Is my position on this acceptable for a Roman Catholic?

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sheilathebard said:
If this is true, prove it with a quote from an infallible source. How in seven pages has no one been able to do this? Could it be because no such declaration exists?
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The letter to the Romans makes an in infallible statement of reason being able to access natural understanding of divinity and divine law and denying that is stupid.

“For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them.
Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened.”
 
Your interpretation of Scripture is not infallible. The Church’s interpretation is. You can’t just throw out a bible verse and assume I will interpret it the way you do. I could just as easily read it as support for criminalizing non-attendance at Mass.

Your views on the role of CIVIL authority do not match any doctrinal source. Abortion is a separate issue – the Church has been quite clear that it IS the role of the state to ban abortion. JP2 in particular said this. Since an innocent life is at stake, we have the duty to prevent abortion when possible. There has been no such pronouncement on gay marriage.

There’s a heck of a lot that most Catholics believe in that we don’t HAVE to believe in. You don’t HAVE to pray the Rosary. You don’t HAVE to believe Mary appeared at Fatima (and the Church is quite clear on this). You do have to believe the defined dogmas of the Church. That includes actively defending life in all its stages. That doesn’t include legally banning same-sex unions.

Unless and until the Church makes a pronouncement on this, we are free to believe as we wish.
 
sheilathebard said:
Your interpretation of Scripture is not infallible. The Church’s interpretation is. You can’t just throw out a bible verse and assume I will interpret it the way you do. I could just as easily read it as support for criminalizing non-attendance at Mass.

Your views on the role of CIVIL authority do not match any doctrinal source. Abortion is a separate issue – the Church has been quite clear that it IS the role of the state to ban abortion. JP2 in particular said this. Since an innocent life is at stake, we have the duty to prevent abortion when possible. There has been no such pronouncement on gay marriage.

There’s a heck of a lot that most Catholics believe in that we don’t HAVE to believe in. You don’t HAVE to pray the Rosary. You don’t HAVE to believe Mary appeared at Fatima (and the Church is quite clear on this). You do have to believe the defined dogmas of the Church. That includes actively defending life in all its stages. That doesn’t include legally banning same-sex unions.

Unless and until the Church makes a pronouncement on this, we are free to believe as we wish.
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We do believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Can. 1055 §1 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole life, and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between the baptised, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.
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Yes, and I haven’t argued with this. But we also believe that marriage is indissoluble and we don’t enforce this belief legally on everyone. Similarly, there’s no teaching about whether we should enforce our belief that marriage is between a man and a woman on everyone.

Now, because of the likelihood that churches would be expected to perform gay marriages, I think it’s very imprudent to have them. In fact, since I fully expect that gay marriage will soon be legal in all 50 states (no matter how loudly we protest!), the wise thing for the Church in America to do would be to stop performing civil marriages altogether.
 
sheilathebard said:
Your interpretation of Scripture is not infallible. The Church’s interpretation is. You can’t just throw out a bible verse and assume I will interpret it the way you do. I could just as easily read it as support for criminalizing non-attendance at Mass.

Your views on the role of CIVIL authority do not match any doctrinal source. Abortion is a separate issue – the Church has been quite clear that it IS the role of the state to ban abortion. JP2 in particular said this. Since an innocent life is at stake, we have the duty to prevent abortion when possible. There has been no such pronouncement on gay marriage.
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There are thousands of pages on the meaning of marriage. Not one line on any one of those pages gives any permission for homosexual marriage. Therefore, the Church does not foresee it.

Homosexual behaviour is listed in the Catechism along with other disgusting behaviours - adultery, masturbation, and pedophilia.

Homosexuality, when it is mentioned at all in the Scriptures, is called “an abomination” and “the sin that cries out to Heaven.”
 
sheilathebard said:
Your interpretation of Scripture is not infallible. The Church’s interpretation is. You can’t just throw out a bible verse and assume I will interpret it the way you do…
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Read the documents of the First Vatican Council and you will see that I simply follow the infallible interpretation of the Church. However, it looks like you refuse to accept any Church teaching or interpretation that goes against your thinking.
 
If it’s in there, Cristiano, cite it for me. I don’t remember the part in Vatican I that said “the majority of conservative American Catholics are infallible.”

jmcrae, I agree with you. Absolutely. The Church will never marry homosexuals. Same sex marriage does not exist.

But must we believe that it is our Catholic duty to oppose giving civil licenses to everyone the Church does not consider married?

If so, there are a LOT of laws we need to change.
 
Incidentally, do you (jmcrae) believe that sodomy should be legally outlawed? What about masturbation? How the heck are we to enforce any law against the latter?
 
sheilathebard said:
Incidentally, do you (jmcrae) believe that sodomy should be legally outlawed? What about masturbation? How the heck are we to enforce any law against the latter?
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I think we should not encourage such things, and if the civil society is putting them up for a vote, we should certainly vote against them. We should also not make it seem as if, as long as you’re not Catholic, it’s okay for you to do such things, as though God had different rules for non-Catholics.

Everyone, whether they are Catholic or not, will go to Hell if they die without having repented of such things. The Catholic Church is not here to impose a bunch of arbitrary, difficult rules on Catholics that don’t actually apply to anyone else; rather, it is here as a witness to the world to explain what God’s rules are, and how people can get to go to Heaven.
 
WHERE, devoutchristian? Cite. Me. A. Source.

I definitely agree that people who die in mortal sin will go to hell. I just don’t think we can keep people from sinning with laws. If they want to sin, they’ll do it; there is no way to make a government so powerful it could prevent this. Especially since sin is primarily in the heart – to INTEND to commit sodomy is a mortal sin too you know!
 
sheilathebard said:
WHERE, devoutchristian? Cite. Me. A. Source.

I definitely agree that people who die in mortal sin will go to hell. I just don’t think we can keep people from sinning with laws. If they want to sin, they’ll do it; there is no way to make a government so powerful it could prevent this. Especially since sin is primarily in the heart – to INTEND to commit sodomy is a mortal sin too you know!
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You seem to be taking the misguided position that “we cannot legislate morality so therefore we should not have laws based on morality.”

We cannot stop people from lying. It’s a sin that all of us have committed at some point in our lives. Should we decriminalize perjury? Should we decriminalize fraud?
 
sheilathebard said:
Incidentally, do you (jmcrae) believe that sodomy should be legally outlawed? What about masturbation? How the heck are we to enforce any law against the latter?
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The Church does not teach that civil authorities ought to make everything that is a sin into a violation against civil law, as well.

Having said that, public policy is not just the outlawing or penalizing of this or that, but also the various means by which civil government has of encouraging this or that. The Church does say that Catholics ought to work against civil laws that encourage immoral behavior or teach falsehood, such as marriage laws that pretend that homosexuality and heterosexuality are the same thing or laws that would encourage people to engage in unjust business practices just because the state could make more money that way. The local bishop might teach that this or that specific public policy proposal is immoral for one reason or another, but rarely does a local bishop say that a good end can only be achieved by civil authorities in only one way. How to construct civil government so as to achieve the greatest good with the least unintended bad consequences is the work of others, not the direct work of the clergy.
 
EasterJoy said:
The Church does not teach that civil authorities ought to make everything that is a sin into a violation against civil law, as well.

Having said that, public policy is not just the outlawing or penalizing of this or that, but also the various means by which civil government has of encouraging this or that. The Church does say that Catholics ought to work against civil laws that encourage immoral behavior or teach falsehood, such as marriage laws that pretend that homosexuality and heterosexuality are the same thing or laws that would encourage people to engage in unjust business practices just because the state could make more money that way. The local bishop might teach that this or that specific public policy proposal is immoral for one reason or another, but rarely does a local bishop say that a good end can only be achieved by civil authorities in only one way. How to construct civil government so as to achieve the greatest good with the least unintended bad consequences is the work of others, not the direct work of the clergy.
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Well stated.
 
Stewstew03, if someone steals from me or lies to me, I have the right to expect a redress of grievances, and the government may validly do that for me. This isn’t Church teaching here, but simply practical. The reason I have a government is to protect me from people stronger than I am who might harm me.

But for Jane to marry Sally, in Jefferson’s words, “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” It has nothing to do with me, so I don’t require the government to stop it.

You may say it will destroy society’s view of marriage. But if you do, I might ask how old you are, because I was not even alive at a time when American society had a remotely healthy understanding of what marriage is. If you were, maybe you haven’t noticed the change, but I can’t see what same-sex marriage could do that divorce has not already done.
 
sheilathebard said:
Stewstew03, if someone steals from me or lies to me, I have the right to expect a redress of grievances, and the government may validly do that for me. This isn’t Church teaching here, but simply practical. The reason I have a government is to protect me from people stronger than I am who might harm me.

But for Jane to marry Sally, in Jefferson’s words, “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” It has nothing to do with me, so I don’t require the government to stop it.

You may say it will destroy society’s view of marriage. But if you do, I might ask how old you are, because I was not even alive at a time when American society had a remotely healthy understanding of what marriage is. If you were, maybe you haven’t noticed the change, but I can’t see what same-sex marriage could do that divorce has not already done.
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Sheila, to use the quote function, simply click on the ‘Quote’ button on the bottom right of the post; that way everyone who participates in the thread knows which post you are replying to. You can PM me if you need help.

As far as lying – sometimes you have redress, sometimes you don’t, it depends on the offense. In any event, the only reason you might have redress is because the government provides it. If there was a groundswell of support to decriminalize all federal and state codes and statutes related to dishonesty, then legislators could repeal them. Given that we, as a society, have decided honesty is an important value (particularly in a court of law), then there won’t be any repeals any time soon, I don’t think.

And if one takes the Jeffersonian view then why not decriminalize polygamy, incest between consenting adults, and bestiality, among other things? If a 65 year old woman wants to be in a polygamous “marriage” with her 8 cats, why not? Or, why stop at animals, why not insects or plants? After all, it “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
 
sheilathebard said:
If it’s in there, Cristiano, cite it for me. I don’t remember the part in Vatican I that said “the majority of conservative American Catholics are infallible.”

jmcrae, I agree with you. Absolutely. The Church will never marry homosexuals. Same sex marriage does not exist.

But must we believe that it is our Catholic duty to oppose giving civil licenses to everyone the Church does not consider married?

If so, there are a LOT of laws we need to change.
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You are just climbing on mirrors and creating a straw man just to ignore Church teachings. It is your prerogative to ignore scriptures and sacred tradition.
 
sheilathebard said:
If this is true, prove it with a quote from an infallible source. How in seven pages has no one been able to do this? Could it be because no such declaration exists?
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Here are a whole lot of quotes for you: usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/promotion-and-defense-of-marriage/church-documents-on-defense-of-marriage.cfm

This is from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (my formatting)
a. The value of marriage
  1. The family has its foundation in the free choice of the spouses to unite themselves in marriage, in respect for the meaning and values of this institution that does not depend on man but on God himself: “For the good of the spouses and their offspring as well as of society, this sacred bond no longer depends on human decision alone. For God himself is the author of marriage and has endowed it with various benefits and purposes”[473]. Therefore, the institution of marriage — “intimate partnership of life and love … established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws” [474] — is not the result of human conventions or of legislative prescriptions but acquires its stability from divine disposition[475]. It is an institution born, even in the eyes of society, “from the human act by which the partners mutually surrender themselves to each other”[476], and is founded on the very nature of that conjugal love which, as a total and exclusive gift of person to person, entails a definitive commitment expressed by mutual, irrevocable and public consent[477]. This commitment means that the relationships among family members are marked also by a sense of justice and, therefore, by respect for mutual rights and duties.
  2. No power can abolish the natural right to marriage or modify its traits and purpose. Marriage in fact is endowed with its own proper, innate and permanent characteristics. Notwithstanding the numerous changes that have taken place in the course of the centuries in the various cultures and in different social structures and spiritual attitudes, in every culture there exists a certain sense of the dignity of the marriage union, although this is not evident everywhere with the same clarity[478]. This dignity must be respected in its specific characteristics and must be safeguarded against any attempt to undermine it. Society cannot freely legislate with regard to the marriage bond by which the two spouses promise each other fidelity, assistance and acceptance of children, but it is authorized to regulate its civil effects.
  3. The characteristic traits of marriage are: totality, by which the spouses give themselves to each other mutually in every aspect of their person, physical and spiritual;** unity which makes them “one flesh” **(Gen 2:24); indissolubility and fidelity which the definitive mutual giving of self requires; the fruitfulness to which this naturally opens itself[479]. God’s wise plan for marriage — a plan accessible to human reason notwithstanding the difficulties arising from “hardness of heart” (cf. Mt 19:8; Mk 10:5) — cannot be evaluated exclusively in light of the de facto behaviour and concrete situations that are at divergence with it. A radical denial of God’s original plan is found in polygamy, “because it is contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women who in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and therefore unique and exclusive”[480].
(cont.)
 
More from the Church: vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_20000317_declaration-homosexual-unions_en.html (boldface mine: EasterJoy)

Declaration of the Pontifical Council for the Family regarding the Resolution of the European Parliament dated March 16, 2000, making de facto unions, including same sex unions, equal to the family

The communications media report that the European Parliament has approved a Resolution regarding human rights in the European Union which also considers de facto unions, including the registered cohabitation of persons of the same sex, and the need to recognize ‘legal marriages’ between persons of the same sex.

This Resolution represents a grave and repeated attack on the family based on marriage, a union of love and life between a man and a woman from which life naturally springs. Every society is solidly based on this marital union because it is a necessary value. To deny this fundamental and elementary anthropological truth would lead to the destruction of the fabric of society. Doesn’t making ‘de facto’ unions, and all the more homosexual unions, equivalent to marriage, and inviting Parliaments to adjust their laws in this sense, represent a refusal to recognize the deep aspirations of peoples in their innermost identity?

Throughout history peoples have wisely recognized what marriage is and involves and now, through this Resolution, it is being subjected to a distorted interpretation by the European Parliament. Happily, the Parliaments of Europe will surely be in harmony and agreement with the great majority of European families who urgently need help in their noble mission and who now see themselves unjustly considered as equal to this type of ‘union’ through the Resolution in question which has no authentic legislative value nor is a compulsory guideline. The specific nature of the family based on marriage is recognized by most of the European Constitutions. Moreover, this nature is not just a truth for believers: it is the natural heritage of humanity that is written in every person’s heart and characterizes the culture of peoples.

** Lawmakers, therefore, and in particular Catholic members of parliaments, should not favor this type of legislation with their vote because it is contrary to the common good and the truth about man and is thus truly unjust.**

Vatican City, March 17, 2000

Alfonso Cardinal López Trujillo
President

Francisco Gil Hellín
Secretary
 
And, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

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.

IOW, do not try to deceive yourself into thinking that this is anything like a moral grey area. It is not. The Church is very clear that this is a matter of natural law and human justice for all of mankind, and not something particular to the Catholic religion. That is what we believe and that is what the Church has always definitively and unwaveringly taught, even if you don’t like it.
 
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