¿Things of the Power, Abuse of the Power, Neurosis of the Power? Reflections

Abstract

The religious ethic political and social aspect of marriage and of the family causes interventions of the political powers that not always remain within the right limits in the light of the general theory of the law. The civil regulation for marriage in force today in Spain arouses deep bewilderment among the jurists. Too frequently the Church is accused of exceeding the limits in the field of her religious competence. But in all fairness, the same question can be raised about the State’s performance concerning the positive regulation for marriage. Once the legislation agreed to between the State and the Catholic Church for reasons of the common good and social peace is justified it is fair to wonder whether in its current legislation on the civil divorce the State respects the right limits of its competence applying it to canonical marriages, with civil effects. For to be constitutive of that canonical marriage it is not the State but the Church that has given it to it. Declaring them annulled breaks abruptly the sound doctrine on the just relations among juridical orderings.