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            "Human rights" is a subject on almost everyone's lips today. Peculiarly enough, although rights inevitably imply duties (the two are correlative), "human duties" or obligations are talked about far less. Yet we all have our duties and obligations: towards God, towards his world, towards its environment, towards others, towards ourselves. In interpersonal relations rights and obligations have a very particular importance. Social life itself becomes impossible unless an elementary consensus about essential rights and obligations exists, and unless the majority of citizens have at least a basic disposition not only to exercise their rights but also to fulfil their obligations.

            The Autumn 1995 issue of your Newsletter carried an article on my jurisprudence by Prof. Rik Torfs, a translation of a paper that he presented some four or five years ago at a Flemish Canon Law Workshop. The trouble in responding to this article is that it is somewhat dated - certainly as regards the present state of discussion between myself and my respected friend and sparring partner, Prof. Torfs.

Canon 1057 and the Object of Matrimonial Consent (Malta lecture, Feb. 1992)

"Giving oneself"

            The obvious answer to the question "what is the object of matrimonial consent?", is, "marriage itself". Just as obviously, however, this is not very enlightening from the juridic viewpoint which is interested in pinning down the specific, and above all the essential, rights and obligations that consent gives rise to.