Marriage Inviolate, Pope Reiterates

Strongly reasserting Roman Catholic teaching on marriage, Pope John Paul II said this week that a true union can exist only between a man and a woman and is indissoluble, even if it causes “pain and suffering.”

Addressing the judges, officials and lawyers of the Roman Rota, the Vatican court that rules on appeals for the annulment of marriages, the pope compared suffering in unhappy marriages with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

“Marriage too cannot escape the logic of Christ’s cross, which demands both effort and sacrifice and also involves pain and suffering,” the pope said at his annual audience to mark the opening of the Vatican’s judicial year.

“But,” he said, “this does not impede the acceptance of the will of God, a full and authentic personal realization, in the peace and serenity of the spirit.”