1944 Holy Office Decree on the Ends of Matrimony
Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office
Decree on the Ends of Matrimony
April 1, 1944
Concerning the ends of matrimony and the relationship and ordering of them, in these latest years, many writings have appeared, which rather assert that the primary end of matrimony is not the generation of offspring or that the secondary ends are not subordinate to the primary end but are independent of it.
In these works, the primary end of marriage is designated differently by the various [writers], as for example: the completion and personal perfection of the spouses through a complete mutual fellowship of life and action; mutual love and the fostering and perfection of the union of the spouses by the psychic and bodily surrender of one’s own person; and many other such things.
In the same writings a sense is sometimes attributed to words occurring in documents of the Church (as, for example, primary, secondary end) that does not agree with these concepts according to the common usage by theologians.
A novel manner of thinking and speaking was born hither unto fomenting errors and uncertainties; seeking to avert these things, the most Eminent and Reverend Fathers of this Supreme Sacred Congregation, charged with safeguarding matters of faith and morals, in the plenary session of Feria IV, held on the day of March 29, 1944, to the dubium put before them: “Whether the opinion of certain modern [authors] may be admitted, who either deny that the primary end of matrimony is the generation and raising of offspring or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinate to the primary end but are equally paramount and independent?”; they have decreed the response: Negative.
And in the audience accorded to the Most Excellent and Reverend Lord Assessor of the Holy Office, on the Feria V, on the 30th day of the same month and year, Our Most Holy Lord, Pius XII, by Divine providence Pope, concerning everything relationship considered, deigned to approve the decree at hand, and ordered that it be made a matter of public law.
Given at Rome, from the Palace of the Holy Office on the day of April 1, 1944.
Msgr. Giovanni Pepe, Notary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office
Original: AAS 36 [1944] 103: https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-36-1944-ocr.pdf#page=103
English Translation: Papal Teaching, Matrimony, Benedictine Monks of Solesmes, tr., Michael J. Byrnes, Boston, Daughters of St. Paul, 1963