Matrimony

Choose an option and you are told at once whether it was right. The answer and the reason wait behind “Show the answer”.

A watercolor of a lamb couple joining hooves before an altar where a lamb in a green stole stands, two ribbons from their hooves drawing the outline of a house

What is it that brings a marriage into being?
1. The consent the two of them exchange before the Church
2. The blessing the presiding priest gives the couple
3. The nuptial Mass and the rite of exchanging rings
4. Registering the marriage with the civil authorities
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Answer ① The consent the two of them exchange before the Church
What makes a marriage is the consent of the two. The blessing, the rite and the registration only serve that consent and make it visible, and where the consent is missing no marriage comes into being, however splendid the ceremony.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1626-1627
In the custom of the Latin Church, who are the ones who give each other the sacrament of Matrimony?
1. The priest or deacon who presides
2. The bride and groom themselves
3. The parents on both sides, who arranged the match and gave their permission
4. The two witnesses standing with them at the rite
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Answer ② The bride and groom themselves
The baptized bride and groom give each other the sacrament as they declare their consent before the Church. The priest or deacon is the witness who receives that consent in the name of the Church and blesses it. The first choice sounds convincing because in the Eastern Churches the priest's blessing is held to be the conferral of the sacrament.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1623
Marriage is only a social institution people devised to suit the times, and not something the Creator provided for.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
No. The Creator wrote marriage into the very nature of man and woman. Its shape has certainly changed with times and cultures, but that does not turn it into a contract whose meaning people may rewrite as they please.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1603, 1660
Which two does the Church name as the essential properties of marriage?
1. Love and the sharing of property
2. Consent and living under one roof
3. Unity and indissolubility
4. Chastity and obedience
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Answer ③ Unity and indissolubility
That it is made between one man and one woman, and that nothing but death unties it — this is what marriage essentially is, and openness to children is added to these. The fourth choice names the content of religious vows, not a property of marriage.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1643-1645, 1664
A marriage validly contracted and consummated between two baptized persons cannot be dissolved by any human power.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. The Church teaches that this bond was tied by God himself, so not even the Church has the authority to untie it. A divorce granted under the law of the land settles the social consequences; it cannot make the bond before God go away.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1640, 2382
What does a declaration of nullity from a Church tribunal establish?
1. That the Church unties the bond of a sacramental marriage and does away with it
2. That the couple lived apart so long that the bond faded away of itself
3. That it is the procedure for settling a divorce in the Church's own way
4. That no valid marriage ever came into being in the first place
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Answer ④ That no valid marriage ever came into being in the first place
A declaration of nullity does not untie a bond that was tied; it establishes that, through a defect in the consent, in the freedom or in the form, no bond ever arose. People often call it a “Catholic divorce”, but take it that way and you rub out the indissolubility of marriage with your own hand.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1629
By its very nature, what is the marriage covenant ordered toward?
1. The good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children
2. Carrying on the family line and keeping its property safe
3. The stability of society and the maintenance of the population
4. The holiness of one's spouse and the growth of the Church
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Answer ① The good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children
Marriage is for the good of the spouses and at the same time open to bringing children into the world and raising them. Keep only one of the two and you either make marriage a means of obtaining children or turn it into a contract between the two of them alone, closed to children.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1601, 1652
A marriage of spouses who have not been given children cannot be called a complete marriage.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
No. Children are a precious fruit of marriage, not the condition that brings one into being. Spouses who have not been given children are in a complete marriage all the same, and their love can grow other fruit — caring for their neighbors, opening their home to guests.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1654
What does the Church always require of matrimonial consent?
1. That the parents on both sides give their agreement first
2. That the two declare it themselves, free of fear and of coercion
3. That they live together before the wedding to make sure of each other
4. That the two come from the same country and the same region
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Answer ② That the two declare it themselves, free of fear and of coercion
Consent that is not free does not make a marriage. A marriage entered into under grave fear or under coercion from outside is invalid, and however good the parents' intentions may be, they cannot stand in for the consent of the couple themselves.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1625, 1628
What is needed from the Church when a Catholic marries a baptized Protestant?
1. Nothing at all — a marriage is the business of the two of them alone
2. The other party has to become a Catholic first
3. The express permission of Church authority
4. The Church does not allow such a marriage
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Answer ③ The express permission of Church authority
A marriage with a baptized Christian of another communion is not a forbidden thing but a thing that needs permission. Conversion is not made a condition, though the Catholic party promises to keep the faith and to bring the children up in it. A marriage with someone who is not baptized weighs heavier still and calls for a dispensation of its own.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1633-1635
Why does the Church call the Christian family “the domestic church”?
1. Because it means Mass may be celebrated at home
2. Because it means there is no need to go to the parish
3. Because the family is made a sub-unit of the parish
4. Because faith, prayer and forgiveness are first learned and grow within the family
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Answer ④ Because faith, prayer and forgiveness are first learned and grow within the family
The name was given because parents are the first to hand the faith on to their children, and the home is the first school of prayer and forgiveness. It does not mean the family stands in for the parish; it means the life of the Church has already begun in the smallest place of all.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1655-1657, 2685
The grace of Matrimony is not given once on the day of the wedding and finished with; it helps the couple through all the days they live.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. Christ makes the bond of husband and wife holy by likening it to his own love for the Church, and he gives that grace as strength for each day — to love each other, to forgive, and to bring up their children. That is why marriage is not the rite of a single day but a vocation walked for a lifetime.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1641-1642