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To continue a discussion which we were having here, and because Iacobus and I don’t post nearly often enough about Romano Amerio, that genius of Iota Unum fame, I have excerpted here some sections from Amerio’s chapter on the Sacrament of Matrimony. This might also be a good time to put out a public plea on the web: Would someone please translate for us Romano Amerio’s Stat Veritas? (Stat Veritas is Amerio’s commentary on Pope John Paul II’s Tertio Millenio Adveniente.)
Chapter XXXIX
The Sacrament of Matrimony
–New Concept of conjugal love and marriage
Although the changed thinking on this matter is not set down in black and white anywhere in the Council’s texts, and although it has been attacked by the more active supporters of tradition, 
Cardinal Felici being the chief among them, it has nonetheless now been widely accepted and has become a common opinion in the Church. The Council itself does state that among the new developments in the Church, the “spirituality of matrimony” is undergoing continual reformulation, and that changes in modern society “are manifesting ever more clearly in various ways the true character of marriage.” Obviously the Council was not intending to deny that matrimony had always had a spirituality of its own in the Catholic system. What it is talking about then is a new spirituality.
The change is accompanied by the usual euphemisms praising the various kinds of help that modern society is supposedly providing for marriage and the family. Nothing, it would seem, could make the scales fall from the Council fathers’ eyes: neither the adoption of divorce by all formerly Christian states, nor the fact that trial marriages have now become common, nor the fact that contraception has been made legal or even compulsory, not even the widespread legalization of abortion, though all of these phenomena were known to the council and deplored by it….
The procreative goal of marriage was called its primary end, and the natural perfecting or fulfilling of the spouses was called its secondary end. The latter expression can be taken in various senses, but what it meant in substance was “an end consequent upon the primary end”; it did not mean “an end of lesser or secondary importance.” The real meaning is that it is in the goal of generating offspring that the spouses find their personal fulfillment, and if that full physical union and its possible consequences were not there, then there could indeed be a moral union of another kind, but it would not be a conjugal relationship.
Procreation and union are thus equally true goals in marriage, but tradition has tended to emphasize the former. In this view, the spouses pursue the goal of generating offspring and of educating that offspring, and it is in so doing that they exercise their mutual love and find fulfillment as spouses….
The traditional doctrine on marriage as union directed essentially towards procreation is given a new twist by the Council when it describes it as a “communion of life and love,” with procreation following upon that. Thus in the Council’s teaching, the essential equality of the two ends is maintained, but the procreative end can be seen as “secondary” to the personalist end, if “secondary” is taken in its true sense, explained above, of following upon something else: secundum est quod sequitur….
The reason the Council’s teaching is so distinct . . . is that it proclaims marriage to be based upon friendship rather than desire, and teaches that conjugal affection is directed from one person to another as an act of will; thus the marriage bond itself is brought into being by a consent of wills. The tendency of American ecclesiastical tribunals to define marriage by 
reference to its persistence as a communion of life and love, rather than by reference to a specific and irrevocable act of consent, has been condemend by Paul VI and John Paul II.
The tendency after the Council to give equal emphasis to procreation and love, even in the specifically sexual sphere as distinct from marriage as a whole, leads on to a separation of these two ends, and then further to placing the expression of love above procreation, and then ultimately to the legitimacy of contraception; this tendency is obviously out of harmony with the teaching the Church has hitherto maintained. As Cardinal Felici showed, the Council itself maintained in the drafting of Gaudium et Spes that bonum prolis primum locum tenet.
This objective priority of the procreative end of marriage seems to require a corresponding subjective priority in the intention of the spouses during sexual relations. Innocent XI censured the opinion that the conjugal act is free from fault when performed without any procreative intention, motivated simply by pleasure. If the goodness of conjugal union is compromised by the lack of a positive intention regarding its procreative effect, it seems marital relations must necessarily include a procreative intention. It amounts therefore to a change in doctrine to allege that the perfecting and reciprocal gift of the spouses is a sufficient intention to make conjugal relations morally good.
In dealing with the Sadducees’ captious question about the woman who had been married seven times, Jesus gives the desire to generate offspring as the reason for the existence of marriage. He says that in heaven “they will not take wives or husbands, because they will no longer die.” Here marriage is identified with the work of procreation; there is no hint of a communion of life and a reciprocal gift of personal love, which would necessarily last as long as the persons in question.
In this Gospel passage both procreation and life together are relegated to the passing world of earthly reality. In his long catechesis on the meaning of marriage, John Paul II never referred to this passage in Luke, which certainly gives priority to procreation as the raison d’etre of marriage; when mortal life ceases, procreation ceases, and when procreation ceases so does marriage. Of course, there is no objection to the idea that conjugal, filial and parental affection still exist in our heavenly life; Dante describes this beautifully in the fourteenth canto of the Paradiso; but these affections will exist in persons whose bodies have been resurrected and glorified, and they will be, so to speak, memories of the affections felt in this life, an instance, as Dante says elsewhere, of how al mondo di su quel di giu torna.
Pius XI teaches that the mutual perfecting of the spouses “can be called the primary reason and motive for marriage,” but it must be remembered that in his teaching, the mutual integration of lives that perfects the spouses includes the mutual gift of their bodies, which in the natural course of things is the source of offspring; and he regards offspring as the highest good marriage can produce. Without believing in the myths of the ancient world, we can still say that in their act of love, the spouses are their offspring: “the marriage bed upon which” as Penelope says to Odysseus “we were together our son Telemachus.”
(To buy this wonderful, wonderful book, Iota Unum, follow this link.)
I find Amerio to be going a little too fast in places here; I often cannot tell where he switches from criticising the Council to agreeing with the Council. I can tell, though, that he likes what Cardinal Felici had to say!
What most surprises me is that, in the course of his talks on the Theology of the Body so-called, John Paul never mentioned that passage from the Gospel of Luke. Is that somewhat strange or what?
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
These quotes from Humanae Vitae seem relavent to the discussion…
11. These acts, by which husband and wife are united in chaste intimacy, and by means of which human life is transmitted, are, as the Council recalled, “noble and worthy,”[11] and they do not cease to be lawful if, for causes independent of the will of husband and wife, they are foreseen to be infecund, since they always remain ordained towards expressing and consolidating their union. In fact, as experience bears witness, not every conjugal act is followed by a new life. God has wisely disposed natural laws and rhythms of fecundity which, of themselves, cause a separation in the succession of births. Nonetheless the Church, calling men back to the observance of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted by their constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage act (quilibet matrimonii usus) must remain open to the transmission of life.[12]
12. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man’s most high calling to parenthood. We believe that the men of our day are particularly capable of seeing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle.
16. …If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier.[20]
The Church is coherent with herself when she considers recourse to the infecund periods to be licit, while at the same time condemning, as being always illicit, the use of means directly contrary to fecundation, even if such use is inspired by reasons which may appear honest and serious. In reality, there are essential differences between the two cases; in the former, the married couple make legitimate use of a natural disposition; in the latter, they impede the development of natural processes. It is true that, in the one and the other case, the married couple are concordant in the positive will of avoiding children for plausible reasons, seeking the certainty that offspring will not arrive; but it is also true that only in the former case are they able to renounce the use of marriage in the fecund periods when, for just motives, procreation is not desirable, while making use of it during infecund periods to manifest their affection and to safeguard their mutual fidelity. By so doing, they give proof of a truly and integrally honest love.
21. The honest practice of regulation of birth demands first of all that husband and wife acquire and possess solid convictions concerning the true values of life and of the family, and that they tend towards securing perfect self-mastery. To dominate instinct by means of one’s reason and free will undoubtedly requires ascetical practices, so that the affective manifestations of conjugal life may observe the correct order, in particular with regard to the observance of periodic continence. Yet this discipline which is proper to the purity of married couples, far from harming conjugal love, rather confers on it a higher human value. It demands continual effort yet, thanks to its beneficent influence, husband and wife fully develop their personalities, being enriched with spiritual values. Such discipline bestows upon family life fruits of serenity and peace, and facilitates the solution of other problems; it favors attention for one’s partner, helps both parties to drive out selfishness, the enemy of true love; and deepens their sense of responsibility. By its means, parents acquire the capacity of having a deeper and more efficacious influence in the education of their offspring; little children and youths grow up with a just appraisal of human values, and in the serene and harmonious development of their spiritual and sensitive faculties.
This is one question, I think, which it would be nice to sort out: Paul VI explains that even when the marriage act can be foreseen to be infecund, as perhaps, in the case of those who are older or incapacitated somehow, it is still licit since it remains ordained towards expressing the consolidating the union.
Now Blessed Innocent XI condemns the proposition: “The act of marriage exercised for pleasure only is entirely free of all fault and venial defect.”
I’m not married, so I guess I can’t really say, but wouldn’t most couples think to have sex, on a particular occasion, because of something other than “expressing and consolidating their union”?
So many tricky issues of conscience in this area, some of which we discussed at another time in light of some things which St. Thomas says in the Summa. How does one examine one’s conscience about whether one had sex too lustily with one’s wife? But Thomas leaves no doubt that this is an issue to consider.
For one traditional Catholic’s interpretations of Humanae Vitae, please see the following link: http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/galvin.asp
“I’m not married, so I guess I can’t really say, but wouldn’t most couples think to have sex, on a particular occasion, because of something other than “expressing and consolidating their union”?”
Maybe choice of wording makes a difference here. If we rephrase “think to have sex” as “think to make love,” then perhaps we (celibate bachelors) might better understand how Pope Paul’s Vaticanese “expressing and consolidating their union” might reflect conjugal reality. I mean, the choice of wording influences one’s view of the hypothetical scenario; “having sex” refers to a neutral process, “making love” is not. Hope that isn’t too R-rated for the blog.
Interesting, a former professor of mine from Valparaiso, Gilbert Meilaender had this to say about Humanae Vitae (from the link Tobias gave):
“As theologians representing the Lutheran and Anglican churches who seek a common mind with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, we think it most appropriate for us to direct our attention to the first of the questions posed for this symposium: ‘Do you judge the argument of Humanae Vitae with respect to artificial means of contraception convincing?’ Our answer in brief is no … Though the first three chapters of Genesis are generally cited as loci classici for beginning a discussion of marriage and sex, they are not discussed in Humanae Vitae. Had more adequate reference been made to Holy Scripture, it might indeed have proved to be the case that ‘a teaching rooted in natural law’ would have been ‘illuminated and made richer by divine revelation.”
As a married man, I would talk about the whole expereince like eating. If I am eating, if my eating is subject to my reason, and if that subjectation becomes habitual, I begin to expereince a lot of freedom in the act, and pursue and enjoy the act without much thought. However, when I start to let my eyes and my stomach make decisions, I start feeling (and becoming) unhealthy, and have to purposely struggle to get back on track…
Only slightly related, the issue of willling the same end, but being justified or condemned by different means, seems very analogous to the euthanasia issue. There, the difference between killing and “letting die” seems important and obvious. I wonder why the distinction it is not intuitively so with artificial or natural contraception?
As I think I mentioned when we discussed this in Catechism, this is one subject on which the 20th century has produced a lot more good literature than earlier centuries. Pope John Paul II was particularly interested in this subject. I haven’t read too much of this (the Doctor is much more up on it) but I thought I’d throw out that one phrase he uses a lot is “mutual self-giving.”
It’s a bit hard to understand what this should mean, especially since love tends to blur in one’s mind the ordinarily sharp categories of giving and receiving. But it’s worth pointing out that physical intimacy in any case tends to create a feeling of dependency, and of “giving oneself”, particularly for women. So, in the marital act, she can consent to what she will already naturally feel, and give herself in a spirit of love, trust and service. From a man’s perspective, I think the act tends to be psychologically somewhat different; he will tend to have a feeling of having triumphed, or conquered something. For him, the key might be to view himself, not as a victor with spoils to use as he will, but rather as a steward accepting an important responsibility. The act will then remind each of them that they are joined as one, and that they have each given themselves wholly to the other.
Of course, I’m not married either, so I don’t have firsthand experience to speak from, but I think this is along the lines of what John Paul II has said on this issue, and actually, it seems to me consonant with Cosmo’s thoughts on the subject.