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Can. 1063 of Code of Canon Law says that pastors of souls are obliged to take care that their ecclesiastical community offers the Christian faithful the assistance by which the matrimonial state is preserved in a Christian spirit and advances in perfection. This assistance should be offered also to make the Christian faithful instructed about the meaning and the legal definition of Christian marriage and about the function of Christian spouses and parents. Especially, the Christian faithful should know that the matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized; and that for this reason, a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament (can. 1055).

The Italian constitution comprehends a section devoted to «social-ethical relationships» with provisions in the first four articles of principles on family and health. This part of the constitution, which is linked to the fundamental article 2, stresses the relational dimension of man and the nexus between fundamental human rights and the principle of solidarity. However, over the last few decades the influence of the libertarian movement, reinforced by globalisation and the new economic relationships, has led to a deconstitutionalizasation and a reshaping of the Italian legal system. This system tends now to be highly influenced by the model of individualistic self-ownership and is consequently severed from its constitutional roots. If the trend continues the concept of marriage will be transformed into a contractual one based only on the right to individual happiness without any space for communal happiness within the family. Moreover, filiation is transforming, particularly thanks to biotechnologies, into a new concept which can no longer be considered as a true relationship with its concomitant set of responsibilities, but rather the consequence of an act of self-determination of an adult. The Author underlines some ambiguity revealed in this process, while focusing on the issues regarding cohabitation without marriage, gay marriage and insemination by donors and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.

The core content of Church’s matrimonial law is the anthropological truth of marriage, which canon law tries to translate in technical formulas (more or less modifiable, depending on the importance of the aspect to which they relate). It is above all a natural truth, which therefore belongs to all mankind. Thus the teaching of the Church, in proposing this heritage properly, may be recognized and received by men and women today as a word of truth and hope.

This article focuses on the relationship between faith and marriage, a subject that is at the center of many discussions during this intersynodal period. The first question that arises is to what degree a lack of faith may hinder the understanding of the natural reality of marriage. In other words, can a lack of faith indirectly affect the validity of marriage, to the extent that it makes it difficult or sometimes even impossible to understand what marriage actually is and whether there exists a real will to marry. Secondly, there arises the question whether faith as a theological virtue is a requisite for the celebration of the marriage sacrament, meaning that a lack of faith could have a direct effect on the validity of the marriage. The reflections in this article are made through a study of the Magisterium of Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis on the relationship between faith and the sacrament of marriage.

With respect to the relativisation of the familial form must double signaling the profound difference between the family founded on marriage and other forms of cohabitation, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. The choice of the Italian Constitution gave prominence to the family (heterosexual) founded on marriage; that choice cannot be questioned from different directions at European level. It is, in fact, a perspective of values which results in a model system of our legal rules.

It seems to take growing root in the West a certain idea of marriage, which appears to descend from the French secularism model, in being “counter-traditional”, respectful of the individual autonomy, and devoted to an “integral” application of the principle of equality. The proof is that it putted down roots in legal contexts poles apart from the above model, for their way to set the space and the relevance of religion in the public sphere. The study examines the emblematic English case, where this notion has led to the introduction of “same-sex marriage”, without the peculiar framework of the relations between the State and his national Church, with his singular legal tecnical implications (the “ecclesiastical law” as integral part of the general law of England; the “constitutional” principle for which the canon law cannot be contrary to the latter; the correspondence – until then – between “anglican marriage” and the civil one; the clergy's duty to solemnise the marriage of all the residents in the Country irrespective of the couple's religious beliefs or lack of them) have rapresented a barrier or a scruple. The goal of the paper is, on one hand, focusing the political and legal reasons that underlie this outcome, and, on the other hand, look into the impact that the latter has resulted on the Church of England's legal system, its legally relevant reactions, and the adopted “style of presence”, also as a “benchmark” for the more comprehensive anglican world.

The problem of divorcees is a matter that affects all the Church. In fact, they must be reconsidered in the dignity of the faithful, with their rights and obligations within the ecclesial community. Therefore, the divorced are not only "social category", but first of all members, although suffering, the Body of Christ and for this reason need to be rethought forms of exclusion and marginalization practiced in the church. You must look at the problem not so abstract and general rules addressing ethical and social, but above all considering the reality of the life of the faithful, who as members of the Church in need of pastoral attention merciful. In this context, absolutely central is the right of access to the Eucharist. The sacrament is a gift free and that the Lord Jesus Christ has given to all people and, therefore, His will is the very foundation of the right of access to the Eucharist, as well as formalized in the can. 912 c.i.c. The Eucharist is the source of ecclesial life and for divorcees not remarried, who become witnesses of fidelity in marriage, both for the divorced and remarried civilly, for which the more reason there is a problem of reintegration in the ecclesial community. This directly involves the Church and its pastors, who are asked to exercise the duty of a careful discernment and accompaniment, avoiding any form of discrimination. The reintegration of ecclesial divorcees must be considered with a view to recover the value of ecclesial unity and the value inherent Eucharist. There are different ways of existence, from the review of cases of nullity of a previous marriage, the commitment to strengthen the spiritual communion of a marriage in which the right to the Eucharist sustains the recognition of living in continence. Even conjugal chastity appears as a virtuous dynamic in a new dimension of inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual, and in a different perspective to the mutual gift, total and unlimited in time, man and woman.

This article concerns the individualization of guidelines for (ethically) contributing by legal experts or politicians to the production of a legislative text, even when inevitably, as part of the democratic process of law, that text does not adequately respond to the ethical requirements these experts or politicians believe to be fundamental. The issue is referred in particular to the ethical thought within the Catholic Church, showing the necessity of a peculiar consideration from moral theology. The essay presents the example of the legal recognition of partnerships other than marriage.

According to the 1984 Agreement between the Holy See and the Italian Republic, modifying the 1929 Lateran Concordat, ecclesiastic final judgments, which annul (or declare void) a canonical marriage with civil effects in Italy, are subject, on party motion, to a special recognition procedure before the italian Court of Appeal and – apart from other conditions required – cannot be recognised, at any rate, if contrary to italian public policy rules. With the 2014 decision herein analyzed, the italian Supreme Court of Cassazione has reversed a previous different trend in matrimonial matters and, for public policy reasons, has denied any possible recognition, whenever the married couple has been living together for (at least) three years after the marriage (subsequently annulled by the ecclesiastic courts). This essay aims at laying stress on the critical questions involved in that last trend.

There is a line of thinking according to which the Italian legal system in matrimonial matters should align itself with the foreign law (Western and European) and reject the domestic one, as if it was something of notoriously underdeveloped and devoid of current values. The study intends, on one hand, to examine the cultural and legal reasons that underpin this orientation, focusing on the contradictions and inconsistencies which accompany it; and, on the other hand, outline the proper elements of the legal tradition that should be maintained and promoted, also in a perspective of "updating" the institution.