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Reviewed by:
  • Consentimiento matrimonial e inmadurez afectiva by Juan Ignacio Bañares, Jordi Bosch
  • Patrick R. Lagges
Consentimiento matrimonial e inmadurez afectiva, by Juan Ignacio Bañares, Jordi Bosch, eds. Pamplona: EUNSA, 2007. Pp. 1-85.

This book represents the proceedings of the 6th International Symposium of the Martin de Azpilcueta Institute that was held in Pamplona on November 3-5, 2004. It consists of eight articles—all of them in very readable Spanish — that were presented at the Symposium, as well as an introduction by Juan [End Page 674] Ignacio Bañares. The authors are Jose Ignacio Murillo, Jose Maria Yanguas, Giuseppe Versaldi, Salvador Cervera, Carlos J. Errazuriz M., Gerard McKay, Antoni Stankiewicz, and Zenon Grocholewski. Like all proceedings from symposia, the articles are presented without reference to one another, creating a certain lack of cohesiveness to the work as a whole. This does not mean that the volume does not have its value; it simply means that there is an unevenness to the total work.

The article by Jose Ignacio Murillo gives us a more philosophical look at the nature of promise, while the article by Jose Maria Yanguas delineates human maturity from Christian maturity. Both articles are interesting from an academic point of view. The presentation by Giuseppe Versaldi concerns affective maturity from a psychological point of view, describing affectivity in various stages of human development. This provides some background material for the articles that will follow.

The articles which would be of principal interest to practicing canonists would be the four articles that follow. The first, by Salvador Cervera, entitled "Madurez afectiva y madurez conyugal (Affective maturity and Conjugal Maturity)," explains various types of human maturity: biological maturity, psychological maturity, and relational maturity. In each category, the author speaks of the tasks which are proper to each type of maturity. He then speaks of the concept of affective maturity, which he describes as eight capacities. This is followed by what he calls the ten aspects of conjugal maturity. All of these descriptions would certainly be helpful to judges in writing law sections and coming to decisions in marriage nullity cases involving a lack of discretion of judgment.

The article by Carlos J. Errazuriz M. on "Inmadurez afectiva e incapcidad consensual (Affective Immaturity and Consensual Incapacity)" is a further explanation of the Rotal allocutions of Pope John Paul II, as is the article by Zenon Grocholewski. For those who have read these allocutions and read the references to them in other articles, these two articles add little to a further understanding of the subject, other than a repetition of what was contained in the allocutions.

The most valuable article, however, is the one by Antoni Stankiewicz, entitled "Jurisprudencia de la Rota Romana sobre inmadurez afectiva ( Jurisprudence of the Roman Rota about Affective Immaturity)." As might be expected from this distinguished jurist, the article is filled with references to [End Page 675] Rotal decisions and to scholarly articles on the subject from across the years. It would serve the canonical community in the United States well if this article were translated into English.

The other article in the collection, by the Rotal auditor Gerard McKay, is helpful in understanding how a judge can work with proofs to come to a decision in cases involving affective immaturity.

The one thing that is constant throughout the volume, however, is the caution to judges that affective immaturity does not prove lack of discretion of judgment or incapacity to assume the essential obligations of marriage. Affective immaturity can be a factor in each of those grounds, but it cannot prove the grounds themselves. Thus it is not sufficient for a judge to conclude that because a party suffered from affective immaturity he or she, by that very fact, either lacked sufficient discretion of judgment or was incapable of assuming the essential obligations of marriage. Having found affective immaturity in one party, the judge still has other work to do in arriving at a decision. This point will also serve canonists well in learning more about the art of judging cases.

This present volume would have value for judges, advocates and defenders of the bond in marriage tribunals, as long as they...

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