The Spiritual Sword is Very Dull...

A Word for the Anglosphere

Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no,not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? I Corinthians, 6:1-5. (KJV)

More Musings on the Canons

Yes, it seems to be turning into canon law week here at the Monastery. For obvious reasons, no one was enthused by my last post, which was frankly rather depressing. For the record, I am not promoting schism, I am merely outlining more irenic schemes for responding to the requests for ALPO. These requests essentially are extraconstitutional and if treated in their present extraconstitutional framework, they make life very problematic for dissenters within non-dissenting dioceses, whatever your definition of dissent. And besides, the proposed process gives three years for God to work. Man proposes, God disposes.

However, what I want to reflect on today is the treatment of fratrimony and sororimony in a canon law framework. Emily of Hazelnut Reflections mentioned in comments somewhere (I can’t find it) that she would like some canonical guidance if the Episcopal Church authorized rites for fratrimony or sororimony in the future. I do not intend to propose revisions to the Canons in this piece, only outline the important issues that will have to be considered. Law, as the Institutes say, legislates only for the normative, so we can’t possibly consider everything. And that is why I urge you to consider also Grace in this discussion, for when God forgives us, He does not forgive those things, which we or an average human being normally do; He forgives us everything. And thus the law of the Church is meant to be relaxed in unusual situations. In civil law, this is the prerogative of mercy. In canon law, the same prerogative exists by the gift of Christ to the apostles to bind and to loosen, i.e., in this case: to legislate and to relax the laws.
I also do not wish to speak in great detail, because the end of canon law must be the better care of souls, and thus I seek advice from same sex couples and those who pastor them about how the Church can support spiritual fraternity and sorority as manners of life for the upbuilding of the Church and the good of the partners’ souls.
This discussion is greatly problematic in an Anglican framework. Because of the roots of our ecclesiastical tradition, our canon law often is written with the expectation of the need to conform to the civil law (and I mean secular law in general, not Roman-derived ius civile in particular) or the ability to control or at least have dialogue with it. This, of course, is an expectation by the Churches of Rome and Constantinople, too, but these Churches are more accustomed to long-term tension between church and state on certain matters or accommodation of their systems in terms of an “ethnic law.”
However, for Anglicans, especially in England, there is an expectation that the law of the Church and that of the state be in harmony in certain matters including family law. There is a particular division of Queen’s Bench dedicated to family, probate, and admiralty law, which is an odd grouping, until you realize that all three categories derive from the ius civile , but also realize that the first two were long matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Thus, the probate record of the Court of Arches at Canterbury (the supreme ecclesiastical tribunal of the Church of England…below the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the Law Lords, of course) remains an excellent source for genealogical records before a certain period. And we need not appeal to oddities and antiquities to see the tension. The recent kerfluffle over the Civil Partnerships Act in the English House of Bishops and the Church of England generally is illustrative that the Church still feels very bound to having some sort of parity between its own sort of family law and that of the United Kingdom generally. I will omit considering the effects of the Established Church on the marriage law of England, but they lead to such inanities as “inflatable churches,” which I am sure you can learn all about from Google.
Yet one cannot quarantine the infection of Erastianism from the most non-Erastian of Anglicans. The Salty Vicar said a year ago or so that if the laws of New York allowed him to marry same sex partners, he would feel authorized to marry them according to the Liturgy of the Church provided without requiring further authorization from General Convention, though Canon I.18.2(b) is a little more specific than the laws of New York. However, we must consider the possibility that fratrimony or sororimony will be celebrated in jurisdictions where the laws concerning same-sex couples differ significantly from those of marriage generally or indeed legal recognition of such unions might be forbidden by the state constitution. The variety of civil frameworks, however, does not obligate the church to stand idly by and gawk. Instead, the church is obligated to walk the dichotomy between obeying the laws of the God-ordained rulers and obeying those of God. Thus, in some states, fratrimony and sorimony will create civil incidents and the church will have to adapt to those situations. In other states, no civil incidents will be consequent and the church will have to uphold sororimony and fratrimony without state support as it still may do in scattered parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Besides, upholding godly manners of life without state support may become necessary in the case of matrimony as well, if certain libertarians ever gain support. If the government gets out of the marriage business, the Church will have to dive more fully in.

Consanguinity and Conspirituality
I’m hoping that it should be fairly obvious that the Scriptures should be upheld in matters of consanguinity and the civil law thereafter. There might be talk about how the church should respond to spinster sisters entering into civil partnerships, if ever that should be legal or perhaps first cousins will wish to unite in a state in which that is not permitted. The Church should not allow celebration of fratrimony or sororimony in these cases, because fratrimony and sororimony are potentially physical as well as spiritual. Sisters according to the flesh cannot be brothers or sisters according to the Spirit to signify that the Church is meant to be a disturber of households. First cousins and other close relatives ordinarily forbidden by the Law or the civil law are barred from such unions by the signification of household disturbance, because the Moral Law is still operative, or in obedience to rulers.
Conspirituality is more difficult. We often do not consider this to be a bar. Although it probably is forbidden by ancient canon law, I do see spouses sponsor one another for Baptism. The ancient canons probably were concerned more with exploitation of young wards rather than “spiritual incest” in an ontological sense. In the cases in which we are interested, conspirituality affects matrimony. Brian McLaren in his famous reflection on homosexuality meets a couple whose fathers are partners. Should it be lawful to marry such a couple? I argue that as long as the couple was not raised together in the same household and the civil law does not forbid it, it’s probably all right, but that opinion depends on a hermeneutic of the Moral Law, in which the laws against incest exist for sake of natural justice, order in households, and the protection of children from abuse. If you don’t subscribe to this hermeneutic, your opinion might be different, but you almost certainly object to the whole idea in the first place.

Public Health

Many states require blood tests for various diseases. If the church has to have its own rules, it really should consider mandating that both partners get tested if they haven’t been tested recently. Although I intend to be a virgin when I marry, I also intend to be tested for the usual suite of STDs, since some can be transmitted without intimate contact. The point of this requirement shouldn’t be to set up a formal bar to union but to get both partners honest about what they’re living with and the precautions they need to take in future life. We know from the Law that God is concerned with disease, especially these sorts of diseases. If we gain some pastoral and theological insight from this requirement, we could do great good in Africa and Asia.

Counseling

One thing I disliked about the Book of Daniel was the complete emphasis in the marriage counseling sessions on the couple’s relationship. I think this is very important, of course, but I also think it is important that the priest also be careful to instruct the couple in the meaning of the union into which they seek to enter. We receive all kinds of poor cultural cues on marriage, and I fear this will complicate the expectations of same-sex couples. Counseling should be simultaneously catechetical and relational. The Canons presently emphasize catechesis. They also focus on the ability of the couple to contract from the standpoint of consent.

The Requirement of Baptism

At present, it is only required that one of the parties has received Holy Baptism. If the theology of Fratrimony and Sororimony generally propounded on this blog is honored by future legislation, I think that both parties should be baptized. It seems problematic for a union that signifies the unity of the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit to be between a Christian and a non-Christian. Frankly, I’m not sure if Christian Marriage should be celebrated between a Christian and a non-Christian for similar reasons, though I would be agreeable to any correction on the matter. But I’m still concerned with the Apostle’s command, “be ye not yoked unequally.”

Notice

We still seem to have some remnant of the requirement of Banns and hints of Special License in our canons, but most of this is gone. I think it would be preferable in cases of Matrimony, Fratrimony, or Sororimony that notice be given in some convenient way of upcoming unions rather than after the fact, so that the community have the opportunity to pray for the couple, but that’s just me.

Declaration of Intention

To signify the completion of the catechetical requirement, there should be a Declaration of Intention that has some relation to the relevant liturgical formulae.

Conscience Clause

Should be retained. There are many good reasons why a priest should be free not to solemnize any union which she or he does not want to solemnize.

Of Dissolution

The Canons require that at least one of the divorcing parties inform the Clergy before taking legal action so that attempts can be made to reconcile. In states where there are no civil incidents associated with fratrimony or sororimony, there is no way to pause for an attempt at reconciliation. I would recommend that the Canons ask that one of the parties not effect a permanent separation of bed and board (as the medieval canonists would put it) before attempting reconciliation. Tradition provides little insight into dissolution of spiritual brotherhood or sisterhood. The closest analogy would be separation from a religious order. The Rule of Saint Benedict is problematic in this regard in that it essentially provides the greater excommunication for the contumacious, making full identification of the monastery with the entire Church. One wonders whether Benedictines thrice estranged from their family could be reconciled with the Church. Serious reflection needs to be done here, and frankly our problems with the theology of matrimonial dissolution are partially to blame for my doubts here.

For the same reasons, I always have had reservations with same-sex unions involving divorced persons. But as I said before, law is normative, but grace is not. These questions are important, but their settlement is not definite. In all cases, I would advise that special concern be directed toward the children of all types of holy unions.

I am sure that I have missed many important issues or not treated others in sufficient detail. So please consider these thoughts to be the start of a conversation. *Christopher, I know, already has put down excellent thoughts on related issues in the build-up to the affirmation of his fratrimony with his spiritual brother, C.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who settest the solitary in families: We commend to thy continual care the homes in which thy people dwell. Put far from them, we beseech thee, every root of bitterness, the desire of vainglory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit together in constant affection, those who, in holy wedlock, have been made one flesh. Keep in thy faith and fear those who have been made by thy Spirit brothers and sisters in the bond of peace. Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents, and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned to one another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.