Vatican’s words on same-sex marriage supported, protested

The release of a Vatican document urging Catholic politicians around the world to oppose laws allowing for same-sex marriages stirred reactions among Chicago-area Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Many Catholics expressed support for the document, noting that it upholds two millennia of Catholic teaching about the sanctity of marriage, defined as the permanent union of one man and one woman. Others, including organizations that say they advocate for homosexual rights vowed to discontinue any support for the church because of what they saw as the document’s hurtful overtones.

The Vatican’s document was issued amid increasing worldwide initiatives to grant legal recognition to same-sex unions. It called on lawmakers to offer “clear and emphatic opposition” to such measures, which it said were contrary to human nature and ultimately harmful to society.

Stirring almost as much reaction as the document itself was a Chicago Sun-Times headline that blared: “Pope launches global campaign against gays.”

While over- and sub-headlines in smaller type clarified that the campaign was against laws establishing same-sex marriage, the message of the main headline was essentially that the pope had declared moral war on gays.

Cardinal George took that accusation head on in his Aug. 3 homily at Holy Name Cathedral—a homily that was published as a letter to the editor by the Sun-Times Aug. 8. The Sun-Times ultimately backed off—after a fashion. The cardinal’s column in this issue (See Page 3) recaps the situation.

David Seleb, a Chicago member of Courage, an organization for Catholics with same-sex attractions and faithful to the church’s teachings, said he agrees with the Vatican document.

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that people of homosexual orientation should be treated with every respect and with compassion; but the catechism also teaches the truth about the nature of God’s gift of human sexuality, a truth our bodies themselves proclaim and the lives of married couples attest to,” Seleb said. “Within this document, the church clearly describes the duties and obligations of Catholic civil leaders regarding this issue. … Catholics must realize, as it is abundantly clear, that we have no friends or allies among the secular media. To be surprised at lying or disingenuous headlines and stories regarding church teaching is like being surprised that a daily paper was issued at all.”

In the 12-page document released July 31 (after The Catholic New World’s Aug. 3 issue went to press), the Vatican also expressed particular alarm at moves to allow gay couples to adopt children, which it said would be a form of “violence” against children and “gravely immoral.”

U.S. bishops released statements welcoming the new document and underscoring its aim of defending the uniqueness of marriage, not unjustly discriminating against homosexuals.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops welcomed the document—first sent in June to bishops around the world—saying its goal was to “re-express the church’s teachings about the unique character of marriage.”

Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., USCCB president, urged all “people of good will” to read the document with an open mind. Any attempt to legalize homosexual marriages “not only weakens the unique meaning of marriage, it also weakens the role of law itself by forcing the law to violate the truth of marriage and family as the natural foundation of society and culture,” he said.

The Vatican document rejected arguments that failing to give gay unions legal recognition would be unjust discrimination. It underscored the unique social role of marriage between a man and a woman in continuing the human race and raising children.

“The denial of the social and legal status of marriage to forms of cohabitation that are not and cannot be marital is not opposed to justice; on the contrary, justice requires it,” it said.

“Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behavior, 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,” it said.

It instructed Catholic politicians that they were morally bound to oppose such “gravely unjust laws” and said all public servants had the right to conscientious objection if they were asked to apply them.

A note at the end of the document said it had been approved by Pope John Paul II, who ordered its publication.

Titled “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons” and released in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish, the document coincided with a growing movement in Europe and North America toward granting gay couples some or all of the legal protections and benefits of marriage.

A day before the Vatican released its document, U.S. President George W. Bush told reporters in Washington that White House lawyers were exploring ways to ensure that “marriage” remains legally defined as a union between a man and a woman. Some U.S. lawmakers have proposed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages.

The Vatican’s document went further than those proposals by rejecting any extension of special rights or legal status to homosexual couples. It said cohabiting homosexuals could use general provisions of the law to protect their rights as persons “like all citizens from the standpoint of their private autonomy.”

“Not even in a remote analogous sense do homosexual unions fulfill the purpose for which marriage and family deserve specific categorical recognition,” the document said.

“On the contrary, there are good reasons for holding that such unions are harmful to the proper development of human society, especially if their impact on society were to increase,” it said.

In a footnote, the document warned of the “danger” that granting legal status to gay unions “could actually encourage a person with a homosexual orientation to declare his homosexuality and even to seek a partner in order to exploit the provisions of the law.”

The document offered special instruction to Catholic politicians, who it said were particularly obliged to fight efforts to legally recognize gay unions.

While the document called homosexuality a “troubling moral and social phenomenon,” it underscored church teaching that homosexuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity” and that they should not be unjustly discriminated against. But, it added, “the church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

Other U.S. bishops released statements welcoming the new document and underscoring its aim of defending the uniqueness of marriage and not of unjustly discriminating against homosexuals. Among them were Connecticut’s bishops, who said, “Respect for the uniqueness of marriage does not imply disrespect for those who cannot marry.”

The document was received more coolly at St. Peter the Apostle parish in Montreal’s gay village in the city center, an area that is the second-poorest of the metropolitan area. Some 250-300 Catholics—mainly gay men, some lesbians—come from all over the island to worship.

On Aug. 3, the Sunday after the Vatican issued its document urging politicians to work against legal recognition of same-sex unions, the only sign of protest in the church was a minute of silence, when the organ music stopped abruptly after Communion. Pastoral worker Gerard Laverdure described the momentary silence as a “way of showing our protest at recent events.”

Contributing: Catholic News Service