Lipstick on a Pig: Four Ways the Church is Dressing Up Marriage

In this article we enumerate four such errors by which we feel the Church mis-represents the true nature of marriage to the faithful.

In following our charismatic mandate to restore celibacy and virginity to their rightful places of esteem in the Catholic Church, the Apostolate of St. Jerome encounters a number of errors in belief and practice that strike right to the heart of the proper relationship between marriage and celibacy.

But one subclass of errors surrounding Catholic marital catechesis is particularly troubling to us. We speak of a group of errors that have a similar vein of playing down the negative aspects of marriage to make it more palatable to the modern world where fornication, contraception, and divorce run rampant.

While this is certainly a well-intentioned effort, it has a disastrous side effect. For at any given time, there are actually two groups of people who may be deciding against marriage. One group is made up of the very fornicators to whom the Church directs this message. The Church hopes to lure these types into a life compatible with the gospel. But we cannot afford to forget about the other group turning down marriage, that is, Christians considering the celibate life.

Now we can argue whether trying to lure fornicators with these tactics is truly the right thing to do. We happen to think that this tactic damages marriage by casting marital pearls before swine. One may claim the Church has no such mission to fornicators who tell us with their behavior that they are not of us. But we will deal with this issue at another time. For the present we focus on the damage these tactics inflict on souls who may be suited to the more excellent form of the Christian life—celibacy. To them, the efforts of the Church to put a glimmering face on marriage make married life look more appealing than it truly is, and by comparison, make celibacy less appealing.

You see, God has designed into marriage a number of obstacles that, when lined up and weighed against the benefits of marriage, actually make celibacy and virginity stand out the clear-cut choice. He means for these obstacles to give pause to those who see celibacy as too steep a path and thus incline toward the less blessed route of marriage.

But amid all the recent Christian efforts to promote marriage as an alternative to other sins like fornication or same-sex unions, the Church has made it her mission to dress up the marriage institution, making its less seemly parts more presentable. These tactics very often enrage us at ASJ because the effort to attract more people to marriage directly opposes our efforts to attract people to the state of life truly needed by the Church and the world—celibacy.

So, for example, rather than women looking upon marriage and its associated childbearing with a healthy degree of trepidation, from which they might receive motivation for looking at celibacy, they instead see very little to deter them from even considering celibacy or even virginity. Not only that, the Church these days even gives them a litany of positive reasons for tying the knot. ASJ has a big problem with all this. It is quite unethical for Church leaders, who know well that the Lord prefers and recommends celibacy over marriage, to take steps that make it harder for celibacy to outshine marriage in the eyes of the faithful.

In this article we enumerate four such errors by which we feel the Church mis-represents the true nature of marriage to the faithful. We ask the whole Church to help us correct these misunderstandings so that more souls are led to the destiny God prepared for them—celibacy, and fewer wind up needlessly ensnared in the potential tangles of marriage, from which the Lord and the Apostle would love to spare us.

The first of these errors has been dealt with already in this very issue of The Loyal Lion, so we will mention it only briefly. The acceptance of NFP as a method to “space births” has a horrible effect on female celibate vocations. Everyone knows that the whole equation of marriage is that in exchange for sexual relations, couples must beget children and bring them up in the life of the Church. But when the Church permits a method of avoiding pregnancy that was never advised by the Lord himself nor his holy apostles, it becomes possible to enjoy sexual gratification apart from the responsibility of raising kids. Now it’s one thing when couples with a nice flock of young’n’s resorts to this method later in marriage. But so often in the Church these days this method is shopped to young, childless couples, for example, to postpone kids while one of the two finishes a degree. What then must the virgin think in these cases when she sees her married friend enjoying all of her same freedom she has, but with the added benefit of sex on the side?! She will not hold out for long without wanting this “win-win” arrangement as well. Then the Church will have lost a potential celibate because of its alarming willingness to tolerate a technique that changes the fundamental nature of Catholic marriage, and blurs the line between marriage and fornication.

A second error that ASJ has yet to address is the common acceptance of epidurals to relieve labor pains. It surprises us that there is not more outcry among Catholics and other Christians criticizing epidurals as a mischievous attempt to circumvent God’s just judgment, who doled out these pains as a punishment for Sin. Like the kid who’s sent to his room as a punishment and can’t watch the ballgame, but who surreptitiously tunes into the radio broadcast, those who employ this technology deprive themselves of the chastening wisdom of a loving father. Women then, come to have one less reason to choose virginity over motherhood. It becomes easier for them to ignore the path of celibacy which brings more blessings both in this life and in the next. Now perhaps it’s a “stretch” to think that labor pains would actually deter a woman from the married life; women still married in droves before epidurals. But we do think it is telling the way the Church sits idly by while scientists scheme to undo the warning signals God placed in creation the day that primordial virginity gave way to marriage, as a pointed reminder to women that the world we have is not the world God wants.

A third way in which the Church undermines a key incentive to celibacy is the scandalous torrent of annulments unleashed by the Vatican like an apocalyptic horseman. Undoubtedly, one of the biggest “cons” in the decision to marry has always been the danger of being left by a faithless spouse without the ability to remarry. This was certainly the drawback that got the Apostles’ attention when the Lord taught them the indissolubility of marriage. They immediately replied that if such is the case, one is better off never marrying at all. Jesus didn’t disagree with their conclusion, but only cautioned them that not all can accept celibacy. We see from this that the “no way out” nature of marriage is meant by God to pique interest in celibacy. But when the Church grants annulments in the shameful way it does now, couples have less reason to put in the deep discernment to ensure that, not only are they picking the right person, but also that they should even be marrying at all.

A fourth built-in “barrier to entry” of the married life that is being eradicated, and one that like labor pains is directed mainly at women, is the painful fear of losing a baby through miscarriage or stillbirth. For a faithful mother, what’s worse in this sad case is having no certainty that the soul she conceived ever attains blessedness. ASJ has worn this topic to death in recent issues of The Loyal Lion, so here we merely summarize our view that recent Church documents on limbo that seem to push for salvation of fetuses betray traditional Christian dogma, and disservice the Church by making marriage seem less of a risk in the eyes of potential celibates. For in trying to do away with the notion of limbo and sending unbaptized infants to heaven, theologians remove the anxiety surrounding one of marriage’s saddest moments. Thus they nullify one of the legitimate reasons to choose celibacy by a God-fearing woman, who may feel that her ability to live continence means she shouldn’t risk a soul’s eternal repose. God doesn’t tell the unmarried woman, “Come on, take a chance on a new life,” but rather, “she is better if she remains as she is.”

Like the sign on the freeway that reads “Last Exit before Toll,” God the Father has seen to it that those headed for matrimony have every chance to see the advantages of the celibate life that Christianity has always seen as its most complete expression. Yet one by one, these signs are being torn down by misguided Churchmen who don’t seem to understand that by promoting marriage, they undo God’s plan to get what He really desires—celibate or virginal lives in the service of His people. They see the drawbacks of marriage obstacles as nuisances that make it harder for them to sell modern man on true Christian marriage. But modern man has a greater need to learn about sexual restraint, and this is best conveyed by preaching up celibacy and virginity rather than marriage.

In each of these cases we’ve highlighted, the Church is filing down the warts of marriage, its congenital (perfect pun!) defects that marriage has had since its birth at the Tree in Eden. They were warts that seemed unavoidable until Jesus revealed celibacy as God’s desire for us and that which will robe us in heaven (if through God’s grace we make it!)

 This article appeared in the July 25, 2007 issue of The Loyal Lion.