MARRIAGE - THE HORRIBLE IMPLICATIONS IF IT IS A
SACRAMENT
Marriage is defined by the Christian faith and the state as the lifelong union
of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of any other sexual partners.
If you define marriage as a loving union between a man
and a woman then marriage is not a ceremony or a legal contract but a process
and sometimes a lifelong one. If so the state should talk about a marital
contract as in how the man and woman relate to their secular rights such as
inheritance etc. A marital contract would mean the legal aspects and in
itself is not marriage but is about marriage. Marriage seen as a sacrament
given during a ritual is only an insult to real marriage.
A sacrament is a rite that forges your relationship to and with God by which he
transmits his grace to you or his supernatural help.
To say that marriage is a sacrament - a rite which gives you grace from God,
which the Catholic Church says, though even people who turned down a call from
God to join the religious life can get the sacrament is scandalous because it
implies gays cannot have the sacrament. Gays cannot have this sacrament that
helps to achieve eternal salvation. That’s very hurtful. It is really saying
that same sex couples should not be granted the same supernatural helps to love
and stay together that opposite sex couples have.
Catholics permit divorce and remarriage when a marriage is non-sacramental. If a
Catholic marries an unbaptised person such as a Hindu, the marriage is real but
not indissoluble. The Church says the marriage is not sacramental for the
sacrament of marriage cannot take place except between two people who are
baptised in the sight of the Church and God. It is not true that the Catholic
Church says divorce is wrong. It says that divorce when a marriage is
sacramental is wrong for such marriage is broken only by death. The Church had
the nerve to meddle in politics and campaign against divorce when its problem
was not with divorce as such but about trying to get special treatment for
sacramental marriage. It was purely about religion. Nobody minds the Church
commenting on the social dangers of certain policies but when it brings magic
and faith into it, it is a different matter.
The Church should say that marriage is a sacrament only for the baptised person
but it does not. Clearly the implication is that the person is being punished by
the Church.
The notion that a sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved clearly suggests that
the grace of God makes the marriage real. But that contradicts the fact that
marriage would only be a legal bond before God first and foremost and perhaps
before the state. The grace would be irrelevant to the integrity of the bond.
Grace and the bond would be two separate things. It would be like saying that if
a couple get a pile of money from their parents to help them set up home
together that they are more married than the impoverished couple that gets
nothing and who marry quietly in a shack that passes for a chapel.
Marriage for Christians has to reflect the teaching of Jesus that the Genesis
account where God made Adam the master of Eve is true. It has to reflect the
Christian teaching from St Paul that man is the head of woman and woman should
keep her head covered to symbolise this. The Epistle to the Ephesians shows that
marriage is to reflect the marriage of Christ and the Church with the man being
like Christ and the Church the bride, the inferior for the Church is inferior to
Christ. It is hard to believe that a marriage where Christians do not agree with
this teaching could be valid. Real marriage would be the union of a woman to a
man as her superior. Christian marriage is degrading to women and is an insult
that Christian men offer to women. It is even worse considering that men have a
stronger inclination to abusing people and beating up and manipulating others
than women have. Most violent crimes are committed by men.
The Catholic Church talks a lot about what makes a marriage a invalid but it
never refuses the sacrament of marriage to a couple who agree with divorce and
remarriage and separation nor does it even check!
To say that marriage is a sacrament is to encourage people to marry believing
this superstition: “Marriage is hard so when it is a sacrament it will be easier
and you will gain strength to work through your trials and your marriage will be
safe.” Nobody can know which religion is true and therefore if marriage is
really a sacrament. Nobody knows what religion has the best evidence. Therefore
religious faith is just feeling and not real belief.
Catholic weddings cannot be valid for they lead people into marriage with false
hope and are just as invalid as weddings carried out when one partner is just a
con after the other’s money. Even what may be false hope is just as bad for you
need strong proof. The Catholic Church has blessed weddings and cars and given
many people an unrealistic security. In the case of the cars, people become a
bit less careful when the priest has blessed it. And this bit less careful has
led to many road-deaths. The Church and state trick people into marriage by
getting them to undertake something so serious and giving them no reason to
think that marriage itself is wrong – all they care about is not what is right
nor in people making informed decisions but getting the chance to feel smug
about their victims accepting their rules. It makes them feel important.
The Church teaches that the sex act is so important that it binds two people
together for life for the union of bodies signifies union in every possible and
most intimate way. It follows then that since they say God unites that husband
and wife should make sure that religious duties are carried out and persuade her
or him to be very religious. The holier the better. Marriage is about giving the
Church power in principle. But the Church faces too much derision and
indifference these days to try and implement that rule. A marriage between a
Protestant and a Catholic must be in some serious sense incomplete and therefore
sinful.
The Roman Catholic Church portrays marriage as a
sacrament between a man and a woman only and for life. While another
religion might see marriage as a contract the Catholic Church says it is
something more important than that. It follows then that the Church sees
forcing a religion that views marriage as non-sacramental to conduct same sex
weddings as better than forcing the Catholic Church! The Church will say
marriage is a sacrament and does not belong to her but to God so the state
cannot meddle with it. If Catholicism is man-made and there is no
doubt that it is when you consider how it fed off hate for centuries -
Protestants were only "forgiven" relatively recently then the sacraments are not
sacraments but placeboes and DO belong to man.
The Church teaching about marriage is ridden with prejudice. Catholics need to
get wed outside the Church. There are principles of love and honesty that are at
stake. Do not validate them by being married in Church.