TERESA BENNS, at her website BetrayedCatholics, has made the astounding and alarming claim that tens of thousands of marriages conducted in Vatican II churches and Traditionalist chapels during the past 60 years are invalid and that spouses are free to leave and contract new marriages. See here and here.

My comments are quoted in both the first and the second entry, but I have to say I am somewhat speechless and overwhelmed by the potentially dire and destructive consequences of this evidently false claim.

A correspondent writes,

“One can extrapolate from her heretical posturing that in fact, practically no one is married today.”

Robert Robbins, at CatholicEclipsed, responds at length to Benns’ posts here and here. Robbins uses strong language (I am not prepared to call Benns a “cult leader”), but he persuasively counters her arguments. He writes:

Now, Benns has claimed in her most recent the following:

“…Who alone were able to administer or witness the Sacraments? Those who can be rightly identified, of course, as lawful pastors, rightly commissioned by the Church as such. Does the Church consider marriages between Catholics, (or where one party is Catholic at least), by one not delegated by the Church sacramental? Not according to Can. 1094. Therefore even if consummated, it is still not considered valid. And this same Canon offers the exception of Canon 1098. But how could Can. 1098 be invoked unless one first realized there are no lawful pastors left and they must invoke it?”

The quick and concise answer to this blathering nonsense is that, yes, the Church does consider marriages between Catholics sacramental and valid and licit, even before a non-Catholic minister, provided the conditions of law of c.1098 are fulfilled. And, no! Knowledge of the law need not be invoked like a spell book charm in order to come into effect. Law doesn’t work like magic spells. Law is the universal regulatory principle of order in a community which is effective quite apart from our knowledge. The legal maxim everyone and their brother knows–except, it would seem, Teresa Benns–is that ignorance of the law does not excuse.

Thus it is quite impossible for a marriage to be invalid which took place even before a non-Catholic minister but before at least two witnesses, when during the past several decades no authorized priests have been available.

Read more here.

Benns has done important work proving that Traditionalists lack authority for their chapels. I credit her labors on this issue, around which there is much blameless confusion, and I am grateful for her efforts. But I have to say sometimes she takes unfair and cheap shots at Traditionalists, who to their credit are mostly sincere and have done so much work proving the errors of Vatican II.

The same correspondent quoted above writes: “Traditionalists are wrong on the liceity and licitness of operating without true papal authority, but it doesn’t mean they are wrong on the conclusions regarding Vatican II, the New Mass, the role of world Jewry, devotion to Our Blessed Mother, and the like. Give credit where credit is due.” In one of the posts on marriage she fires another cheap shot, claiming that “many” Trad men are domestic tyrants with no sympathy for their wives. Surely some are. But “many?” That has not been my observation at all.

On a more serious issue, her claim that Traditionalist priests lack valid orders has been hotly disputed by Robbins.

Again, Benns has done important work and I am certain of her extraordinary devotion. I am deeply saddened to see these discredited by her latest posts.

— Comments —

Robert Robbins writes:

Below is a sentence from a canon law commentary Benns quoted in her addendum:

Non-Catholics baptized and unbaptized are exempt from the Catholic form of marriage whenever they marry persons similarly not bound by it.

Do you see the problem? Per hypothesis, lay and clergy Traditionalists are non-Catholics. Hence, unless they were born under the reign of Pius XII, and so baptized by Catholic priests AND grew up under the same, receiving Catholic sacraments, they were never Catholic to begin with—like yours truly, who was baptized as an adult in the V2 sect. Therefore, people in my generation or just before (60-70) never came under the laws of the Church as such, because we were not in fact visible members of the Church, and so c.1094 and it’s exemption, c.1098, did not apply! We who were baptized and married outside the Church were always presumed to have a valid and sacramental marriage!

Benns has it so backwards and upside down and inside out. Traditionalists and Novus Ordo people are not schismatic in the objective legal order. They are non-Catholics, and so not bound by the marriage laws of the Church.

Oct. 31, 2022

Laura writes:

In further comments at her site, Teresa Benns suggests that I have no respect for canon law. I posted this comment to her site, which is awaiting moderation:

It is not true that I did not refer to canon law in my post, “A Grave Attack against Catholic Marriage.”

I specifically, and for that exact purpose, cited another blogger who addressed the relevant laws. He addressed the issue well enough that I did not feel the need to elaborate. I also referred to canon law in my comments on your previous post. Your claim that I have no respect for canon law, that I “disrespect and discount” it, is therefore untrue and unfair. Nor, I believe, was my article sniping.

It is undeniable that the graces of the sacrament of matrimony fortify marriage. The answer to the unhappy couples you mentioned is to recognize this deprivation and renew their vows or physically separate. The answer is not to walk away from true marriages in the eyes of God and try to form new ones.

Actually, the marriages Benns is mainly discussing are also (according to long quote below from the Catholic Encyclopedia) sacramental and thus would bring graces. Here is another post from Robbins discussing this issue and the relevant canon law citations.

I openly admit, by the way, that I am not a canon lawyer. In the Church of Teresa Benns, everyone must apparently be an armchair canon lawyer. There is no room for the person who knows his catechism, his sacraments, his prayers, his Holy Scripture. Nope. You have to be a canon lawyer or you are outside the Church. And if you are not a canon lawyer, your spouse has every right to put you aside and marry someone else. Regardless of this, I believe Robbins has proved that what Benns says is not consistent with canon law.

Robbins writes:

I shall leave you with this intolerably but necessarily long quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Sacrament of Marriage which puts it beyond doubt that those who are schismatics are nevertheless married:

“As we have several times emphasized, not every marriage is a true sacrament, but only marriages between Christians. One becomes and remains a Christian in the sense recognized here through valid baptism. Hence only one who has been validly baptized can contract a marriage which is a sacrament; but every one can contract it who has been validly baptized, whether he has remained true to the Christian faith, or become a heretic, or even an infidel. Such has always been the teaching and practice of the Church. Through baptism one “becomes a member of Christ and is incorporated in the body of the Church“, as declared in the Florentine Decree for the Armenians; so far as law is concerned, he remains irrevocably subject to the Church, and is therefore, in legal questions, always to be considered a Christian. Hence it is a general principle that all baptized persons are subject to universal ecclesiastical laws, especially marriage laws unless the Church makes an exception for individual cases or classes. Hence not only the marriage between Catholics, but also that contracted by members of the different sects which have retained baptism and validly baptize, is undoubtedly a sacrament. It matters not whether the non-Catholic considers marriage a sacrament or not, or whether he intends to effect a sacrament or not. Provided only he intends to contract a true marriage, and expresses the requisite consent, this intention and this expression are sufficient to constitute a sacrament. But if he is absolutely determined not to effect a sacrament, then, of course, the production of a sacrament would be excluded, but the marriage contract also would be null and void. By Divine ordinance it is essential to Christian marriage that it should be a sacrament; it is not in the power of the contracting parties to eliminate anything from its nature, and a person who has the intention of doing this invalidates the whole ceremony. It is certain, therefore, that marriage contracted between baptized persons is a sacrament, even the so-called mixed marriage between a Catholic and a non-Catholic, provided the non-Catholic has been validly baptized. It is equally certain that marriage between unbaptized persons is not a sacrament in the strict sense of the word,” (Emphasis added).

Do not be confused. Do not be deceived. If you and your partner were baptized and exchanged vows before two witnesses, no matter what your religious standing was, fallen away Catholic, schismatic, or heretic, you were validly and sacramentally married.

According to a commenter at Benns’ site, I have shown my true colors and am “persecut[ing]” Mrs. Benns.

Let me just say in response: Benns has launched attacks against many people at her site and justified these attacks with reason and research. Where she thoroughly proves her case, I applaud her efforts. But it seems the same rhetorical standards do not apply to her and one must blindly obey.

I have not the slightest animus toward Teresa Benns, but I do take strong exception to these arguments regarding marriage.

Mr. Robbins writes:

You wrote: “I have not the slightest animus toward Teresa Benns, but I do take strong exception to these arguments regarding marriage.”

One might infer after reading my articles against Benns that I do have an animus toward Benns, but the fact is, I look on her as not unlike a wayward grandmother, wayward, though, in the sense of scandalizing souls and weakening if not undermining the very foundation of society itself, which is the family and matrimony. Thus, I take a more bitter tone when addressing her errors, a rhetorical device to be sure, and not one animated by any animus toward her person whatever.

I just wanted to add that to your concluding thought, because in this we are one, though you tend toward a soft rhetorical approach, which I very much commend though I dare not emulate.

Laura writes:

I would not normally venture opinions on a somewhat complex subject that I had not studied in depth. It’s easy for Benns to mock my post as being unlearned, but I was motivated to speak because of the serious danger her posts posed. We’re dealing with basic human passions. With all the confusion in the Church, couples are tossed to and fro. Beyond that, few marriages are not put under strain by the terrible conditions in society.

I am still reeling from what she is saying and how dangerous it is.

Mr. Robbins writes:

I believe that strong, Catholic marriage is really the one thing left, the one sacramental link we have—next to baptism—to the grace of God. My wife and I depend upon holy matrimony absolutely, as I am sure you and your husband do and have for so long. It is the vital imperfect society which perfects the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. And Benns wants to call that into question based upon her laywoman’s uneducated opinion on a point of canon law?

One who wouldn’t reel at such ought to check their wrist for a spiritual pulse!

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