“From Contract to Covenant”: What was valid yesterday is “invalid” today?

I’m rather suspicious of the idea, presented in this Catholic Exchange article, that the glory of Vatican II’s marital theology was its rescinding a contractual model in favor of a “covenantal” one — and, consequently, the advancement of the notion of “partnership” in place of a hierarchy which is clearly delineated in the passages from Ephesians V the article cites [it is so concerned with delegitimizing the notion that St. Paul's words justify domestic violence, abuse, and/or tyranny (fair enough) that it neglects to even address the question of whether under the new conception any hierarchy between the spouses exists], alongside advancing “the good of the spouses” as equal in importance with procreation as fundamental ends of marriage [again, in a clear deviation from traditional theology, which holds procreation as primary end, the good of the spouses and the allaying of concupiscence as subordinate ends].

I present these reflections in sketch form because I am approaching this matter more from the standpoint of Catholic intuition rather than formal theological learning (of which I possess fairly little). The intuitive problem I see in this transition of models is the disruption of the continuity of doctrine and its practical consequences that it brings in its wake. [That notion, in essence applied to so many other issues in the contemporary Church, is fundamentally why I have been a Catholic traditionalist for nearly 20 years and counting.] There is something fundamentally wrong with the idea that, if we take the example the article’s authors provide, prior to Vatican II the marriage between “Romeo Hatfield” and “Juliet McCoy” would be held as valid and conscientiously binding upon the spouses, whereas subsequently it would not, owing exclusively to the difference in the definition of “marriage” applied before and after the Council, with absolutely no difference in the scenario’s circumstances!

What makes a marriage valid, aside from (perfectly changeable) formal prescriptions of Canon Law, is ultimately based on the unchangeable and strictly objective principles of traditional theology rooted in the absolute truths of Divine Revelation. In terms of the internal dispositions of the parties, these either make a marriage valid or not, and no passage of time or legitimate theological development can, solely of itself, make what would have been recognized as valid yesterday suddenly “invalid” today!

To point out a parallel example: before the Council, the “meal” element of the Mass and the Sacrament of the Eucharist was quite severely downplayed (and rightfully so: for Trent had clarified for all time that this was a matter, above all else, of propitiatory sacrifice), whereas it has since been so played-up that now two entire generations of Catholic youth have grown up believing that the Mass is primarily a memorial meal (alongside absolutely no knowledge of either the term or the concept of a “propitiatory sacrifice”). Does this “new understanding” of the Mass therefore make Masses offered according to the traditional Roman Rite “invalid” because they are so grossly “deficient” in this “previously under-appreciated” dimension of the Mass?

Note one more parallel: in the cases of both Matrimony and the Mass, the traditional understanding of the primary purpose of each has been obscured, if not practically obliterated, by the new emphasis given to aspects that were hitherto understood to be secondary at best….

Moreover, the historical context of this change-of-paradigm for the Sacrament of Matrimony gives some further clues disturbing to the Catholic intuition. It emerged at a time when, because of the modern world’s accelerating war against Christ and His Kingship, Christian marriage had come to be viewed as inhumanely burdensome and unbearable, a time when the hardness of heart among the people raised such a clamor for easy divorce that it came to be granted, and the practical consequence of this new paradigm was to recognize a whole host of new circumstances under which divorce and remarriage could be “justified” in supposedly Catholic terms. With such a construction of Matrimony as now prevails, it likewise is easier for couples resorting to “pink pills” and the like to “justify” themselves in theological terms than it would have been in the traditional model! In short, this is yet one more way in which a “new insight” had made it easier for the Catholic to keep in step with the spirit and ethos of an evermore de-Christianizing modern world….

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Undergirding these thoughts is an idea deserving of a post of its own but I’ll state it here, one which recently found its first halfway-clear verbal exposition in El Camino Real’s comments-box: Obedience is the servant of Faith, not vice versa — so common sense dictates and even Scripture implies [cf. II Cor. X.8; Gal. I.8-9]. In our times, mere legalism, or even mere theologizing, is not enough to properly come to terms with this unparalleled crisis of authority in the history of the Church. One’s understandings of both law and theology must be viewed in context of the instincts one possesses as a consequence of sound Catholic doctrine and practice. There is, in other words, a fundamental place for common sense in these assessments. This was the genius insight of the late Archbishop Lefebvre: so I understood in 1985 when I first came to support his work (and be confirmed by him in April of the next year), and so I still understand now (even with the very real concerns I have for the future of the Society of St. Pius X which he founded).

And that is why I can, without hesitation, question an alteration in theological understanding promoted by a General Council and forty years of subsequent affirmation even by Popes themselves. Not even “an angel from heaven” can make what was true yesterday “untrue” today, or vice versa. But, let me pose the question: could there be some way in which the “covenantal” model of Matrimony can be understood in such wise as to affirm without exception the doctrinal truths, rooted in Scripture and Tradition, asserted in the “contractual” model? This must be done in order to sustain the logical continuity of doctrine that is an essential element of the indefectibility of the Church — otherwise, this new model will need to be scrapped.