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V
VanSensei
Guest
Personally, I think a way the Church could handle same-sex marriages is by leaving them alone because the Church has no authority to even attempt a thing, so why bother?
What would Christ do? I mean, I don’t know if Christ would be in favor or against gay marriage. Does anyone? All I know is that more than likely, he wouldn’t go around after every service with posters telling people that gay marriage is “not a marriage” or “a mockery of natural love” or what have ye. He’d say nothing, as should the Church. They go about their business and the rest of the world goes with theirs.
What would Christ do? I mean, I don’t know if Christ would be in favor or against gay marriage. Does anyone? All I know is that more than likely, he wouldn’t go around after every service with posters telling people that gay marriage is “not a marriage” or “a mockery of natural love” or what have ye. He’d say nothing, as should the Church. They go about their business and the rest of the world goes with theirs.
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Steveabrous
Guest
I’m sorry but I really think this view is nieve.Personally, I think a way the Church could handle same-sex marriages is by leaving them alone because the Church has no authority to even attempt a thing, so why bother?
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Ever read the bible? Ever heard church teaching which is guided by the Holy spirit?What would Christ do? I mean, I don’t know if Christ would be in favor or against gay marriage. Does anyone?
Jesus wasn’t crucified for saying nothing. He said the truth regardless of who got offended. And the truth is Gay marraige is wrong.All I know is that more than likely, he wouldn’t go around after every service with posters telling people that gay marriage is “not a marriage” or “a mockery of natural love” or what have ye He’d say nothing,.
Christ did not establish the church to “mind it’s own business” He established it to tell the world the truth.as should the Church. They go about their business and the rest of the world goes with theirs
A
_Abyssinia
Guest
Joseph Bottum: “There are a couple things that I regret in the article”
“I didn’t really think that it would be misread in quite the way that it has been.”
August 26, 2013 09:48 EST
By Catherine Harmon
This afternoon Joseph Bottum, former editor of First Things whose article in Commonweal on same-sex marriage ignited a firestorm of Internet commentary over the weekend, spoke with Al Kresta on his radio show about the controversial essay. Bottum says the piece (which can be found here) has been widely misunderstood by people on the right and the left, and that he has not, in fact, changed his position on same-sex marriage. Rather, he believes the issue has become a “distraction” and that “the culture is just in the weirdest place, and that the message that we have to teach is not being successfully learned.”
The full interview touches on the several controversial elements of Bottum’s lengthy essay—including that very lengthiness!—and can be heard here. A couple excerpts:
I’ve been, for the last few years, coming around to a position that Paul Griffiths, the theologian down at Duke, proposed some years ago—and he in turn got beat up for it by people I respected, like Father Neuhaus—which was: the cultural situation is getting so strange, we should probably get out of the civil marriage business. At the time I kind of went along with Father Neuhaus and the others who were saying, “No Paul—you can’t counsel Catholicism to withdraw from the public square.”
Kresta: You’re giving up the fight, you’re moving in the direction of a separatist community…
Bottum: Right. Exactly. That was the argument at the time. And I went along with it, probably even agreed with it. But as time’s gone by, …] I think many of us are coming around to the idea that the culture is just in the weirdest place, and that the message that we have to teach is not being successfully learned, on what marriage is in its full, rich sacramental sense. …]
I’m still on-board the Magisterium here, all the way. But I’m also looking at the culture. …]
Kresta: If your fundamental position hasn’t changed, what has changed?
Bottum: What’s changed is my encounter with young people, or what has changed me is my encounter with young people. My reading of the rising generation of Catholic bloggers…these are 20-somethings. They’re out of college, they’re serious Catholics …] and they’re saying, “Look I understand the theology and I accept the theology but I have a phenomenological crisis, because here in front of me are these people who are growing …] to see the Catholic Church as the image and the focus—to use a literary word, as the synecdoche—for all oppression of homosexuals.”
Bottum also discussed several regrets he has about his essay:
There are a couple things that I regret in the article, beginning with its very structure as a personal essay instead of a didactic argument, just because I didn’t really think that it would be misread in quite the way that it has been. But still, you know, it’s my fault, not theirs. …]
I said there a couple things I regret—one is I said there’s no constitutional, persuasive legal argument against the emerging consensus on same-sex marriage. And I meant—in my mind what I was thinking is given the way the jurisprudence is going, that’s confirmed for me by what the Supreme Court did. But as phrased—this is a place I regret—I seem to be saying that, you know, all of our legal friends who would put together very good briefs on this were wrong. I regret the way I phrased that.
…] The second thing I kind of regret is the way I phrased the discussion of natural law. I was using a short-hand for a thesis about enchantment that I’ve been developing, but, you know, the accursed essay was already 9,000 words long…I was trying to say in a way that [natural law]’s simply not persuasive without a level of enchantment, seeing things in the world as “natural.” What I think I ended up saying, if you read it kind of flat, without—as some of our friends have done—without a charity of interpretation, what I seem to be saying is, natural law is false without an enchanted sense of the world. And so I understand why it got misread there and I regret that.
Listen to the full interview here.
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SteveGC
Guest
not having authority to change state law has no bearing on whether or not a moral authority should attempt to guide the faithful to oppose it. So, it should definitely bother.Personally, I think a way the Church could handle same-sex marriages is by leaving them alone because the Church has no authority to even attempt a thing, so why bother?
Scripture is abundant with the condemnation of fornication, which homosexual acts fall under. And Christ clearly warned that those willfully acting on those temptations without repentance would not enter the kingdom of heaven. He was anything but quiet on the matter.What would Christ do? I mean, I don’t know if Christ would be in favor or against gay marriage. Does anyone? All I know is that more than likely, he wouldn’t go around after every service with posters telling people that gay marriage is “not a marriage” or “a mockery of natural love” or what have ye. He’d say nothing, as should the Church. They go about their business and the rest of the world goes with theirs.
G
Geo17
Guest
Would Jesus walk around condemning every case of same sex unions He saw? Probably He would, if He saw it. Of course in His day He might only do that with the Jews and in synagogues. But of course Jesus would speak out against it.
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edwest2
Guest
The Bride of Christ is against Gay Marriage.Personally, I think a way the Church could handle same-sex marriages is by leaving them alone because the Church has no authority to even attempt a thing, so why bother?
What would Christ do? I mean, I don’t know if Christ would be in favor or against gay marriage. Does anyone? All I know is that more than likely, he wouldn’t go around after every service with posters telling people that gay marriage is “not a marriage” or “a mockery of natural love” or what have ye. He’d say nothing, as should the Church. They go about their business and the rest of the world goes with theirs.
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html
Peace,
Ed
I
illinidiva
Guest
Like he condemned the Samaritan woman by the well or the woman caught in adultery?Would Jesus walk around condemning every case of same sex unions He saw? Probably He would, if He saw it. Of course in His day He might only do that with the Jews and in synagogues. But of course Jesus would speak out against it.
M
Monkey1976
Guest
Remind me - did He tell them that their multiple marriages or adultery were wonderful things to be celebrated at every turn and taught to children as “normal”, or did He tell them to sin no more?Like he condemned the Samaritan woman by the well or the woman caught in adultery?
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ncashion
Guest
Also he did not sit by and say nothing while she continued to live in sin. He literally saved her life from a stoning and then told her “go forth and sin no more”.Like he condemned the Samaritan woman by the well or the woman caught in adultery?
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livingwordunity
Guest
Jesus told her the truth that the men she was remarried to were not her husbands, and neither was the current man she was with her husband. When Jesus was asked about the subject of marriage and divorce, he defined marriage as Adam and Eve (one man and one woman) how God made marriage in the beginning. Jesus, being God, speaks eternal truth. If he were asked what is marriage today he would give the same answer since Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.Like he condemned the Samaritan woman by the well or the woman caught in adultery?
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Kevin_B
Guest
The Church should treat same-sex marriages the same way it treats marriage between atheists. Let them be legal, just don’t perform them.
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LovedMyAlydar
Guest
I think this commentary by Fr. Dennis Gordon is an excellent comment of the subject. It is from the local paper in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Posted: Saturday, August 3, 2013 12:00 amBy FR. DENNIS GORDON/Guest opinion
In the “My Turn” column in the July 19 Cd’A Press, W. Thomas Faucher purports to contrast the Sacrament of Matrimony with natural marriage. But Fr. Faucher did not accurately describe the properties essential to either state, and through this omission, left the reader with the erroneous impression that a non-sacramental marriage could involve a different arrangement of sexes from the state entered into when two baptized persons marry, and the even more erroneous impression that the Catholic Church might actually endorse such a union.
Surely Father Faucher will recall his sacramental theology, which defines any true marriage as, “a legitimate agreement between a man and a woman who are juridically capable, conferring to each other a reciprocal and perpetual right both to acts that are of themselves suited to the begetting of children and to a society of common life” (Rev. A. Tanquerey, Synopsis Theologiae Dogmaticae, Tomus III, 119). A sacramental marriage is simply that same agreement, elevated to a grace-conferring sacrament by God when the man and the woman contracting marriage are baptized.
Pope Pius XI stated, “Let it be repeated as an immutable and inviolable fundamental doctrine that marriage was not instituted by man but by God, and therefore these laws cannot be subject to any human decrees or to any contrary agreement of the spouses themselves. This is the doctrine of Holy Scripture; this is the constant tradition of the Universal Church; this is the solemn definition of the Sacred Council of Trent” (On Christian Marriage).
This is Catholic Church’s definition of what any marriage is, in the current Code of Canon Law: “Marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman, ordered to the procreation of children” (Code of Canon Law, Canon 1096).
This definition, rooted in nature itself, does not allow for same-sex arrangements to be considered a marriage. However, the Bible has commented on such arrangements. Specifically, I suggest that Father Faucher study Romans 1:26-27, 32 to see how God regards - and will deal with - those who consent to such arrangements.
Father Faucher also says that the Church’s Sacrament of Matrimony “includes the concept of purpose, which is not present in marriage.” Yet there are men and women working daily in the Diocese of Boise’s Office of Canonical Affairs who investigate putative marriages to determine the presence of the very essential element of purpose (intention) necessary to constitute any valid marriage, sacramental or otherwise.
Did the State create the institution of marriage in 1776? Isn’t it “above the State’s pay grade” (as it is above each individual priest’s pay grade) to change the definition of an institution which it did not create? Nature itself tells us that any valid marriage requires (1) a man and a woman, (2) openness to the purpose of marriage (procreation), (3) an intended commitment for life, and (4) exclusion of all other potential partners. Otherwise, it is not a marriage. Any other arrangement may exhibit some of the elements of marriage, but is actually some other arrangement ultimately injurious to man, not ordained by God, and therefore against His law. Such arrangements the Church can never sanction.
Fr. Dennis Gordon is pastor at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Coeur d’Alene.
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edwest2
Guest
If you say the Church is wrong, all faithful Catholics must disagree.The Church should treat same-sex marriages the same way it treats marriage between atheists. Let them be legal, just don’t perform them.
Peace,
Ed
S
sw85
Guest
Well, if you remember Genesis, Yahweh obliterated Sodom and Gomorrah for the sin of, err, sodomy. Since Yahweh = Jesus (not in the loose Trinitarian sense but the direct personal sense, i.e., Yahweh is God the Son), we know exactly how Jesus feels about gay “marriage.”What would Christ do? I mean, I don’t know if Christ would be in favor or against gay marriage. Does anyone?
The simple fact is, the Church cannot “get out of the civil marriage business.” Marriage isn’t solely a contract, but it’s not not a contract, either. If there is no contract, there is no marriage.
One has nothing to do with the other. Marriages between opposite-sex atheists are still marriages. It has nothing to do with religion but with the universal understanding held by everyone, everywhere, till five minutes ago, of what marriage is.The Church should treat same-sex marriages the same way it treats marriage between atheists. Let them be legal, just don’t perform them.
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