Reply #86: Hmm... that's different but still interesting... [View All]

(2) a party lacks the physical capacity to consummate the marriage by sexual intercourse and at the time the marriage was solemnized the other party did not know of the incapacity;

That's a little different from what the church is saying.

That law says you can't be married if your partner doesn't know you're impotent.

Catholic canon law says it's invalid if you're impotent, period.

Presumably the church condemns it for one (or more) of the following reasons:

1) If you can't perform "conventionally," the only other options are "sodomy" of one sort or another.

2) Like a previous poster said, you usually can't know if someone is infertile until they actually have sex. However, impotency is pretty obvious. Especially if this canon law was written before things like sperm-counts and such.

In other words, is the canon law against marrying impotent persons based on a desire to ban non-reproductive (infertile) people or to prevent sodomy-- or both.