Memories from my mother: her Uncle Jack

[sollers]

Amongst the old family photographs that I've been sorting out, I found one of my mother's Uncle Jack. He's middle aged, with receding hair and a nice if rather solemn face. He looks like the old-fashioned stereotype of a bank clerk; I don't know whether or not he was originally, but that isn't how he ended up.

My mother's family was Anglican rather than Methodist, so they weren't quite as horrified as they might have been when he married a Catholic, but they were horrified enough. The main sticking points were that he would have to promise that all children would be brought up as Catholic, and if it were a difficult birth her life would be sacrificed to ensure that the baby survived, if only just long enough to be baptized.

This all turned out to be ironically academic, as it turned out that she couldnn't have children. Her priest told him that they should therefore never have sex again, as if procreation was impossible it would be sinful. Since he wasn't a Catholic the priest didn't think he could be trusted if he stayed in the same house so he should move out - as far away as possible. Uncle Jack did as he was told, and went really far away, to the West coast of Canada. And that's where he stayed for the rest of his life, sending money back to his wife, but living well on what was left: he worked as cook in lumber camps for half the year, and spent the other half in the best hotels in Vancouver.

People I have told this to have been shocked and told me that no Catholic priest would say such a thing. Maybe not in their lifetimes, or their parents', but around the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries, it happened.

Which brings me to my daughter's civil partnership. I found it offensive that on the wall of the registrar's office, apparently a fixture that had been there for years, was a notice stating that a marriage could only take place between a man and a woman. I was happy with the ceremony itself (though I would dearly like to know who handed the meerkat hand puppet to a certain person), but the rigorous divide saddened me.

Because if the function of marriage is procreation, there are whole categories of people who should never be able to marry, including any woman past the menopause. Yet every now and then there are wedding pictures in the local press of a pair of pensioners. I'm having problems phrasing this, but in my view anyone who opposes same sex marriage falls into the same category as that priest.

Comments

[legionseagle]

My mother always gave that as one of (many) reasons never to marry a Catholic (that if push came to shove, the priest would always urge the baby not the mother to be saved, I mean). Admittedly, my mother was an anti-Catholic bigot (we went into Notre Dame when I was 16 and she, therefore, 57 and she was actually triggered by the candles and incense and had to be taken out in a hurry) which is slightly more justifiable given the circumstances in which the family left the Catholic church in the 1890s.

[annmcn]

Here in the US, there is a resurgence of that attitude amongst some prominent politicians, and it is frightening. Separation of church and state is one of our founding principles, and as a believer, I still want the church and state to stay out of each other's business.

[sollers]

My real concern about the story is that a man and a woman who were not fertile could not be married, or if the fact was established after the marriage could not live together as a married couple and above all should never have sex. Do any of your local idiots go that far?

[annmcn]

No, not yet. BUT, in their zeal to ban abortion, they're working from no understanding of actual events, and utterly ignoring fact and truth. They tried to pass a law in my state that every miscarriage should be criminally investigated, for instance. And, their definition of the beginning of life is from the moment of fertilization which effectively bans many methods of contraception control (a better phrasing than birth control).

It's getting ugly over here. I won't weigh this down with more examples.

[tree_and_leaf]

Her priest told him that they should therefore never have sex again, as if procreation was impossible it would be sinful... People I have told this to have been shocked and told me that no Catholic priest would say such a thing.

I believe that it was said, but it does cast a depressing light on the theological/ pastoral education of parish clergy of the day, because it's bollocks, even from a hard line Augustinian perspective. But unfortunately stories of stupid, badly educated people with authority doing untold damage to others are not at all hard to believe....


ETA: I found it bizarre that, when I went to a civil wedding recently (the first time I've been to one), the preamble started off "Marriage is defined in English law as a contract between a man and a woman..." Even the Prayerbook isn't that obnoxious!

I agree with you regarding gay marriage - I have gay partnered Christian friends who I would consider to be married in the sight of God, whatever the law of church or state has to say about it - but even the conservative traditional position is that procreation is not the _only_ good of marriage, the other two being mutual comfort and friendship, and the avoidance of fornication. There is a pragmatic acceptance in the tradition that you can be married and having sex even if you aren't likely to conceive - this is why there is a prayer for children in the old BCP liturgy which can be omitted 'if the woman is past childbearing'.

Now, I'd agree that if you accept that you can be married without the realistic possibility of children, then you have no reason not to extend it to homosexual couples, but the traditional answer would be that there is always the possibility that God will bless you with a miracle, and while it might be _better_ if you weren't having sex, it is not a mortal sin, as long as you're not taking steps to make extra sure you won't have a child (which is why your great-uncle's priest was wrong, even in his own terms.).

[sollers]

Oh, of course it's bollocks, but so is a lot of stuff; there's nothing like a good dose of Late Antiquity to bring this into focus.

[tree_and_leaf]

Very true!

[sollers]

My favourite story from the past is the medieval German bishop who sent round to say, Would you mind letting your parish priest know within a reasonable time after you get married? Say within six months? We like to know about these things.

The other favourite, from Gregory of Tours, is the bishop's wife supervising the construction of a church she was having built. She was down there every day, dressed so simply that a passer-by thought she was a beggar and gave her some money. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, or put a damper on charitable inclinations, so she didn't tell him the truth.

[tree_and_leaf]

There were many things that made me want to yell at ++ Sentamu's latest statement on gay marriage, but the bit that made me most cross was the claim that it would be changing the nature of marriage. If he'd read his bloody Augustine he might still be opposed to gay marriage, but he wouldn't make quite such idiotic claims, because Augustine is very well aware that marriage is at least partly a social construct which has changed rather a lot over time, as has the definition of what is virtuous behaviour in marriage. And it's not like Augustine is a bleeding heart liberal who thinks that anything goes sexually!

Of course, it also made me want to ask him if polygamy was now OK. It's in the Bible, after all...

[sollers]

[Unknown site tag] would say, polygamy is in the Old Testament, but so what? According to St Paul, it's interesting background reading. According to the Gospels, it's been supplanted.

And the same goes for any references to homosexuality. If any Christian wants to really be firm about banning anything, it should be widows remarrying.

[sollers]

Can't edit, and obviously screwed something up - the person referred to is "my daughter the theologian".

[mme_hardy]

When that argument is made, I'm always tempted to say that God could make a miracle for the gay couple, too. One is not harder than the other, given (e.g.) a woman with a hysterectomy.

It is still, I think, Catholic canon law that you can't get married if you are physically incapable of consummating. liadnan will know for sure.

[tree_and_leaf]

I know it's grounds for an anullment, which, as you know Bob, is the judgement that a marriage never existed. But I don't know enough about canon law to be sure if it's still grounds if you knew about the impotence beforehand - i.e. if the impediment is the fact that no consummation has taken place*, or if the impediment is that the non-impotent spouse expected the marriage to include sex, and therefore was consenting to something other than what they got, which would mean that it wasn't real consent.

The hysterectomy point just drives home the fact that the trouble with the church's social teaching on this matter is not so much that it was unreasonable to start with, but that it hasn't caught up with what we now know about humanity, or for that matter with advances in medicine (since even if one had understood the theoretical necessity for hysterectomies, there's no way anyone in the 13th C would have survived it).

Curiously, you used not to be able to be ordained in the Church of England if you were a eunuch, but I believe they changed the ruling in the aftermath of WWI.

* I know there was a debate about whether it is consent or consummation that makes the marriage in the Middle Ages, because Joseph is always regarded as married to Mary, but Catholic teaching holds that she remained a virgin, but on the other hand they wanted to keep allowing impotence as grounds for anullment. I think I'm right in saying that they came down on the side of consent (but nuanced as above), but I don't have the relevant books handy.

[mme_hardy]

I thiiiiink the Catholic Church won't let you be ordained if you don't have two hands for the consecration, though if a priest loses one hand post-consecration he's still good to go. Bastardy also used to be an impediment, which obvs. was dispensed rather frequently in the good old days.

[tree_and_leaf]

It certainly used to be so (I don't know what the current position is), and to be fair before decent prostheses it would have been pretty difficult to celebrate the Mass one handed. But you can't unordain someone (even defrocking/ laicising doesn't actually cancel the ordination, it just means you can't perform priestly functions), so a one-handed priest would still be a priest, even if he might have to take early retirement.

[liadnan]

Doesn't seem to be on the list for us now unless I'm missing it: Canons 1040-49

On the marriage one, antecedent impotence is grounds for nullity if certain, whether known and disclosed or not, but a distinction is made between that and sterility, which is not: Canon 1084. All subject to canon 1098, material non-disclosure is always a ground.

I confess that it continues to escape me how the underlying logic of this, obviously ascribing importance and sacramental relevance to sexual acts going beyond the mere question of procreation, fits with the ban on gay marriage.

But then that's always struck me about JPII's Theology of the Body, to which that is a key idea (and which is full of lots of surprisingly good stuff, particularly on objectification), and no one would suggest he was in favour of gay marriage. (JPII was setting out his ideas on that theme at the same time as the current code was being drafted).

(I did, incidentally, have to look it up, IAALBNACL)

(While I understand why it's like that, I do wish the official trans of the CCL into English wasn't in such a near-incomprehensible technical dialect)

From your link:

[mme_hardy]

Can. 1090 §1. Anyone who with a view to entering marriage with a certain person has brought about the death of that person’s spouse or of one’s own spouse invalidly attempts this marriage.

Good to know.

[mildred_of_midgard]

My grandparents tell a similar story of a Catholic priest giving them outrageous advice on childbearing, to which my non-Catholic grandmother said she was never taking her kids back to a Catholic church, and my grandfather was free-thinking enough to ignore the priest's advice but Catholic enough to say his kids went to a Catholic church or to no church. The resulting lack of church contributed to the decline of religion in my family, for which I am grateful.

I like to think my great-grandmother, born 1899, pictured in my icon, and in whose honor this journal is named, would have supported gay marriage. The relevant story, if you're interested, is here: http://mildred-of-midgard.dreamwidth.org/1423.html

[mme_hardy]

"People I have told this to have been shocked and told me that no Catholic priest would say such a thing."

People are silly. Catholic priests have said a wide variety things, especially on the vexed subject of sexuality.

I hope Uncle Jack was contented, at least when in the best hotels.

[sollers]

I think he was contented, including while doing the cooking (there is a great deal of satisfaction in producing food for people who appreciate it) but he would have preferred not to leave home.

[raincitygirl]

Ai yai yai yai yai re: Uncle Jack's idiot priest.

On a happier note, congratulations on your daughter getting married! You are now officially a mother-in-law!

[sollers]

And I have a really super daughter-in-law who calls me "Mam".

[john]

Which brings me to my daughter's civil partnership. I found it offensive that on the wall of the registrar's office, apparently a fixture that had been there for years, was a notice stating that a marriage could only take place between a man and a woman. I was happy with the ceremony itself (though I would dearly like to know who handed the meerkat hand puppet to a certain person), but the rigorous divide saddened me.

I wrote a jolly curt email to a registry office about that. Apparently there is no current regulation requiring its display, and the registrar couldn't fall over herself enough to apologise about it; it disappeared forthwith.