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Marriage in the Catholic Church, also known as holy matrimony, is the "covenant by which a man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring", and which "has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized". [1]
Pope Leo XIII began Arcanum by recalling the history of marriage, established in the Old Testament when God created man and woman: . We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side ...
The document describes the position of the Catholic Church on the meaning and role of marriage and the family, and outlines challenges towards realizing that ideal. It refers to marriage as "one of the most precious and most urgent tasks of Christian couples in our time", [1] and as "the foundation of the wider community of the family, since the very institution of marriage and conjugal love ...
Matrimony, then, in that it consists in the union of a husband and wife purposing to generate and educate offspring for the worship of God, is a sacrament of the Church; hence, also, a certain blessing on those marrying is given by the ministers of the Church.
The Roman Catholic Church views that Christ himself established the sacrament of marriage at the wedding feast of Cana; therefore, since it is a divine institution, neither the Church nor state can alter the basic meaning and structure of marriage. Husband and wife give themselves totally to each other in a union that lasts until death.
Roman Catholic sacramental theology teaches [citation needed] that the ministers of the sacrament of holy matrimony are the man and woman, and therefore any marriage contracted voluntarily between two baptized and unmarried adults is valid [citation needed], though under ordinary circumstances the marriage must be witnessed by clergy to be ...
The matter of a sacrament is "that part of a sacrament with which or to which something is done in order to confer grace", [3] "materials used and actions performed". [4] The form of a sacrament consists of the words and the intention by which the sacrament is effected. [1] For example, the matter for the sacrament of baptism is water.
For a valid marriage, a man and a woman must express their conscious and free consent to a definitive self-giving to the other, excluding none of the essential properties and aims of marriage. If one of the two is a non-Catholic Christian, their marriage is licit only if the permission of the competent authority of the Catholic Church is obtained.