Document Information

Date: 1865-01-20
By: True Witness
Citation: “The Journal de Quebec asks the Question”, True Witness (20 January, 1865)
Other formats: TBA

The Journal de Quebec asks the question:

— “Marriage and Divorce, ought they, doivent ils, to be the attributes of the federal parliament, or of the local legislature?”

We reply “of neither:” since the Journal de Quebec raises the question of right, “ought they to be?” By right, according to the strict idea of devoir, neither local nor central legislature can claim either marriage or divorce amongst its attributes; and if either of the above-named bodies legislate thereupon, it is ipso facto guilty of an act of usurpation against the Church, and a blasphemous assumption of the attributes of God Himself.

In so far as “divorce” is concerned, no tribunal upon earth has, or ever can have the right or power to grant a divorce; and though we, Catholics, being in a minority may not be able in our actual social and political condition to prevent the aggressions of the civil magistrate upon the law of Christ, yet should we be always most careful never, either directly or indirectly, to appear even as sanctioning those aggressions: never should we refrain from shouting in his ears “One with one, and for ever; whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

With respect to “marriage” the Church has spoken by the Fathers of the great Tridentine Council. Marriage considered per se is the attribute of the Chuch, exclusively; the civil accidents that thence may accrue, but these alone, form the legitimate subject of civil legislation. To which then—to the central or to the local legislature—should the power of legislation upon these civil accidents, be accorded? This in its last analysis is the only question that Catholics can condescend to discuss; and it is one on which we would respectfully offer a few remarks to the Journal de Quebec—remarks which we assure our contemporary are dictated by no captious spirit.

According to the programme of Union, agreed to by the Quebec Conference, “property and civil rights” are to be the legitimate attributes of the local governments, not of the central government.

But, as in his issue of the 12th, the Journal de Quebec eloquently and conclusively argues, marriage, on which depends the Family, is itself the “social formula”—(la formale sociale)—without which neither property, nor civil rights to property can exist:—

“It—marriage—is to property what form is to bodies;* without the one, the other cannot exist,”

If then “property, and civil rights to property,” be so inseparably connected with marriage, that one cannot exist without the other; and if “property and civil rights” are indeed to be the attributes of the local, not of the central legislature, it follows as a logical consequence, that marriage—(or rather the civil accidents accruing from marriage, in so far as these belong at all to the domain of the civil magistrate)—must be classed amongst the peculiar attributes of the local legislature; otherwise “property and civil rights” would be made over to the central legislature as the attributes of the latter, since all property and civil rights have their basis in marriage, and are the civil accidents thence accruing.

We respectfully submit these our opinions to the Journal de Quebec, as opinions which to us seem to be in accord with the dogmatic teachings of the Church upon the questions of “Marriage and Divorce;” and to be the logical sequence of the principle laid down by the Quebec delegates, to wit — That “Property and Civil Rights” are to be amongst the subject matters of local legislation.

And in striking confirmation of our opinions, we find it stated in the Courrier du Canada of the 11th, that seven Catholic members of the Quebec Conference protested against the assumption of the Protestant delegates, to decree “statuer” on this matter—i.e., marriage: and the Courrier continues:—

“Convinced that to authorise divorce is to drag society back to the morals of paganism; the Catholic delegates could not accord to the civil law the right of ruling this matter. Upon this question, they could make no concession, for to have done so would, in principle, have been a recognition of the legitimacy of divorce.”—Courrier du Canada:

Now as the “principle” at issue, i.e., the legitimacy of divorce, whether we recognise the right of legislating upon the matter as residing in the central, or in the local legislature, is precisely the same; and as this is a question upon which “no concession” can be made by the Catholic, since by so doing he would, in principle, recognise the right of a civil tribunal—(either the central or the local legislature, in principle it matters not one straw which)—to legalise divorce, it follows logically that neither in the central nor in the local legislature, ought of right the attribute of legislating upon the matter of divorce to be recognised. If this were a question upon which we could make concessions, we might discuss it simply as a question of expediency. “Whether is it more expedient to assign the function of legislation upon divorce to the central or to the local legislature? But it is a question of principle, not of expediency; a question upon which as the Courrier du Canada well observes, “no concession, AUCUNE CONCESSION,” can be made either to central, or to local government, as thereby Catholics would recognise, in principle the possible legitimacy of divorce; and in so far as this principle is concerned, it is quite as much violated by recognising divorce as one of the attributes of the central legislature, as it would be by recognising it as an attribute of the local legislatures. If principle bids us refuse it to the one, principle, Catholic principle, no less bids us refuse it sternly, inexorably to the other; and therefore upon the principles laid down by the Courrier du Canada, we maintain that neither in central nor in local legislature should Catholics recognise, or even seem to recognise any right to legislate upon divorce.—Their duty seems to us to be this: To place on record their unanimous, even if ineffectual, protest against the assumptions of a Protestant majority. Again we repeat it, ad nauseam, if you will—this is a question not of expediency upon which it is permitted to yield, but a question of principle upon which “no concession, AUCUNE CONCESSION,” can be made; and it is quite as immoral, fully as base a denegation of principle, to recognise the right of the central legislature to legislate upon, and therefore legalise, divorce, as it would be to recognise a similar right as existing in any one of the local legislatures. The argument of the Courrier du Canada against any such recognition in either case, on the part of Catholics, is unanswerable, and absolutely conclusive.

• (For instance, the soul is the form of the man.)