its consequences. Mary, the Virgin Mother of the Redeemer, establishes through all generations of her children the absolute rank arid'place of woman. In the society founded by Mary's Son woman takes equal rank with man, as a human being, joint partner with him of the promises made and the inheritance bequeathed. . Man and woman then being first restored in themselves, marriage, the primary relation of- society, is restored to them. Marriage in its first idea was not a civil contract, the work of man naturally yearning for society, but the institution of "God created in view of the Incarnation as future in time, but pre-determined before all things; so that the words spoken by Adam under Divine inspiration when -first beholding his wife brought to him by his Creator, had a secret but a certain reference to the act of that Creator in Himself espousing human "nature. And" the seven attributes which belong to Its original institution, as stated above, were given to it as an image of the Incarnation, yet" future and undisclosed. For the restoration of marriage it was only requisite to unfold the latent Sacrament. Thus the natural society of man and woman was viewed as the germ of the sacred society of man redeemed; the natural propagation and education of the race became the nursery for the corporeal increase of the Church. Because it would not profit tlie offspring to be born -unless it were reborn, since in the words of St. Augustine, it' is born into punishment unless it be reborn unto life.

The subordination of woman to man is consecrated by the relation which the woman bears to the Church and the man to Christ; and so their mutual affection' represents the mutual affection of the Bridegroom and the-" Bride. The bond of marriage is indissoluble, because the Church is the spouse for ever, who "may never be repudiated; it is one, because there cannot be two Churches or' two Christs ; it holy; because holiness is the end of the whole union between Christ and His Church. In all, these the" natural relation becomes supported by supernatural assistance, and is the image of a Divine original; and so all the qualities of marriage as it exists in the law of nature obtain by virtue of the Sacrament their highest - perfection. This is that great Sacrament of Marriage which the Church first set forth to the world at its age of utmost impotence and incontinence, under Tiberius and Nero, the wife murderers; which she impressed on all the Divine society in the fac9 of the degenerate heathen and luxurious carnal Jew; which she guarded against the wild force and -untamed passions of the northern barbarians when they broke in upon the civil polity of the Empire; which the Sovereign .Pontiffs, at the first creation- of modern society, made the public law of Europe; which they maintained unbroken and' respected against reluctant kings, ever ready to throw off a yoke that bound them to an equality with the weaker sex, and repelled the caprice of passion and the appetite of change. Thus the restoration of the society of man and woman rested on the Incarnation, being in all its parts a copy of that great fact. Marriage is the transition point from man as individual to man as a race. The Incarnation put the seal on the individual and on society. Christ, according to St. Cyril, came to the marriage feast of Cana, to bless the beginning of human life, and, being the joy and delight of all men, to reverse the former punishment of woman that she "should bear children in sorrow. (In Joan., c. 2, I. Tom., iv., 135). And it was most fitting that He wrought His first miracle at the intercession of the Virgin Mother. But theory is widely different from practice. The statements of the Church" concerning marriage were no dead letter in her sacred jrecords, to gaiil the admiration of the student or the praise of the philosopher. They were printed on' the ' minds and actions of men ; they formed the tissue of every-day life. She grafted the natural properties of marriage upon a Divine Sacrament, and she declared the marriage of Christians insoluble. Hence she came at once into ' collision ' with the heathen Roman jvorld, in which the repudiation of the marriage bond was a most ordinary occurrence ; and in which the Imity of marriage was broken by the universal license practised by men -with slaves and others. The Church had to oppose public opinion, universal custom, degraded nature, and the strongest human passions. She had to eliminate from society a host of abominations, all tending to diminish the fertility of the human race, and to destroy life in its earlier or later stages. She undertook the gigantic task and she succeeded — the strongest test of her might and influence as a society, in the face of the utmost possible preponderance of material power, wealth, and authority. She rolled back^the tide of pollution, she" established the basis of all social life, the unity and indissolubility of 'marriage. She took each soul in the secret of its conscience, held before it a Divine Original, won its love for an uncreated beauty, and its imitation of a transcendent example. With the power of a Sacrament she knit together the decayed, the well-nigh pulverised foundations of social life, and built them up with the solidity of a rock, able to bear the whole superstruction of the City of God. Three centuries after Tacitus had denounced Christians as the enemies of the human race, and despaired of Rome's moral life, St. Augustine tells us : 'A marriage once entered upon in the City of God, where, even from the first union of two human beings, nuptials carry a Sacrament, can in no. -way be dissolved, save by the death of one.' And again : ' The good of marriage consists, among all .nations and all men, in the generation of children, and in the fidelity of chastity; but as respects the people of God likewise in the sanctity of the Sacrament, by 'virtue of which it is a crime even for a repudiated woman to marry another while the husband lives, though it were done only to have offspring; for this being the only object of marriage, yet even if it do not ensue the' nuptial bond is not dissolved save by the death of the spouse (S. Aug. ede b(mo Conjugii, 17 and 32'). At the disruption of the Roman Empire' by the barbarian hordes and the destruction of most of its civilisation, the Church stood unbroken amid the ruins. All things fluctuated save her Divine hierarchy, her teaching, and her Sacraments. After a varied and terrible struggle, whose details no one can trace, she brought the long-haired kings to wear Christian crowns and to be anointed within cathedrals; and, in spite of their savage instincts and

passions, she caused them to stoop to the gentle Sacrament of Marriage, and to acknowledge the nuptial bond as one, holy, and indissoluble. Throughout Spain, France, England, Germany, in the halls of the kings and in the cottage of their serfs, one wife was recognised, in rank her husband's equal, whose place during her life -none could take. Then for a period of five hundred years these new monarchies formed a stable alliance with the Church older' than themselves^ Frequently they exerted their utmost power and the alliance of their sovereignty with the Church, m order, if it might be, to corrupt the judgment of their Father, the Pope, in the affairs of their domestic life reserved to his cognisance. One slighted queen appeals from her husband to the universal justice of Rome for restitution of her conjugal rights; another, wrongfully divorced, fears to be supplanted by a younger and fairer - rival; a third has to defend the sterility of her marriage against a husband greedy for heirs; in all these, and similar cases, never did the Popes consent to sacrifice the indissoluble bond of marriage for fear or for reward. It stands recorded to their eternal honor that they suffered a powerful kingdom, and still more powerful race destined to dominion,to break away from their obedience, rather than surrender the right of one deserted wife; for in her right lay the right of all wives, and the sanctity of all marriage. And now we live in a period of entirely different tendencies. Not kings only, not 'the rich and the noble, but society as such is striving to emancipate itself from any law but one self-imposed — a law, not of Christ, but of its own, with parts gathered from paganism, and parts- retained from Christianity, the end of which, as it conceives, would be social ease «nd comfort, material wealth, and worldly prosperity. Humanity, with the resources bestowed upon it by centuries of Christian faith and practice, rises up against anything above itself. It calls law the expression of the general will, not the command of One. reverenced as superior, not the choice of One loved as good. Before this spirit of self-will assuming the guise of liberty, and sweeping over modern nations as the flame over the prairies, the Church maintains still the self-same— law of marriage, as the last defence of the weak against the strong, the last rampart of the family and of society against their invaders. When that mighty and commanding genius, that Caesar of modern times, the symbol and embodiment of his age, Napoleon, called upon Pope Pius VII. to annul the marriage of his brother, Jerome Bonaparte, with Miss Patterson, as beneath his soaring ambition, the Sovereign Pontiff, after thorough examination "of the circumstances, declared it was impossible for him to annul it; thus proclaiming again, in the noblest manner, that no seduction and no threat could induce him to dissolve a legitimate marriage, though the mightiest ruler on earth was the postulant, and a Protestant of humble degree the wife assailed (see letter of Pius VII to Napoleon, June 27, 1805). Now to complete the demonstration by contrast. Look around and outside of the one Church, you will find no civilised nation, no uncivilised tribe of man, in possession of the complete Christian marriage, in its unity, sanctity, and indissolubility. The Turk, the Hindoo, Uie Chinese, are polygamists. Their domestic life inspires one with horror. The Jew, wherever the law of the land permits it, as far as his own law is concerned, is a polygamist and a divorcer. So much for the civilised non-Christian man. Among the uncivilised races the old heathen abominations prevail. Nay, take nations which boast of being in the van of civilisation, and leading the march of progress in science and art, whose pride is self-government, liberty; but which have rejected the gentle rule of the Church. We see them all incapable of maintaining the perfect Christian marriage, its unity, sanctity, and indissolubility. Already three centuries ago the very patriarchs of the revolt met in council in order to allow a princely adherent, who dutifully laid before them the confession of his incontinence, the privilege of a second wife. And now divorce prevails in a frightful degree, and with appalling increase in Protestant nations; Even the Greek and Russian communions allow it; so that there is no marriage sacred and indissoluble upon earth, save where, to use again St. Augustine's words, ' from ' the first union of two human beings nuptials carry a Sacrament, in the City, among the people of our God.' As the ancient civilisation was powerless to prevent unspeakable abominations, so the modern — forthwith when it leaves the sanctuary of the Church — becomes unable to sustain the idea and practice of Christian marriage; and only the one the holy, the perpetual Spouse of Christ can uphold the nuptial bondjjf which she bears the mystery in herself.

To sum up, the Church has restored the position of woman in four great points: (1) As a human creature she

has taken a rank by man's side unknown to the Greek, to the Persian, the Roman, the co-heiress of all his hopes, of all the Divine promises; (2) as a wife -and companion- of man, her subordination has been preserved, but" an impress of a glorious likeness, full at once of exaltation and tenderness, -has been set upon it ; (3) as .the mother of the family, the creatrix of that home so dear to man, which neither Athens in ier science, nor Rome in her * power possessed ; (4) as the nurse and educator " of her race and man's, in that primary and precious education upon which the future growth and perfection of man depend. Marriage is the germ of human society; the family, tribe, nation, are but expansions of it in one line; the village, the town, the city, the league, th« Empire, are but aggregations of it. It is the spring of man's social growth, the point at which individuals combine to" make the race. Accordingly, a false idea of it corrupts the whole social structure. Never was there a people great or good in which the marriage-bond was defective. In the work of Christian marriage^ the Creator arid Redeemer were revealed together; the same who established it in innocence restored it aftei the long night of the Fall as part of His organism for "the renewal of all things. Therefore, when a nation repudiates the indissolubility of marriage, it repudiates the basis, of human society as given to man before the Fall, the basis of human society as restored by God when- He became man. So far as it can, it removes the foundation-stone of Christian civilisation, and resumes the errors and immorality of the heathen as to the two sexes. The only security against this is the unerring voice of God's Church repeating from age to age : ' What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.' The social plague of divorce caLj for a radical cure; and the remedy can be found only, in the abolition of our- mischievous legislation regarding di-" vorce, and in an honest application, of the teachings of the Gospel. If persons contemplating^ marriage were persuaded that once united, they were 'legaJly debarred from" entering into second wedlock, they would be more circumspect before marriage in the choice of a life partner, and would be more patient afterwards in bearing the yoke and in tolerating each other's. infirmities. -Besides leading to ill-assorted and hasty marriages, divorce stimulates a discontented and unprincipled husband or wife to lawlessness, quarrels, and even adultery, well aware that the very crime will afford a pretext and legal grounds for a separation. It raises fierce litigations between the parties about the custody of their offspring. It deprives the children of the protecting arm of a father or*, the gentle care, of a mother, and too frequently consigns them to the cold charity of the world; for lack of conjugal affection usually accompanies lack of parental love. In short, it fills tho household with blight and desolation, which no wealth or luxury- can repair. Nor is the Catholic Church, in proclaiming the absolute indissolubility of marriage, open to the charge of cruelty. She "merely enforces the observance of the law of her Divine Founder, and His law, however rigorous, is mercy compared to the cruel consequences of easy divorce. It is spurious philanthropy and false philosophy for legislators, in their insane endeavor to improve on Divine teaching, to lose sight of the interest of the race and of society while they devise means to alleviate the hardships of individual cases. Cases of married infelicity are^ indeed plentiful, but it is better to legislate for. the good of the community than to degrade the community to the level of the individual. Our duty, then, in common with all Christian -believers and true friends of civilisation, is to deplore the havoc wrought by divorce laws of this and other countries — laws which are fast loosening the foundation of society. Our duty is to inculcate that such divorces are powerless in conscience. Our duty is to teach •Catholics to enter into marriage through worthy and holy motives, and- with the blessings of religion, especially with the blessing of the Nuptial Mass. Then, far from wishing for means of escape from their union, they will regret that it can be dissolved even by death. - In conclusion, Dearly Beloved Brethren, remember that all Christian society, the whole magnificent fabric of Christian civilisation, rests upon the Christian family, the Christian home. Remember that the basis .of the Christian home is .Christian marriage, wlich Our Lord has raised to the dignity of a sacrament. Remember that home-life moulds the character of men more than any other agency. Remember that religious, pure, peaceful, and sweet home-life causes a rich growth of all the virtues which hallow and adorn life like flowers in genial spring, whereas, if the bud of childhood is blighted in this its earliest sanctuary, then farewell the hope of fragrant blossoms and ripe fruit in after life. Remember that'

every Christian home ought to be a sanctuary, a beautiful imitation of the home-life of the Holy Family at Nazareth — Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And that such may be your case, ' may the peace of God which surpasseth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.' Amen. Given at Wellington on this 2nd day of February, in the year of Our Lord, 1909.

* FRANCIS, Archbishop of Wellington.