I am sure I am not the only devout Catholic in good standing who was a bit stunned, shocked even, to read the story ( widely reported in The Associated Press and in columns on the blogs: Huffington Post, Daily Kos and the Daily Dish) of a young boy, Lennon Cihak from Barnesville, Minnesota who was refused confirmation because of a picture he posted on his facebook page showing himself and a poster connected to the Minnesota referendum which wanted to amend the Minnesota Constitution so that, by law, marriage was defined as only between a man and a woman. Lennon doctored the poster to show support for equal marriage rights. The referendum, despite a lot of effort and exceedingly large sums of money from many Minnesota dioceses, did not pass.
Lennon's pastor, Rev. Gary Lemoine, at Assumption parish in Barnesville, barred him from confirmation and also told his mother that she and her family would be barred from communion for taking a line on gay marriage different from his. In an attempt to appeal the pastor's decision, Lennon's mother appealed to the Bishop of Crookston, Minnesota, Michael Heoppner, who told her Lennon could be confirmed only if he stood in front of the parish congregation and denounced marriage equality. How I wish Andrew Greeley was still writing his columns. He would have written a scorcher on this pastoral mal-practice!
I was reminded of a conversation I had with a retired archbishop about an earlier letter by Archbishop John J. Meyers of Newark who wrote in a pastoral letter that Catholics who supported marriage equality for gays and lesbians should abstain from communion. The retired archbishop told me Meyers needed to consult a good canon lawyer. While Meyers, in his letter, said he wanted to be clearer than some other of his fellow bishops regarding homosexuality, in fact he went beyond what good pastoral practice and canon law allow.
The canon law of the Church says that good Catholics ( Lennon went to weekly mass and did volunteer work as part of his confirmation preparation) should have access to communion and the other sacraments ( indeed, they have a right to them), provided they have not committed a mortal sin or are under excommunication or an ecclesiastical censure and, also, that they accept the real presence of Jesus in the eucharist ( cf. canon # 905).
It might help if we look at three cognate cases. Case # 1: the official church teaches that the use of contraceptives in marriage is evil and, objectively a mortal sin. Yet, the church does not teach it is a sin for Catholics to support civil legislation which allows the sale and possession of contraceptives. Indeed, in a famous Massachusetts referendum, in the 1960s, to allow the sale of contraceptives ( previously illegal in the state), Cardinal Cushing of Boston said Catholcis were not bound to support such civil laws outlawing the sale of contraceptive devises in the state.
Case # 2: The official church teaches that divorce is wrong if it leads to remarriage after the divorce which constitutes a kind of adultery. Again, except for a few retrograde Catholic nations before Vatican II, no one in a pluralistic democracy would have taught it is a mortal sin for a Catholic to support civil laws in support of possible divorce with remarriage.
In a similar way, the official church teaches that homosexual sexual acts are immoral. Once again, there is no clear Catholic teaching that a Catholic who votes for or supports civil laws allowing marriage for gays and lesbians is guilty of any clear sin, let alone mortal sin. When I was a boy, I was taught in my catechism quite clearly what was considered mortal sins. Never did I run across a list of such sins: " because I voted for civil laws in contradistinction to a prudential ( or not so prudential!) judgment of my bishop about a civil law."
In my state, we recently had a referendum outlawing capital punishment. The church dis-approves of capital punishment. Most California bishops showed support for the rescinding of capital punishment. Surely, however, I would be egregiously wrong to argue that some Catholic who voted to retain capital punishment was in sin and should be refused communion. Nowhere in canon law do I see any mention of bishops' or pastors' arbitrary ability to claim something new is now a mortal sin! We need someone to guard against such so-called guardians of the faith. Canon lawyers do your job!
There are two ironies in this Minnesota case of egregiously bad pastoral practice by the pastor and his bishop. The referendum was not, as such, one to allow gay marriage. It was an attempt to put into the constitution an amendment that marriage was uniquely between a man and a woman. I could easily conceive of someone opposing gay marriage also opposing the referendum, thinking it was unnecessary so to amend the state's constitution. The point in canon law on this is that canon law assumes that in cases of any kind of punitive penalty, the interpretation of a claimed wrong-doing must be ' strictly' ( i.e., very narrowly) interpreted before any penalties are imposed. That did not happen in this Minnesota case. The second irony is that in a different Minnesota diocese, Duluth, Father Peter Lambert of Saint Louis parish in Floodwood gave $1,000 to oppose the amendment the Minnesota bishops were supporting. He did not know that this act would become public. When it did become public, he suffered no reprimand from his bishop.
When I recounted the tale of Lennon Cihak and the refusal to allow him confirmation because of a facebook picture ( prescinding from the fact that someone in the parish seems to be spying on the kids' facebook entries! What does that say?), a fellow Jesuit, quite pastorally sensitive, said to me in response: " Is it just me ? I know we have always had some horror tales in Catholicism. But they seem to me to have been growing exponentially and in ridiculous punitive measures in the last year or so!"
Just recently, in other forums, the church has been talking about a ' new evangelization': outreach to non-Catholics and the many, many fallen away Catholics. There have been items in our Catholic newspapers about the church needing to become a more ' welcoming' church. The shock for me in this Minnesota case is the extent to which it shows the many ways the church is often more about ' new excommunications' and punitive measures than " new evangelization". Alas, the nearest other Catholic chruch to Barnesville's Assumption parish is 16 or 17 miles away. I am afraid we have needlessly lost another Catholic to pastoral stupidity and mal-practice.
Code of canon law # 212 states that Catholics ( including the laity)" have the right and, sometimes, the duty to give to their sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful." It is to that canon I appeal in saying that the new slippery slope by which bishops and others declare, on their own mistaken 'claimed authority', things to be mortal sins, introduce loyalty oaths into parish life and talk about a more widespread refusing of communion is doing serious pastoral harm in the church. It is time for our canon lawyers ( and is it too much to hope: some of our, alas too silent, fellow bishops?) to remind them that they are brazenly overstepping their pastoral authority and doing harm to the church on many of these issues.
Fellow Catholics, I am proudly standing here to humbly see.
I assure you, and I mean it- Now, who says I don’t speak out as plain as day?
And, fellow Catholics, I’m for tradition and the cross- long may it stand.
I’m a poor boy, come to greatness. So, it follows that I cannot tell a lie.
Ooh I love to dance a little sidestep, now they see me now they don’t-
I’ve come and gone and, ooh I love to sweep around the wide step,
cut a little swathe and lead the people on.
Now my good Catholicss, it behooves me to be solemn and declare,
I’m for goodness and for marriage and for living clean and saying daily prayer.
And now, my good friends, you can sleep nights, I’ll continue to stand tall.
You can trust me, for I promise, I shall keep a watchful eye upon ya’ll…
Ooh I love to dance a little sidestep, now they see me now they don’t-
I’ve come and gone and, ooh I love to sweep around the wide step,
cut a little swathe and lead the people on.
Now, Lennon Cihak, I don’t know him, though I’ve heard his claim, oh yes.
But, of course I’ve no close contact, so what he is doing I can only guess.
And now, Lennon Cihak, he’s a blemish on the face of our good church.
I am taking certain steps here, someone somewhere’s gonna have to close him down.
Ooh I love to dance a little sidestep, now they see me now they don’t-
I’ve come and gone and, ooh I love to sweep around the wide step,
cut a little swathe and lead the people on.
Ooh I love to dance a little sidestep…
And, ooh I love to sweep around the wide step…
Cut a little swathe and lead the people on.
Fr. LaMoine, the pastor of Assumption Parish in Barnesville, told LifeSiteNews.com that there were other concerns that contributed to the decision to delay Lennon’s Confirmation, and that the final decision was made by Lennon himself, not the priest.
According to Catholic teaching, Confirmation is a sacrament of initiation that confirms Catholics as “mature” Christians. It is usually administered to young teens.
Fr. LaMoine said that his conversations with the Cihak family began in early October, when he sent a letter to Lennon’s parents, Doug and Shana, encouraging them to start coming to church to support their son.
The priest told LifeSiteNews.com that he only discovered Lennon’s gay marriage post by accident on October 25, the day after having a two-hour meeting with the family. During that meeting the priest had brought up the fact that the Cihaks were not coming to church, as well as “other matters” that the priest said, “I can’t get into here.” No mention was made of Lennon’s views on marriage during that meeting.
The following day Fr. LaMoine’s secretary, who is Facebook friends with Lennon, chanced upon the controversial post and alerted the priest to it.
The priest says that he then telephoned Lennon, and in the course of that conversation the boy said he had chosen not to go forward with Confirmation.
Lennon’s post came days before Minnesotans were slated to go to the polls to vote on an amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. It showed him holding a pro-marriage sign that he had defaced to express his support for “equal marriage rights.”
The priest admits, however, that once he knew that Lennon supported same-sex marriage, and was unwilling to retract his views, that he would not have been able to confirm him.
“You can’t have people out there saying things that are so contrary to the central teaching and doctrine of the Catholic faith, and going through Confirmation,” he said. “After he put it out in the public, we would have looked like a bunch of hypocrites in confirming him.”
Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB
I think that in this case it's just one "custodos" - Fr. LeMoine.
Juvenal was writing about the multiple guards you might hire to keep your wife from dallying with other men while you were away from home.
The's some question as to whether it was interpolated by someone else.
If you think there's a dramatic rise in the number of priests and bishops changing canon law on the fly, document it.
One has to admire the fortitude the pastor and parish have shown in this case. The family are obviously trying to engineer a media circus, looking for an opportunity to play Poor Bullied Little Victims up against the Big Bad Catholic Church in some kind of personal self-fulfillment melodrama. I'm impressed that nobody in the entire parish has lost his head and made any kind of threat or slur that the "journalists" could blow up into the talking point of the evening. Which you know they would, given half a chance.
Sure sounds like the kid isn't ready to be confirmed. Confirmation is a sacrament, not a sitcom audition. And as to the claim that the parents have been denied Communion, I'd bet a lot (any takers?) it's a deliberate misrepresentation.
Therefore, the point is that being in a homosexual relationship that one hopes to solemnize with a wedding is not the only situation that might draw scrutiny during the Confirmation process. Now it's also supporting people who find themselves in such a situation that makes the candidate the enemy of the Church in some pastors' eyes. If this is not the teaching of the Church, it should be dealt with so that it does not become a teaching of the Church.
Ultimately, though, Jesus taught about love and mercy; judge not lest ye be judged, etc. It's not possible to educate children in the virtues of Christianity and then expect them to be so judgmental as the Catholic Church is being of people who want to make a life commitment to a partner of the same gender.
Talk about glib.
Don't let your lack of information get in the way of a throwing out a half dozen half-baked judgements.
Below is the strange letter the strange priest wrote to his remaining parishioners.
(I added emphasis to the bits I find most strange, most at odds with traditional teachings about the sacrament of Confirmation, and most revealing, imho, of the real reasons for this abuse.) (And I still wonder why the bishop wasn't there to administer the sacrament. What else is there to do in Crookston?)
-
From: Fr. Gary LaMoine
To: Members of Assumption Parish, Barnesville
Reason: Recent celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation
Date: November 15, 2012
On Sunday, November 11th, the parish rejoiced in the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation with 20 men and woman of the parish. I congratulate all who entered the Church as full members and hope that their open commitment to live out their lives as Catholic Christians will bring them much personal joy and peace. It was a beautiful celebration and a great day.
The celebration of the sacrament was, however, surrounded by some controversy. A couple of candidates chose not to enter
into full communion with the Catholic community because of their disagreement with the teaching of the Church concerning marriage. I use the word chose very deliberately since they verbally withdrew from candidacy in conversation with one or more of the teaching staff.
One of the candidates withdrew after defacing a pro-marriage sign and placing the same on his Facebook website. When I challenged the young man as to why he was doing this when he knew he was rejecting a central teaching of the Church, he affirmed his rejection of the teaching for personal reasons and said that he no longer wanted to be confirmed. This is in direct contradiction to what has been subsequently proclaimed by the candidate and his family. He and his family are saying that he was denied the sacrament. This is not true; the young man withdrew from the ceremony. Nevertheless, even if he had not withdrawn from the confirmation ceremony, I would have had no choice but to remove him from consideration given his rejection of marriage as we understand it. Rejection of the Church’s teaching on marriage is a very serious breach of faith. We believe that the teaching on marriage (that marriage is between one man and one woman for the purpose of creating new life), is a matter of divine revelation; it comes directly to us from God. Rejection of the teaching on marriage is, for example, similar to the rejection of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity or the rejection of the doctrine of Christ as being both human and divine. Marriage, divinely received, is a central belief. Intending to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation, while rejecting a central belief, is an absolute contradiction. One cannot embrace the faith of the Church in Confirmation while rejecting it at the same time.
It is to my dismay that what should have been kept an internal Church matter has now become a public controversy. To place this controversy into the public forum was the decision of the young man and his family; it was not my intention or the intention of Bishop Hoeppner who was informed about the situation shortly after the young man withdrew from candidacy. The Bishop and I now find ourselves harassed by the media, coming to my door at 9:30 PM last Wednesday for a newspaper interview and being called to give comment on a KFGO radio program. All this activity originated from the young man and his family. Agreeing to disagree and leaving it at that is not acceptable to the young man and his family. What this family hopes to gain is beyond my present comprehension.
I apologize to the parish for the actions of this family. I have personally spent much time talking to them face to face about their unwillingness to accept the teaching of the Church on marriage but to no avail. I can only say that I am willing to continuing the conversation, but not in the public forum. This I will not do.
What is a devout Catholic? And in good standing with whom?
Fr. Coleman mentioned the Daily Kos and the Daily Dish, These are the liberal equivalent of Ann Coulter and we know how much the Jesuits think of Ann Coulter. The Huffington Post is a little more sensible but generally fairly left of the center.
Also when is the worth of something judged by the media? We have ample evidence of the vacuity of the MSM. So maybe that is an endorsement of good sense instead of silliness. Ordinarily something like this is on page 8 of the third section at the bottom of the page and used as filler but there are agendas on political blogs.
"We believe that the teaching on marriage (that marriage is between one man and one woman for the purpose of creating new life), is a matter of divine revelation; it comes directly to us from God."
Everybody says that. Cardinals, bishops, priests, laity on both sides of the constitutional question raised in Minnesota, although some say that that "definition" doesn't need to be chiseled into a constitution.
But the "definition" is not a definition. There is no noun linked to marriage on the back end of the linking verb "is." A table might be between one man and one worman. The table would not be a marriage. One man and one woman might sign a business contract reflecting mutual interests; the contract is not a marriage. There might be a debate between a man and a woman. A debate is not a marriage. The aisle of the church may be between me and a friend's wife, but that wouldn't make us married.
Please, everybody, somebody: Marrriage is a WHAT between a man and a woman? Unless we know that, we don't know what we are talking about. And don't tell me, "You know what we mean" because I do not. And don't tell me the missing word is "intercourse" left out to avoid embarrassing seminarians because the result of inserting that word is not what the Church teaches or ever taught.
Civil law is corrupt, without doubt, but canon law is absolutely corrupt.
And if we permit same sex marriages, what of the number? Who cares how many wives or husbands a person has? Justice Scalia predicted this, and you can expect that, absent a definition of marriage we will spawn marriages of infinites.
Matrimony is not under attack in civil society; marriage, as we understand it, is.
If you want to say "Marriage is sacred and its sanctity must always be understood and preserved," you have to say it was instituted by God (the Father) at Creation. IF you say that, you open a whole new can of worms but you are on ground from which, once established, the rest of your case follows. If you don't say that, you do not have an "always and everywhere" situation.
http://www.yawningbread.org/apdx_2004/imp-141.htm
Jim may be correct: http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?entry_id=4648
See #11. Is this the same Amy?
Jesus #1: "Love one another as I have loved you."
Jesus#2: "Be not afraid."
By the way, I've been married (yes, in the Church and to the same man) for 35 years. Gay relationships have never threatened by marriage.
This Thanksgiving, let's be grateful for all loving relationships.
These canons of the Council of Trent are the bedrock foundations ?T?h?e?se canons are completley unaccomodationg of other views such as those held by ?Protestant or others.
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The point being made is that it is not a mortal sin to disagree with the Church's position regarding civil marriage. Therefore, no one who disagrees should be denied any sacraments. However, the pastor in question stated that this issue alone would be sufficient cause for denying the boy in question his Confirmation.
While the Church has a sacrament called marriage and has the right - and maybe a duty, as you see it - to make all people think of their marriages as sacraments, it is not the case, as Tom#34 points out, that marriage has always and everywhere been regarded as a sacrament or even a contract between one man and one woman.
We do not live in a theocracy, and while you choose to accept the Church's understanding of marriage, others look at the larger society and see inequities that are baseless but for the teachings of some religions that are supposed to be freely followed and not required to govern the lives of all.
In any case, not agreeing with the Church's stand on civil marriage does not automatically equate to disagreeing with the Church's stand on sacramental marriage. A person can desire to enter the sacrament of matrimony through the Catholic Church and still support the freedom of same gendered people to marry.
RE #47: The quote from Matthew says that people are male and female so they will join together but it does not say that this is the only permissable joining together. However, it does say that once joined they should not be "put assunder" by any "man". It's an argument against divorce, not against gay marriage, I would say.
I'm not saying what the Church should or should not do. I'm past caring. All I'm saying is that as I read the Gospels, Jesus' message was one of compassion, not judgment. Remember His remark to the young man who stated the two greatest commandments: Love God with your whole mind, your whole soul,... love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus's reply was "you are not far from the kingdom fo God!" To me, this is the essential message, and one that we, in all humility, must embrace. I am not about to pass judgment on someone else's life... I have enough stumbling blocks in my own. I am not about to label someone else's life as "disordered." I have enough of my own disorder to contend with. In my humble opinion, true Christianity seeks understanding of other people and approaches other people with love and willingness to walk in their shoes. Passing judgment just does not feel like the Lord.
I think the Spirit is at work, and in mysterious ways. I think we will all be surprised when we meet God face to face.
CONFIRMATION CHARACTER. The indelible sign imprinted on the soul by the sacrament of confirmation. Its distinctive qualities are that it assimilates a person more closely to Christ, the Teacher of Truth, the King of Justice, and the High Priest. St. Thomas Aquinas holds that the confirmation character gives a person the power and the right to perform actions that are necessary in the spiritual battle against the enemies of the faith. He distinguishes the fighters of Christ (the confirmed) from the simple members of Christ's kingdom (the baptized) and explains that confirmation empowers and entitles those who receive it to not only preserve the faith but to make public profession of what they believe and a sense of mission to extend this faith to others.
Latin con-, thoroughly + firmare, to make firm: confirmatio, fortification, strengthening
When you're confirmed, you contract canon law obligations that there is normally no way to get out of. You're stuck with them for the rest of your life. That's all well and good if everybody plays by the rules or you didn't bother to find out what you were getting yourself into in the first place, but when you specifically asked about the issue and got an all-clear and they later arbitrarily change the rules on you, you get stuck mandatorily attending a church which has more-or-less explicitly told you that it would not confirm you today and that you're not welcome receiving communion. And you have to go, every Sunday, for the rest of your life.
You believe in meeting your freely-contracted obligations, no matter what, and a change of opinion on the issue is impossible.
What do you do to stay sane?
When my son goes for his "interview" with our pastor next year all his giving is his name and the name of his favorite saint. Some small talk about the weather and sports. That's it- nothing more.
there is no clear Catholic teaching that a Catholic who votes for or supports civil laws allowing marriage for gays and lesbians is guilty of any clear sin, let alone mortal sin.
In other words. You can accept the church's teaching that a certain behavior is sinful without necessarily believing that there should be a civil law forbidding it.
Do you want to argue against that?
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?entry_id=5181
There are many celibate gay Catholic priests in the church today. (And let me emphasize, since that last statement is usually misunderstood, I'm speaking about celibate gay priests. These are validly ordained homosexual men who lead celibate lives.) What is exceedingly rare is the Catholic priest who speaks publicly about his own homosexuality. (There are only a handful in this country who have done so.) An article in America in 2000 examines this phenomenon, and lists some of the reasons why Catholic priests remain silent about this aspect of their lives-even as they lead celibate lives.
Even rarer is the openly gay Catholic priest who speaks about issues related to homosexuality and homosexual activity. That is why this ten-minute speech by Robert Pierson, O.S.B., a member of the Benedictine community at Collegeville, MN (and listed as a priest in good standing in the 2011 Official Catholic Directory) is so unusual. Father Pierson, who had worked in campus ministry at St. John's University and is currently the director of the Spiritual Life Program at St. John's Abbey, speaks of his own homosexuality, his experience in ministering to gay and lesbian students, and then describes why he bas concluded that a Minnesota Catholic may vote ''no'' on a proposed state amendment that would prevent same-sex marriages. In 2005, Father Pierson had resigned from his post as director of campus ministry after the Vatican officially barred men with ''deep-seated homosexual tendencies'' from ordination, and because of broader issues in the church's teaching. ''Because I can no longer honestly represent, explain and defend the church's teaching on homosexuality, I feel I must resign,'' he said at the time.
Needless to say, his comments on same-sex marriage are in direct opposition to the U.S. Catholic bishops, including Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who has vigorously supported the amendment (that is, opposing same-sex marriage) and asked parishioners in his archdiocese to recite a ''A Prayer for Marriage'' as part of the Prayers of the Faithful (petitionary prayers) at Masses. The bishops could not be clearer in their opposition, which rests primarily on the Christian tradition of marriage as between a man and a woman (as well as on the church's opposition to homosexual activity). Father Pierson's appeal is primarily to freedom of conscience, and on that topic he quotes both the Catechism and Pope Benedict XVI. ''Our Holy Father taught in 1967 that we must obey our own conscience, even if it puts us at odds with the Pope. I doubt that he knew that he was going to be Pope when he said that.''
There ought to be a canon law and sanctions for making the Faith a laughing stock.
I love his charge of 'defacing' an election sign. Maybe the hierarchy will mount a US Constitutional amendment on this 'issue' and try to garner a 2/3rd vote in both Houses and States.
We all should thank God we will never have to pass through this backwater town of Barnsville in all our lifetimes.
The missing word is probably "covenant" The CCC says:
"1601 The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."
I was curious about what what Archbishop Meyers had said. His letter is here:
http://www.rcan.org/archbish/jjm_letters/wtbo.pdf
It's not possible to copy the text from the letter so I can only refer you to the third paragraph on page 2, where he cites that article of the CCC and then says that if you can't assent to the church's teaching on marriage, you should refrain from receiving Holy Communion
Assenting to the Church's teaching is something different from believing that the civil law should enforce the church's teaching (or the natural law, as +Meyers prefers to describe it) but the two get confused.
On page 10, +Meyers says that "Civil law should reflect the natural law to the extent that public order allows". That is more aggressive view than Augustine or Aquinas took, but at least it does acknowledge that prudential judgement is involved in deciding what is appropriate for the civil law to require.
Unfortunately, people who didn't feel up to reading and analyzing a 16 page letter probably came away with the feeling that if they voted in favor of the state recognizing same-sex marriage they would cut themselves off from the Holy Eucharist.
But, still: That contract I mentioned that reflects mutual interests - say that I will deliver so many pounds of talapia to her seafood restaurant at an agreed price- is also a covenant. But I am not married to that termagant, am I? Never!
Now what? The Catechism said marriage ia a covenant, but called it a "matrimonial" covenant," and we don't know what "matrimonial" means, since it depends on what "marriage" is. Maybe there is all this trouble over same-sex marriage because we different-sex marriage folks can't explain ourselves clearly even to ourselves.
MARRIAGE. As a natural institution, the lasting union of a man and a woman who agree to give and receive rights over each other for the performance of the act of generation and for the fostering of their mutual love.
The state of marriage implies four chief conditions: 1. there must be a union of opposite sexes; it is therefore opposed to all forms of unnatural, homosexual behavior; 2. it is a permanent union until the death of either spouse; 3. it is an exclusive union, so that extramarital acts are a violation of justice; and 4. its permanence and exclusiveness are guaranteed by contract; mere living together, without mutually binding themselves to do so, is concubinage and not marriage.
Christ elevated marriage to a sacrament of the New Law. Christian spouses signify and partake of the mystery of that unity and fruitful love which exists between Christ and his Church, helping each other attain to holiness in their married life and in the rearing and education of their children.
Your four conditions, I notice, do not include equality. Judging by the 9th Commandment, marriage at one time must have been a natural insitution uniting a man and one of his possessions, similar to but not identical with his house, his ox or his ass.
Even societies that care little for the woman's well-being have a vested interest in the viability of the offspring. Orphaned offspring rarely thrive. Therefore it is in the interests of all to make human laws which support and enhance the ability of the natural institution of marriage to provide as much assistance and protection to the mother as feasible.
This one reason why laws that pretend that a "marriage" can exist in which there is no female are bad laws. Implicitly denying the enormous contribution biological motherhood makes to the welfare of society, society effectively declines to take an interest in its future existence.
Lesbian "marriage," in which at least one woman has children and the other commit to help care for them, is potentially a sociaily useful idea. Gay marriage is inherently farcical.
It is not a promising sign that proponents of gay marriage seem to be unable to discuss the subject without directing vulgar, puerile sneers and put-downs at married women. ("similar to his ox or his ass.") But it is completely in accordance with the fundamental intention of the campaign.
You remind me of a situation I encountered where the school counselor was looking for someone to help with a child who had been adopted by a heterosexual couple and was returned to the adoption agency because when they decided to get divorced neither one of the individuals wanted the responsibility of caring for this child that had been with them from age 2 to 5. I don't extrapolate from this example to determine that heterosexual couples should not be allowed to adopt, so why do you make so many assumption about the parenting fitness of households without a female adult?
Please do not confuse my irritation with the shabby forms of argument my "side" makes with support for the other side. I merely was pointing out that the marriage, which we say was "always between a man and a woman" in the past, was not always between two actors with equal freedom. I kinow that my side wants to contend that God created marriage as it existed in 20th Century United States, but the Bible shows that He at least put up with patriarchs who had multiple consorts - call them wife or call them mistresses - and at another period He put up with marriaqe in which the brides had only the rights and status of manservants or oxen. Thus, our "always," like our evasive definition of marriage, is open to attack by anyone who has, oh, say, read the Bible.
That doesn't make lus wrong, but we sure are careless. I'll give you that.
No Canon Law if where to exist in the early Church would have explicitly authoirzed Saint John the Baptist, Christ cousin, to strongly denounce King Herrod for "marrying" his brother's wife. Saint John the Baptist died for is public denounciation of King Herrod violating the sanctity of marrage
Marriage is a sacrement insituted by Christ. It is sacred and its sanctity must alasy be understood and preserved.
The Bishops across the Unted Staes have repeatedly come out publically and strongly against same-sex marriage as one would expect in the same way John the Baptist Cmae out agasint King Herrod affairs or Saint Thomas More and the Vatican came out against the the affairs of King Henry VIII. Once againt the Church must give strong and clear public witness to Christ''s sacrement of marriage even against very powerful politcal movements to redefine what marriage is.
It is incidental to his main argument but I welcomed his comment on the ineffectiveness of claims that an issue is resolved by natural law.
"John Ford, a Jesuit moral theologian who was the most aggressive proponent of the anticontraception stance (and taught in Weston, Mass.) admitted letter [sic] that the "natural law" argument had failed; if the point of "natural law" arguments was to convince any "rational person" (unlike, e.g., Scripture, which would convince only a religious believer), and if all these rational persons were rejecting the Catholic position, then what did that say about the law's "natural" aspect?
Eventually, the bishops abandoned this fight and made a distinction between public policy and personal religious practice.While Catholics themselves might be forbidden to use contraception, it was not necessary that this be imposed on public policy in a democracy."
These canons of the Council of Trent are the bedrock foundations of the Church's teachings on the sacrements today. These canons are not accomodating to other views religious or secular views outside the Church. This is by the Bishops of the United aStates and elswhere have strongly advocated for the Church's stongly held views on what marriage as a sacrement is and is not.