"But although it appears that God's command concerning marriage delivers many from their vows, yet our teachers introduce also another argument concerning vows to show that they are void. For every service of God ordained and chosen of men without commandment of God to merit justification and grace is wicked as Christ says (Matt. 15, 9): 'In vain they worship Me with the commandments of men.' And Paul teaches everywhere that righteousness is not to be sought by our own observances and acts of worship devised by men, but that it comes by faith to those who believe that they are received by God into grace for Christ's sake."
The confessors then proceed to show how spiritual pride was fostered by the monkish teaching of perfection, and how by their rites and ordinances and rules the true worship of God was obscured, and men were withdrawn from useful pursuits in life to be buried in cloisters. They conclude: "All these things, since they are false and empty, make vows null and void." (p. 57 ff.)
Luther never had taken his own nor other monks' vows lightly. He spoke and wrote to Melanchthon from the Wartburg against the mere throwing off of the vows on the ground that they were not binding anyway. He argued the sacredness of the oath, and held that first the consciences of those bound by vows must be set free through the evangelical teaching; then, when they are qualified to make an intelligent choice on spiritual grounds, they may discard their vows. When he married Catherine, he had long become a free man in his mind. So had Catherine.
Luther is charged with having entertained a purely secular view of the essence of marriage. It is true that Luther repudiated the Catholic view of the sacramental character of matrimony. By the teaching of the Roman Church a legal marriage can be effected only by the ratification of the marriage-promise and the blessing spoken over the couple by a consecrated priest, who thus, by his official quality, imparts to the marriage which he solemnizes a sacred character. In Luther's days it was held that "the Church alone properly had jurisdiction over the question of marriage, and the canonical laws (of the Church) included civil as well as spiritual affairs. Luther repudiated these canonical laws on the subject of marriage, and separated its civil from its ecclesiastical aspect. He maintained that marriage, as the basis of all family rights, lies entirely within the province of the State, and mast be regulated of necessity by the civil government. 'Marriage and the married state,' he declared in his Traubuechlein (10, 721), 'are civil matters, in the management of which we priests and ministers of the Church must not intermeddle. But when we are required, either before the church, or in the church, to bless the pair, to pray over them, or even to marry them, then it is our bounden duty to do so.'" (Waring, p. 221.)
In 1906, a papal decree was published which declares any betrothal or marriage entered into by a Catholic with a Catholic, or by a Catholic with a non-Catholic, to be valid only on condition that either the betrothal or the marriage take place in the presence or with the sanction of a Catholic priest This decree is known as the Ne Temere decree. It is called thus according to a custom prevailing in the Catholic Church by which the official deliverances of the Popes are cited by giving the initial word, or words, of such a deliverance. The two Latin terms Ne Temere are a warning against reckless action, and the reckless action intended is the one indicated above.
We quote a few statements from the Ne Temere decree, from the work of Dr. Leitner of Passau, which was issued in its fifth edition at Regensburg in 1908. Dr. Leitner is a Catholic professor at Passau and bears the title "Doctor of Theology and Canon Law." Dr. Leitner's book is in German: Die Verlobungs- und Eheschliessungsform nach dem Dekrete Ne Temere, which means, "The Form of Betrothal and Marriage according to the Ne Temere Decree." Throughout his book the author cites the original language of the papal deliverance. The decree reaffirms, in the first place, the decree of the Council of Trent, to this effect: "The Holy Congregation declares any person who dares to enter into the estate of matrimony, except upon license from the parish priest or of some other priest of the same parish, or of the ordinary, and of two or three witnesses, incapacitated for such a contract, and contracts of this kind are declared null and void." (p.9.)
Regarding betrothals the decree declares: "Only such betrothals are regarded as valid and efficacious, according to the law of the Church, as are set down in a document signed by the contracting parties and by the parish priest, or the local ordinary, and by at least two witnesses."
Regarding marriage the decree hands down the following ruling: "Only such marriages are valid as are entered into in the presence of the parish priest, or the local ordinary, or of a priest delegated for the purpose by either of these, and of two witnesses." Again: "To the above law are amenable all persons baptized in the Catholic Church, also who have joined the Catholic Church from errorist or schismatic societies (notwithstanding the fact that either former or the latter have apostatized later) whenever they entered into betrothal or matrimony." Lastly: "The laws apply to the aforenamed Catholics whenever they enter into betrothal or matrimony with non-Catholics, baptized or not, even when they have obtained a dispensation from the obstacle of a mixed religion or of a disparity of cult; except the Holy See decrees otherwise for a certain or locality."
The operations of this decree have been peculiar. Some countries as Germany and Belgium, promptly secured exemption from it. In Canada the decree has caused law suits. One of them, Morin vs. Le Croix, was tried in Justice Greenshield's court at Montreal, June 21, 1912. The judge in his ruling said; "No Church, be it the powerful Roman Catholic Church, or the equally great and powerful Anglican Catholic Church, possesses any authority to overrule the civil law. Such authority as any Church has (in the matter of marriages) is given it by the civil law and is subservient to the civil law."
The Protestant Magazine, in Vol. IV, No. 2, published a facsimile of a baptismal certificate for Anna Susanna Dagonya, daughter of Stephen Dagonya, Roman Catholic, and Mary Csoma, Reformed, who were married at Perth Amboy, N. J., August 4, 1909, by Rev. Louis Nannassy, Reformed. Their child was born November 6, 1910, and baptized by Rev. Francis Gross, priest of the Holy Cross Church at Perth Amboy. In writing out the baptismal certificate, the priest has stated that the child is illegitimate, and that the parents are living in concubinage.