Important New Book on Marriage

Miguel Ayuso and Bernard Dumont

Modern Churchmen are supposedly eager to listen to the insights of competent laymen. They would do well to apply that principle to an important new book that is to be published at the beginning of September by The International Union of Catholic Jurists (UIJC). Edited by the  traditionalist Catholic President of UIJC, Miguel Ayuso, the book includes contributions from numerous distinguished Catholic lay-scholars in six languages (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish). Although it is clearly meant to contribute to the debate around Cardinal Kasper’s proposals, most of the essays approach the question from a wider perspective, examining the nature and importance of marriage in the light of legal theory, legal history, and philosophy. Thus Bernard Dumont (editor of the French review Catholica) shows how recent confusion about the nature of marriage flows from a false, modern understanding of freedom. Danielo Castellano (professor of philosophy at the University of Udine, Italy, and editor of the journal Instaurare) shows how ancient philosophy was able to understand the nature of marriage as a union of one man and one woman for the whole of life, for the sake of the generation and education of children. Wolfgang Waldstein (professor emeritus of Roman Law at the University of Salzburg, Austria) shows how the same natural-law insights were made by the ancient Roman jurists.

Other authors include Ricardo Dip (Court of Justice of Sao Paulo, Brazil), Brian McCall (University of Oklahoma, USA), Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado (Attorney General of the Republic of Colombia),  José María Sánchez (University of Seville, Spain), and Luis Maria de Ruschi (Inter-Diocesan Tribunal Bonarense, Argentina).

Photo credit: El Observador