Before Rerum Novarum, There Was Arcanum

I shared Arcanum back in 2020. As I said then, "If you haven't already, I encourage you to read the whole thing". It is not that long.

From Crisis

By Nathan Kreider

Pope Leo XIII wrote a little-known encyclical that foretold the societal destruction that would come in the wake of normalizing divorce.

Since Pope Leo XIV’s election, the encyclical Rerum Novarum, the foundation of Catholic Social Teaching, has been mentioned countless times. It is, arguably, Leo XIII’s most famous encyclical, and for good reason. But anyone familiar with his writings will tell you he also wrote several other tremendous encyclicals on a wide variety of topics. One in particular, written over a decade before Rerum Novarum, is his encyclical on Christian Marriage, Arcanum.

Although not nearly as referenced as Pope Pius XI’s Casti Connubii, Catholics today would still greatly benefit from reading it, as so much of it still applies to today’s marriage crisis. Leo XIII was writing at a time when the Church was under siege, attacks on the family were rampant, and the institution of marriage was becoming increasingly secularized and divorce increasingly normalized. He wrote Arcanum as a defense of the traditional Catholic teaching on marriage against “those who deny that marriage is holy, and who relegate it, stripped of all holiness, among the class of common secular things…destroying the order that God has ordained.”

Against these opponents he reiterates the common teaching of the Church regarding the indissolubility of marriage and includes an extensive but not comprehensive list of the evils of divorce (as he says, “it is hardly possible to describe how great are the evils that flow from divorce”). He presents the following evils:

Matrimonial contracts are by it made variable; mutual kindness is weakened; deplorable inducements to unfaithfulness are supplied; harm is done to the education and training of children; occasion is afforded for the breaking up of homes; the seeds of dissension are sown among families; the dignity of womanhood is lessened and brought low, and women run the risk of being deserted after having ministered to the pleasures of men.

He warns that once divorce is tolerated, “there will be no restraint powerful enough to keep it within the bounds marked out or presurmised.” Because divorce is destructive to the family and society, there cannot be any reason based on the common good for a state to tolerate legal divorce. It can only bring about ruin.
Of course, divorce is such a great evil because marriage is such a tremendous good. He has much to say about the good of marriage, calling it the beginning and foundation of the family. For marriage he provides two lists of goods, one on the goods for spouses, another on the goods for families. Marriage is a benefit to spouses “by their lightening each other’s burdens through mutual help; by constant and faithful love; by having all their possessions in common; and by the heavenly grace which flows from the sacrament.” In his list of goods for family, he mentions, among other things, that marriage has the power “to strengthen union of heart in the parents; to secure the holy education of children; [and] to temper the authority of the father by the example of the divine authority.”

This approach is vital to any widespread defense of the family. By highlighting both the evil of divorce and the good of marriage, he simultaneously warns and invites. If we want our children to receive a proper education, divorce is a threat while marriage is a bastion.

Contrary to the claims of many feminists, past and present, Christian marriage does not trap women in an inherently abusive arrangement; rather, it provides them security. The husband’s rightful authority is not unbridled; it is constrained by divine law. Meanwhile, the toleration of divorce and secularization of marriage actually encourages the abusive scenarios that feminists attribute to Christian marriage. Regarding this, Pope Leo XIII quotes St. Jerome, who points out that wherever marriage is weakened, men are free “to run headlong with impunity into lust, unbridled and unrestrained, in houses of ill-fame and amongst his female slaves.” A virtuous marriage dignifies both man and woman. 

He goes on to warn: 

When the licentiousness of a husband thus showed itself, nothing could be more piteous than the wife, sunk so low as to be all but reckoned as a means for the gratification of passion, or for the production of offspring. 

This concern for using others merely as means for gratification has been frequently repeated by popes since, especially St. John Paul II. It is marriage which binds two people together in conjugal love, not as a mere contractual arrangement based on convenience or utility. It is a serious (and all too frequent) error for spouses to treat each other in a utilitarian way, deciding to divorce when the passion has dried up or the spouse’s usefulness has elapsed. The most commonly reported reason for divorce in the United States is not domestic abuse but a perceived “lack of commitment.”

The Church has continuously stood in defense of marriage, constantly reaffirming its indissolubility, sacramentality, and proper ends. The Enchiridion on the Family documents this with over 480 pages of magisterial excerpts prior to Arcanumand over 7,000 since. Nearly 150 years have passed since this encyclical, and we can still affirm and apply everything he has said to the modern world. Just as he laid the foundation, rooted in tradition, for Catholic Social Teaching with Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII did the same for marriage with Arcanum, the first encyclical devoted entirely to marriage. A renewed look at this encyclical offers a blueprint for resisting the divorce, confusion, and despair of our own age.