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"Married personalism" (the debate on this site between Professor Rik Torfs of Louvain and myself) has provoked quite a number of email comments from readers. While Prof Torfs and I are very good friends, our views on the topic of Married Personalism are quite different; which of course is why we could debate. It might be helpful if I here attempt a very brief summary of my views on two points in particular: married personalism and the good of the spouses.

            "A matrimonial contract cannot validly exist between baptized persons unless it is also a sacrament by that fact". So runs canon 1055, § 2 of the 1983 Code reproducing literally canon 1012, § 2 of the pio-benedictine Code. This word-for-word reproduction is all the more striking in view of the many suggestions and efforts made over the twenty years of drafting of the new Code, to have this paragraph of the old canon 1012 changed. If the suggestions were not accepted in the end, this would seem to be because, while the pastoral concerns behind them were understandable enough, they were not held to correspond to sound theological (and therefore to sound juridic) thinking.

Rules of interpretation

I. Lack of authenticity: deceit or fraud in consent

            In the case of simulation, the lack of authenticity in marital self-giving is evident. The person going through the ceremony does not give himself conjugally. There is a constitutional lack of integrity in the marital donation made to the other.