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Document Details : Title: Roman Catholic Marriage Subtitle: A Case Study in the Theory of Ambiguity Author(s): BLUMENTHAL, Christian , DOCKTER, Cornelia , HAHN, Judith , VON STOSCH, Klaus Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality Volume: 30 Issue: 2 Date: 2024 Pages: 202-225 DOI: 10.2143/INT.30.2.3293776 Abstract : Our article endeavors to explain how ambiguity has shaped Catholic doctrine on marriage. It does so looking at the biblical, dogmatic, and legal development of the church’s view of marriage from its beginnings to the present day. In the first section we shed light on the ambiguous biblical view of marriage as an indissoluble and yet at times dissolvable union. In the second section, we track the development of ecclesiastical doctrine on marriage in the history of the church, alluding by way of example to key points in the history of the formation of marriage doctrine where a search for clarity served to sharpen Catholic identity. The third section then considers the development of a contrasting dynamic, which has seen the church, particularly through canon law, creating exceptions in marriage law which reduce doctrinal clarity for the purpose of integrating diverse groups into the Catholic community by granting dissolutions of marriages. In consequence, we see the history of Catholic marriage as a process in which dogma and law have worked hand in hand to strengthen the Catholic identity while allowing for many – legally controlled and constrained – exceptions to the idea of indissoluble marriage. In the fourth section, we conclude by taking a closer look at Amoris laetitia, published in 2016, and interpret the current discussion about Catholic marriage as an exemplary indicator of the crucial identity test which the Roman Catholic Church is currently undergoing. The fierce debate about what is Catholic and who can be considered Catholic, which is playing out in the field of marriage and elsewhere, shows that Catholicism has entered another phase in the process of discovering the ambiguity of Catholic identities. |
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