Iosif Iacob: The meaning of the canonical form of the celebration of marriage since the Second Vatican Council and CIC 1983

The matrimonial agreement is the form through which the institution of marriage and family is born. Both, the Church and the state are called to contribute to the elaboration of those specific conditions by which the notion of the marriage covenant is consolidated and clarified. The form of the marriage celebration is one of the aspects that generated and generates deep analyses and positions in front of what is and represents the way of manifesting the agreement, as well as its role. The crisis of the institution of marriage, the diversity of forms of conjugal union as well as the effects that derive from them, create the specific environment for an analysis and debate that questions the role and function of the canonical form in achieving that conjugal union that is based on the free act, the consent of the bride and groom as the will of the spouses to live together with the requirement to be transformed into a formal act, a legal expression by which the accord of the spouses fulfils all the normative aspects with a view to legal validity and implicitly with a view to the birth of the marriage. In this sense, the pre-conciliar, conciliar and post-conciliar debates reach a unitary expression in the vision of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/PZJC4827

Dialog 50-10 Iacob

Iosif Iacob: Marriage as a divine and human reality in the vision of the Second Vatican Council

The institution of marriage and the family it is one of the social and ecclesial realities, difficult to stick in its full meaning. It, as a natural reality, involves the whole life of man, of each man, both as a right and as a possibility. In his great redemptive plan, God, through Jesus Christ, in the New Law established by the sacrifice of love to the ultimate sacrifice, assigns a saving dimension to natural marriage. This new dimension makes marriage a supernatural and profoundly human reality, anchored in social realities in a continuous becoming. The current situation that the Church is experiencing in the pastoral field through the different choices that believers make regarding the sacrament of marriage invites us to deepen and analyze all the aspects that affect the choice of the type of marital union.
All these motivations makes us to take in consideration the different spheres of human existence as well with visions of living life to see the way marriage as a natural and sacramental reality, involving every human being, presents itself to contemporary society in all its complexity, or in what way society’s problems come to be reflected and also involves the institution of marriage.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/MEFE1550

Dialog 49-10 Iacob

Eduard Giurgi: The Importance of the Teaching of Gaudium et spes for the Introduction of Dolus as a Ground for Marriage Nullity in the 1983 Code of Canon Law

The present essay is aimed to highlight the impact of the teaching of Vatican II, through the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes, on the introduction of a new ground for marriage nullity, namely, dolus. In order to reach this aim, the essay provides a short presentation of the teaching of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The essay emphasizes that in this code was stressed more the procreative end of matrimonial consent and less the importance of matrimonial love in giving consent. The 1917 Code of Canon Law had the advantage of offering juridic clarity on marriage, yet the disadvantage was that the legislation was very much removed from experience of most married members of the Church. To this disadvantage the personalist view of some theologians and canonists was to give equal importance to procreative end of marriage and to matrimonial love. The personalist proposal was accepted and included in the teaching of the Council of Vatican II, more precisely, in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes. The council eliminates the hierarchical ordering on the ends of marriage and it teaches that both ends are equally important for a valid marriage. The council stresses the importance of the love between the man and the woman for a valid matrimonial consent. The teaching of the council led to the introduction of a new ground for marriage nullity in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. In fact, according to the teaching of the council, the consent consists in the mutual giving and accepting of the spouses. When one of them is deprived of knowledge of an important quality of the other party by dolus, the mutual giving and accepting in consent is incomplete or truncated. Also, the partnership of life and love about which the council teaches is seriously disturbed in such a case. As a consequence, it was necessary to be introduced this new ground for marriage nullity in the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/GQMY8527

Dialog 49-5 Giurgi

Wilhelm DANCĂ (coord.): „Familia creştină” în magisteriul papei Ioan Paul al II-lea. Antologie de texte magisteriale

Pope John Paul II talked about family with many occasions – the pastoral of the family being one of the fundamental coordinates of his pontificate. The structure of the apostolic advice Familiaris consortio (1981) as an orientative base in the selection of the most signifing in the magisterium of Saint Father concerning the family theme, on which an teaching edifice was built, arranged in four main parts: family today, lights and shadows; God’s plan on marriage and family; Christian family duties, the persons and their role; the serving of life. In these selected texts one can find principles of understanding and resolving of the problems that the families encounter in their path in life. The present anthology is adressed to the youth, the catechists, the priests that prepare the youth to marriage and, in a special way, to the formed families or to the families that need human and spiritual formation.

DT087_WILHELM DANCĂ (coord

Wilhelm DANCĂ: Familia ca formă de rezistenţă la ideologii. Introducere în operele de tinereţe ale papei Ioan Paul al II-lea

The teaching of pope John Paul II on the ireplaceble role of the family in the development and formation of the true man, the educated man, has roots in his pastoral activity carried on in the Polish Church under the totalitary comunist regime, as in his literary and filosophical works published before he was elected as bishop of Rome. The lesson about family learned by Karol Wojtyla in Polland contains interesting and fascinating chapters; two of them have interest to this study: 1) the activity of the catholic priest (bachelor, single man) in the middle and to the favour of the families is based on the gospel and on the experience mediated with their problems; 2) the united family feeds on the responsable (and opened to transmiting life) love. The study affirms that the correct understanding of John Paul II’s teaching on family must revaluate both his doctrine and real gestures by which this courageous pope manifests his love towards the human family.

DT086_WILHELM DANCĂ

Alois BIŞOC: Identitatea teologică şi spirituală a familiei în magisteriul papei Paul al VI-lea

The study analyses the divine-human ontology of the family in the teachings of pope Paul VI: what is the family in God’s initial plan? how was the family sanctified by Christ? and about the family’s essence as a „familial Church”. The impulses and decisions of this Sovereign Pontiff refering to the actualisation and promotion of the family’s identitiy are also underlined. Paul VI is profoundly convinced that the goal of the Christian family is possible, but must be promoted by a well conceived and organised pastoral activity.

DT085_ALOIS BIŞOC

Mihai PATRAŞCU: Desfacerea legăturii matrimoniale în legislaţia civilă şi canonică a imperiului bizantin din secolele VI-X

The study shows the historic evolution of the conception concerning the indisolubility and the principle of matrimonial bond dissolvement, the different causes of divorce that are encountered in the VI-X centuries, both in the Byzantine statal legislation and in the oriental canonic discipline. The treating of these problems is made in two moments: 1) the analysis of the roman concept of marriage in the IV-V centuries; 2) the analysis of the influence of the Christian consideration on the byzantine right. The work’s character is historical and juridical.

DT084_MIHAI PATRAŞCU

Robert LAZU: Sexualitate şi procreare

he essay analyses the relation between sexuality and procreation as seen in the perspective of the Christian faith that is transmitted by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. The recipients of this conference are some of the Christians from both East and West Church, that disregard the teachings of the Church on this subject. The guiding idea is this: the sexuality isn’t an egocentrical way of obtaining a pleasure, but an aspect of human life, that involves the highest degree of responsability, being chained in a indisoluble way to the exigence of birth and development of children inside the familial environment.

DT083_ROBERT LAZU

Anton BUDĂU: Imaginea biblică a familiei

This study affirms that the family’s image in Romania has been deteriorated by the reductional interpretations concerning man and family, that the comunist regime, based on the marxist-leninist ideology, propagated. For a correct understanding of the family, we must invoke the inexhaustible source represented by the Holy Scripture. Within it, we find out that the family is created by God (not by man), that family means life shared to others (children: brothers and sisters; etc.), that sons must respect their parents, that life is a sacred gift and must be accepted accordingly, that the model of inside family relations is the saint family from Nazareth, that the love between husband and wife finds its exemplary model in the love between Jesus Christ and His Church. In conclusion, the article pleeds for the respect of the divine plan concerning the family.

DT082_ANTON BUDĂU (†)

Petru GHERGHEL: Familia creştină şi căsătoria

Taking into account the happened changes within the last years in the life of Christian families in the Iaşi diocese, changes that were caused mainly by the poverty of family maintenance resources, the bishop Petru Gherghel affirms that the families must be supported and helped more, both materially (by the State/society) and spiritually (by the Church). Due to social, spiritual, economical and political problems, nowadays there is a loss from sight of the care towards the unity of the family and for the indisolubility of the marriage; thus, the promotion of a „pro Christian family” mentality and behaviour is necessary.

DT081_PS PETRU GHERGHEL