Pope Paul VI to Roman Rota, 1976

Absence of love does NOT invalidate marriage.

Every year, the Pope gives a speech to the judges of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota. The Pope is the Legislator of the Catholic Church, so his addresses have upmost authority. When Pope Paul VI gave his speech in 1976, the Vatican II document Guadium et Spes (GS) had only been out for ten years.

Some commentators were claiming that GS no. 48 redefined the essential properties of marriage such that marriages could now be judged invalid that would have been understood as valid based on the pre-VII understanding of marriage.  Marriages could now be found invalid, according to these “certain opinions,” because the marriage was missing some expected level of “conjugal love and the perfection of the spouses.” Pope Paul VI corrected these erroneous opinions.

See red below.

Unofficial Translation of Pope’s 1976 Address to Rota

Beloved Sons,

With great joy, we greet you, who – as is customary for the members of the Tribunal of the Sacred Roman Rota each year – have come to us. We wish to affirm that we have listened attentively and respectfully to what your illustrious Dean, Boleslaus Filipiak, whom we hold dear and venerate, has spoken. He, interpreting the sentiments of all of you present here, has used the most excellent and moving words, adding certain matters worthy of our attention regarding questions pertinent to the administration of justice in the Church and certain events related thereto. Your visit gains particular importance and authority since you are commended by a unique title.

Whenever the opportunity arises for us to meet with you, esteemed gentlemen, or to observe your duties, the gravity of your office and the primary importance of your ministry, which you perform for the Church by pronouncing judgments in the name and authority of the Apostolic See, always comes to mind spontaneously.

This ministry is not only illuminated by the illustrious traditions of your Tribunal but also demonstrated by your diligence and especially by the spirit of apostolic priesthood with which you are imbued. It reveals the utmost seriousness of judgments and your preparation for such a task, the fervent dedication you bring to your daily duties entrusted to you by the Apostolic See with great confidence in the defense of justice. Thus, the solemn inauguration of the judicial year provides us with the expected opportunity to publicly and deservedly praise this esteemed Tribunal and to express our gratitude and encouragement for continuing the arduous and silent task entrusted to you.

We do this all the more willingly because, in our time, the exercise of judicial power – like any juridical order – is attacked by many in the Church as if it were a structure imposed over the spiritual force and freedom of the evangelical message. This matter, however, has been discussed elsewhere.

Turning our attention to the questions that are paramount in the administration of canon law, we cannot but direct your minds to the area where your cult of justice and the moral and doctrinal efficacy of your Tribunal, worthy of its history, must shine more brightly. We are thinking of matrimonial cases, whose significant increase is a sorrowful indication of the dangers to which the society of our times is exposed concerning the stability, vigor, and happiness of the family institution.

We are indeed pleased that the concern of the Second Vatican Council for promoting the spiritual character of marriage and for opening new ways for the Church’s pastoral action has aroused a serious commitment in this Tribunal and has led it to fully grasp the significance of the more personal reason proposed by the Council’s magisterium, which rests on a fair appreciation of conjugal love and the mutual perfection of the spouses. Yet, nothing may be detracted from the dignity and stability of the family institution, nor may the excellence and procreative mission of marriage be diminished (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 47-48). Therefore, the extensive experience that your Tribunal has acquired provides you the opportunity now – as in past times – to offer very useful and excellent material for the new canonical legislation currently being prepared.

We are pleased to reaffirm how much the Church trusts in your invaluable and necessary assistance in defending and stabilizing the marital institution. From your judgments, the fortunate outcomes in the fields of juridical, biological, psychological, and social disciplines are evident – through which marriage has been better understood and perceived according to its true nature as a community of love. You have firmly adhered to those fundamental principles that the Church’s doctrine and tradition have always followed, either to resist errors about the marital institution and its corruption or to guide marriage to increasingly perfect forms of conjugal and sacramental communion.

Now our discourse leads us to direct your thoughts to certain opinions, arising from some current viewpoints and new ways opened by the Council, whose proponents sometimes extol too highly the goods of conjugal love and the perfection of spouses, to the extent of overlooking or even completely setting aside the fundamental good of offspring. They consider conjugal love to have such significant importance even in law that they subordinate the validity of the matrimonial bond to it, thus opening the door to divorce with almost no impediment, as if, with the absence of love (or rather the initial desire of love), the validity of the irrevocable marital covenant, which arose from free and full consent, itself fails.

We consider it sufficient to touch upon this one well-known observation, which we deem entirely worthy to be recalled here and now.

Indeed, there is no doubt about the importance the Council attributed to conjugal love, proclaiming it as the perfect condition of marriage and the best goal for which spouses are constantly advised to direct their shared life. However, it is of utmost importance for us to emphasize once again: the Christian doctrine on the family institution, as you well know, can in no way admit a concept of conjugal love that leads to abandoning or diminishing the force and significance of the well-known principle: marriage is made by the consent of the parties. This principle holds supreme importance in the entire canonical and theological doctrine received by tradition and has been frequently proposed by the Church’s magisterium as one of the principal tenets on which the natural law regarding the marital institution and the evangelical commandment rest (cf. Matt. 19:5-6; DENZ-SCHÖN., 643, 756, 1497, 1813, 3701, 3713).

By virtue of this principle, well-known to all, marriage exists at the very moment when the spouses give legally valid matrimonial consent. Such consent is a pact of will (or a marital covenant, to use a term preferred today over the word contract) that, in an indivisible point of time, creates a legal effect, or marriage in fact, as they say, or a vital state, and thereafter has no power over the legal reality it created. Hence, when it has created a legal effect or marital bond, this consent becomes irrevocable and lacks the power to destroy what it has generated.

This doctrine is explicitly taught by the Constitution “Gaudium et Spes,” although it is pastoral in nature, as evident from the following words of the same document: “The intimate partnership of married life and love, established by the Creator and endowed with its laws, is rooted in the conjugal covenant, that is, in the irrevocable personal consent. Thus, by that human act by which the spouses mutually give and receive each other, a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one” (Gaudium et Spes, 48).

Therefore, it must be utterly denied that, in the absence of any subjective element, such as conjugal love, marriage no longer exists as a legal reality that originated from a once and for all legally effective consent. This reality, as far as the law is concerned, continues to exist independently of love, and it remains even if the affective love has entirely vanished. For when the spouses freely give their consent, they enter into and become part of an objective order or “institution” that surpasses them and does not depend on them either in its nature or in its own laws. Marriage does not derive its origin from human free will but is an institution established by God, endowed with and instructed by its own laws, which spouses generally freely and willingly acknowledge and praise, yet must accept for their own good and that of their children and society. From a free sense of affection, love becomes a binding duty (cf. Eph. 5:25).

All these considerations should not be understood as in any way diminishing the importance and dignity of conjugal love since the rich array of goods inherent in the marital institution is not solely contained within juridical elements. Conjugal love, although not assumed in the juridical domain, nonetheless performs a noble and necessary role in marriage. It is a force of psychological order to which God has assigned the ends of marriage. Indeed, where love is lacking, spouses lack a strong incentive to fulfill all the duties and responsibilities of the conjugal community with mutual sincerity. Conversely, where true conjugal love thrives – that is, human love, full, faithful, and exclusive until death, and fruitful (cf. PAUL VI, Humanae Vitae, 9) – then marriage can indeed be realized according to the full form of perfection it is capable of attaining by its nature.

Most esteemed gentlemen and beloved sons, while we express these considerations, which are entirely certain, we hope that your judicial work will always be guided by firm adherence to canon law and a constant reverence for its outstanding and pastoral interpretation. This is especially so in light of the current permissive tendency in minds, which often, to the detriment of true moral law, demands, as the recent Council encourages, a prudent defense of the highest goods of life.

We are well aware of the commendable fidelity with which your Tribunal diligently complies with the norms established by law regarding canonical procedures. It is our desire that ecclesiastical judges consistently take an example from your conduct so that they neither easily nor without legitimate cause grant dispensations from these norms.

We fervently offer these wishes, while we implore the continuous outpouring of heavenly Wisdom upon you and the work you will carry out during the new Judicial Year. May the grace of God always be with you; may the perfect service of the Church, as the highest goal of your work, constantly shine before your eyes and provide you with support in the difficulties that surely await you; and may the noble traditions of your Tribunal inspire you to exercise your ministry with ever greater zeal and dedication.

May our Apostolic Blessing, as a pledge of heavenly favors, be with you, your families, and all those who assist in your work.

Given in Rome, at St. Peter’s, on the 8th day of February, 1973, in the tenth year of our Pontificate.