The “tragic error” in the United States
shocked the Christian community across the world – Catholics and Protestants
alike – last week.
The US Supreme Court decision on June 26
interpreting the US Constitution to require all states to license and recognize
same-sex “marriage” came as a bolt from the blue for the entire Catholic Church
which says the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered” and
homosexual practices are “sins gravely contrary to chastity”.
“It’s a tragic error that
harms the common good and most vulnerable among us,” said Archbishop Joseph E.
Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the US Conference of
Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The Catholic Church was vehemently opposing the
same-sex marriage all these years.
Vatican’s instructions are unambiguous.
There are absolutely no grounds for
considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely
analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. “Marriage is holy, while
homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts close the
sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective
and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved,” said Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger,
Prefect, Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, in a report.
Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts “as
a serious depravity... (cf. Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10). This judgment
of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer
from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the
fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered”. This same moral
judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries and is
unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition, says Cardinal Ratzinger, who later
became Pope Benedict 16th.
The unique meaning of marriage as the union
of one man and one woman is inscribed in our bodies as male and female. The
protection of this meaning is a critical dimension of the “integral ecology”
that Pope Francis has called us to promote. “Mandating marriage redefinition
across the country is a tragic error that harms the common good and most
vulnerable among us, especially children. The law has a duty to support every
child’s basic right to be raised, where possible, by his or her married mother
and father in a stable home,” Archbishop Kurtz said in his statement after the
court decision.
US Catholic
bishops encouraged Catholics to move forward with faith, hope, and love: faith
in the unchanging truth about marriage, rooted in the immutable nature of the
human person and confirmed by divine revelation; hope that these truths will
once again prevail in our society, not only by their logic, but by their great
beauty and manifest service to the common good; and love for all our neighbors,
even those who hate us or would punish us for our faith and moral convictions.
However, Vatican is clear about one thing. According
to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies “must
be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust
discrimination in their regard should be avoided”. They are called, like other
Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. According to Vatican, in situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. “One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection,” says Cardinal Ratzinger.
Cardinal Ratziner’s report, approved by Pope John Paul II, says legal recognition of homosexual unions would obscure certain basic moral values and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.
