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194 Chapter 4
dispensation is justified in view of the serious circumstances he
has outlined. His reasoning is of the sort that modern secular
divorce court judges might use. On the one hand, to dissolve a
marriage is a grave thing, not to be done without powerful reasons;
but on the other hand, the reasons are weighty, for the marriage has
irretrievably broken down, and is the source of great animosity. For
a consummated marriage such reasoning would be inconceivable in
this tradition.
The reasons are set out why consequences can be weighed with
unconsummated marriages while pure principle rules the law on
consummated marriages. God gave a dispensing power to his vicar
in matters which are inferred remotely rather than proximately
from the principles of natural law and which contain an element of
human rather than divine regulation; at least where ratified (nonconsummated)
marriages are concerned, the power is a way of
putting an end to scandals and strengthening peace in the state;
after all, the signification of marriage is incomplete before consummation;
before that it merely stands for the union of God and
the soul through charity, but afterwards, Christ’s union with the
Church; the Lord’s saying (Matt. 19: 6) that ‘What God has joined
together, let no one put asunder’ comes after the words ‘and they
will be two in one flesh’; again, St Paul’s reference in Ephesians 5 to
‘the great sacrament’ comes after the words ‘they will be two in one
flesh’; then Pignatelli quotes the passage of Leo the Great which
was analysed in the first half of this chapter, naturally in the form
which made the commingling of the sexes a sort of sine qua non of
marriage’s proper representation of Christ and the Church. It is
Ibid., passim, esp. pp. 185–6.
I am paraphrasing the following passage: ‘Quod attinet ad potestatem Pontificis
dispensandi non est dubitandum ex communi Canonistarum sententia, qui omnes,
uno vel altero discrepante, docent, posse Summum Pontificem potestate quidem
ordinaria matrimonium ratum ex causa dirimere. Quia Pontifex potest divina authoritate
dispensare in aliquibus, quae non deducuntur proxime ex principiis juris
naturae, sed remote, et quae habent admixtum aliquid obligationis humanae. Credibileque
omnino est, Deum suo Vicario hanc potestatem contulisse, quae regimini
Ecclesiae necessaria erat. Nam hac ratione, saltem in matrimoniiis ratis, multa scandala
cessant, pax in Republica stabilitur, sine qua matrimonium est pactio servitutis.
Quandoquidem matrimonii Sacramentum, quoad significationem non est completum
usque ad carnalem copulam inclusive; ita quod matrimonium contractum sive
ratum significet conjunctionem Dei ad animam per charitatem, consummatum vero
conjunctionem Christi ad Ecclesiam. Prima autem conjunctio est solubilis, non secunda;
ideoque matrimonium ratum solvi potest, non vero consummatum. Unde
Dominus, Matth. 19. non dixit: Quos Deus [p. 185] conjunxit homo non separet, nisi