Matthew 5:22, I Timothy 4:1-5

One of the more traditional Catholic blogs West of The Big Pond was linking to this article:

DIOCESE OF SALT LAKE CITY – SECRET ACCUSATIONS OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGIES
Posted by Mary's Advocates On February 13, 2020
https://marysadvocates.org/diocese-of-salt-lake-city-secret-accusations-psychopathologies/

Citing a piece with citations:

Mary's Advocates

The Salt Lake City Diocese newspaper described the most common grounds for nullity of marriage:

The Salt Lake City Diocese newspaper

“The primary grounds for annulment are lack of due discretion (immaturity on the part of a spouse) or an incapacity to assume the essential obligations of marriage due to psychological reasons.” […] “Mary Reade, a member of the Diocese of Salt Lake City Tribunal” […] “is a licensed clinical social worker who meets with petitioners when they are seeking an annulment based on their or their former spouse’s inability to fulfill the obligations of marriage because of psychological reasons.”

Mary's Advocates

Here, the author is talking about canon 1095 §2, and 1095 §3. However, when the author shows lack of due discretion is immaturity, she is misleading readers. The chief justice at the Vatican’s Tribunal, in 2006, criticized using “insufficient human maturity understood in a general way” as a grave lack of discretion of judgment. See Dean of the Roman Rota, His Excellency Antoni Stankiewicz HERE (pg. 38).*

...

Furthermore, in 1988, Saint Pope John Paul II** taught that incapacity to consent to marriage is only applicable to those who suffered “severe forms of psychopathology.”

*Roman Rota

[link here]

His Excellency Antoni Stankiewicz

page 38: Certainly in this material one does not encounter the feared jurisprudential rigidity, but rather the laxism in the application of the law. This is found in the accustomed reasoning of ecclesiastical sentences which not unfrequently identify a minimal preparation for sacramental marriage, insufficient human maturity understood in a general way or imprudence in in behavior, with the lack of the necessary discretion of judgment or of the desired fitness for the essential obligations of marriage.

**"John Paul II"

link here

[citing excerpts]

It follows, therefore, that while for the psychologist or psychiatrist every form of psychic illness can appear contrary to normality, for the canonist, who is inspired by the aforementioned integrated vision of the person, the concept of normality, that is to say, of the normal human condition in this world, also includes moderate forms of psychological difficulty.

...

The second point on which I intend to dwell is related to the first. It concerns the conclusions to be drawn in jurisprudence, when psychiatric evidence indicates the presence of some psychopathology in the spouses.

Bearing in mind that only the most severe forms of psychopathology impair substantially the freedom of the individual and that psychological concepts do not always correspond with canonical, it is of fundamental importance that, on the one hand, the identification of the more serious forms and their distinction from the slight, be carried out by means of a method that is scientifically sure; and on the other hand it is important that the categories that belong to psychiatry or psychology are not automatically transferred to the field of canon law without making the necessary adjustments which take account of the specific competence of each science.

I have briefly read the front page a Catholic newspaper from England, from the time of the second prayer meeting in Assisi, a little before Srebrenica, on which front page there was also an article on this Antipope Wojtyla making peace with psychiatry.

This means, it is doubtful to me that he remained in this good disposition up to the end of his life.

Nevertheless, this disposition of his was a good and valuable one, up to a point.

To actually stamp someone as severely ailing from a psychopathology is to deprive him, among other things of the freedom to marry. At least in the Catholic Church, which is where one should live and also marry (and that not in the Vatican II sect, btw).

Note very well, what Wojtyla missed out on is, the capacity of psychiatrists even outside the then extant East Bloc to deem someone severely ailing from a psychopathology if not "just for fun" at least on political or religious principles, that latter most usually occurring when the patient has a religion that can be considered as Christian Fundamentalism, while the shrink himself is anywhere between Western Atheism and Non-Theistic modernism in (less exacting forms of) Christianity.

In such cases, psychiatry can function as a miniature version of a Communist dictatorship. The shrinks of Sweden back in late 90's along with their allies outside psychiatry proper but with good lines of communication to it, were absolutely not capable of making Sweden a Communist dictatorship for all of our 8 to 9 million as we were somewhere between then, but they were capable of making it such a thing for myself. And for some few other members of my family, still in Sweden.

Now, I did get to France. I have been in this country since 2005, in Paris region (with less than 3 months exception outside greater Paris, taken together) since 2009, I think St. Anne's day.

Now, suppose I were described as suffering from a severe psychopathology. Suppose I tried to get more intense with an acquaintance at a parish, and then marry her. And suppose that parish were listening to those describing me as suffering from a severe psychopathology. Or, suppose they were simply too aware of the "immature" routine, and believe me, some people definitely are treating me as if the Arabic numerals in my age of 51 were instead turned the other way.

On the one hand, it would mean (as far as "severe psychopathology" goes) describing me as a fool. Hence my reference to Matthew 5:22. On the other hand, it would in practise (as long as I remain a Catholic and frequent such a parish, and don't for instance become a Jew or Protestant or Muslim, who may have different outlooks on when marriage is possible, and even if I quit the parish) very probably mean a great difficulty for me to get married as a Catholic. People wanting to save the time for someone in the Roman Rota pronouncing I was immature or suffered from a severe psychopathology.

And that would involve such people in one of the businesses described in I Timothy 4, verse 3, straight the beginning has Forbidding to marry, and the overall context in verse one describes this as some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, and verse 2 adds Speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared, which to me comes very close to a description of some shrinks, some of their personnel and a great deal of their "allies" as I have called them.

This may be one reason why Matthew 5:22 (being tripartite) has for its third part:

And whosoever shall say, Thou Fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

There have been some diverse interpretations on what this means. A German Protestant showed me a translation in which "Thou Fool" is expanded to "Thou (godless) Fool", no doubt in reference to Psalm 13:1, here:

The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God, They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways: there is none that doth good, no not one.

Except, these translators forget the parts after the God whom the fool in practise in his heart denies. However, it is convenient for a certain type of Protestantism, since it would mean Catholics calling such and such groups "heretics" were in fact calling them in the sense of Matthew 5:22 fools. This interpretation I definitely think totally wrong.

Among others, it doesn't answer one of the objections of Antichristians (both Atheist and Jewish). After Christ had said this, He several times over adressed Pharisees with "ye fools".

Now, my interpretation is, it means involving a type of diagnosis of "severe psychopathology" on one person, or on one at a time. Why? Well, precisely as in Sweden in the 90's the shrinks are too few to put all of the 9 millions under a Communist dictatorship, but not too few to do this to ... me on a few occasions ... precisely so, a one man called fool is too few and a crowd called fools aren't to few to defend themselves against this type of mental health administered Communist dictatorship.

How would psychiatry have functioned under Pharisees before Christ spoke up? I have a fairly sound guess on this:

Someone like a Pharisee calls you a fool. How do you respond?

• if you say "yes" - go to A.
• if you shout "no, lout, slanderer!" - go to B
• if you calmly say "no, you are wrong" - go to C.

A

Pharisee responds: "Ah, you realise you are one? Good for you, maybe we can help you out" - and you have just called a non-Christian and non-clergyman "father".

B

Pharisee responds: "OK, maybe I was wrong ... sorry" - and then keeps an outlook, with his pals, on you, and if they succeed in making you overstep the limits, they start treating you as a fool.

C

Pharisee responds: "OK, you seem sound, how about explaining, perhaps I had misunderstood" - and he keeps you in a position where before long you have called this non-Christian and non-clergyman "father".

Because, calling someone father in the sense of Matthew 23:9 is not a question of using the title to a priest, it is a question of for secular reasons ("upon earth") accepting someone as a mentor (call him father).

Why is this better than said German "translation"? Well, it exonerates Our Lord from having contradicted Himself. Humanly speaking, He was not setting up this kind of trap for the individual Pharisees or any one of them. All and each of them would either already have been married and be keeping his wife, or have no problem getting one among other Pharisees.

However, the guys who do make individual diagnoses of "severe psychopathology" are typically involved in forbidding marriage. Not in general, perhaps, but to someone.

Many of them might also be wanting to forbid marriage in general : female submission, ban on contraception, indissolubility, traditional sex roles, large families ... you name it. So, they might try the stunt over and over again, with Catholic after Catholic, as many as they can get at. And in that case, they would be so much closer to actually forbidding marriage in a more general sense.

I actually haven't finished the article from Mary's Advocates yet. I stopped in order to make this comment. One more thing, it should be clear, immaturity is not a reason to declare a marriage invalid, which means the old canonic 14-12 limit cannot be discarded on the ground that teens (in general or in modern times) are too immature to know what they do when they marry. As mentioned, even severe imprudence in the choice of husband or wife is not a sign one was not chosing with one's full freedom or that the "unfree choice" could be declared invalid because unfree (as what annulment is about, like a marriage would be invalid if one of the parties had a pistol to his neck).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Quinquagesima Sunday
23.II.2020