With Gay Marriage being allowed will the Catholic Church Change

[Bezant]

Three States have approved same-sex marriage in this election. It looks like the Supreme Court, like it did in 1947, will prevent discrimination of people to marry based on race or sexuality. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church reexamine it’s position on homosexuals? Homosexuals have been discriminated against across the ages by the Church for who they love. I have homosexual friends that are in committed relationships that span decades. Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

What the U.S. Constitution might hold true isn’t necessarily the case with the Church. Having said that, I think it’s certain that nobody should hold his breath for this one. A more productive idea is to make anyone who isn’t married or following a vocation, particularly gay members, feel part of the family.

 

[Mar044]

it doesn’t matter what states do, by god and the bible and the churches teaching is is forbidden, it’s not about bigotry, it’s about god’s laws and what he commands.

 

[Myqyl]

Three States have approved same-sex marriage in this election. It looks like the Supreme Court, like it did in 1947, will prevent discrimination of people to marry based on race or sexuality. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church reexamine it’s position on homosexuals? Homosexuals have been discriminated against across the ages by the Church for who they love. I have homosexual friends that are in committed relationships that span decades. Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

The Church doesn’t have to reexamine it’s position on homosexuality. The Catechism already says that we should never support any discrimination against gays.

What should be reexamined is the opinion of Catholics with politcal axes to grind that attempt to userp the Church for their own agenda. The Catholic church is not anti-gay… It teaches us that if we are gay, we should live a chast life, and that if we are not gay that we should defend gays from all forms of discrimination.

God bless

 

[JerryZ]

Three States have approved same-sex marriage in this election. It looks like the Supreme Court, like it did in 1947, will prevent discrimination of people to marry based on race or sexuality. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church reexamine it’s position on homosexuals? Homosexuals have been discriminated against across the ages by the Church for who they love. I have homosexual friends that are in committed relationships that span decades. Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

Read St. Paul Letters. You can’t condone evil, the Church has no authority to change the definition of evil.
Is like asking the Church to change the definition of God.

I don’t know if you are a bigot or not I too have friends that are homosexuals, I certainly don’t hate them. In fact the Church tells me to love them and pray for them that they mend their ways

What the Church will never tell me is to love the sin for that would go againt God.

Hope you can undestand this.

 

[Ophelia23]

Abortion is legal, but the Church has not changed.

Euthanasia is legal in 3 states, but the Church has not changed.

Same-sex marriage becoming legal will not change the Church.

 

[LittleFlower378]

Homosexual acts have always been considered serious sin.
Sodom and Gomorah in the Old Testament, new testament writings and Magesterial teaching.

When we see all these negative things happen in our country I love remembering this verse.

“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

 

[MarcoPolo]

Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

The Church can’t change on homosexual “marriage” anymore than the Church can change the fact that a triangle has three sides, not four. A homosexual relationship ontologically lacks the ingredients for a marriage to occur. Bigotry has nothing to do with the Church’s teaching. Homosexual “marriage” is an impossibility. There can be no dialogue unless one understands that’s where the Church is coming from.

 

[epan]

The Catholic Church did not change when civil divorce became legal. I very much doubt that it will change its rules on same sex marriage where/when civil same sex marriage becomes legal.

At most it might reduce the level of campaigning it does and move on to other things. How many Catholic anti-divorce demonstrations do you see compared to anti-gay marriage demonstrations? The level of campaigning will eventually reduce to the same as the anti-divorce campaign, though the doctrine will not change.

$0.02

rossum

Are you certain of this? My understanding is that the grounds for annulment have changed over the years, until today, while there is a process, it is pretty much a rubber stamp. Is that untrue? I am asking two distinct questions.

 

[St_Francis]

Three States have approved same-sex marriage in this election. It looks like the Supreme Court, like it did in 1947, will prevent discrimination of people to marry based on race or sexuality. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church reexamine it’s position on homosexuals? Homosexuals have been discriminated against across the ages by the Church for who they love. I have homosexual friends that are in committed relationships that span decades. Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

The Church teaches humanity the truths which our Creator taught the Church. These truths do not change. The Church can no more change her position on homosexual behavior than scientists can change their minds about the law of gravity.

 

[LittleFlower378]

A really good book to get is “Catholic Sexual Ethics,” by May, Lawler and Boyle 2nd edition. It talks about all the important sexual problems of our day and dives into the problem with proportionalism and dissent from Church teaching.

Also, homosexual acts go against nature.

 

[sedonaman]

Three States have approved same-sex marriage in this election. It looks like the Supreme Court, like it did in 1947, will prevent discrimination of people to marry based on race or sexuality. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church reexamine it’s position on homosexuals? Homosexuals have been discriminated against across the ages by the Church for who they love. I have homosexual friends that are in committed relationships that span decades. Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

What’s wrong with discrimination? Don’t you want your boss to discriminate between your outstanding performance and your co-worker’s not so outstanding performance come annual performance review/cash bonus award time? Likewise, the law does not and cannot treat all persons – young and old, weak and strong, rich and poor, male and female, and so on – as equal in all regards. The very purpose of law is to classify (discriminate among) people for different treatment.

One must never lose sight of the fact that the Church does not find the source of her faith and her constitutive structure in the principles of the social order of any historical period. While attentive to the world in which she lives and for whose salvation she labors, the Church is conscious of being the bearer of a higher fidelity to which she is bound.

• Joseph Card. Ratzinger
  Prefect

Jesus commissioned his first apostles to, “Go forth into the world and preach the gospel, teaching as I have taught you.” He did not say, “Go forth into the world, find out what is going on, and bring it back for incorporation into my Church.” That would be the gospel in reverse.

In short, American liberal “in” jet-set philosophy of the day is not going to determine Church doctrine. If we were to let that happen, there would be no need for a church. :nope: We could just follow the ways of the world, and Christ would have died for nothing. :sad_yes:

 

[PRmerger]

Are you certain of this? My understanding is that the grounds for annulment have changed over the years, until today, while there is a process, it is pretty much a rubber stamp. Is that untrue? I am asking two distinct questions.

Perhaps if you could offer what the grounds were, prior to this change, and what they are now?

 

[JerryZ]

I would also point out to our “enlightned” forum participants in this forum that Homosexuality is not a new thing.

Greece had it and eventually became rampant, same as Rome where are those empires now?

In the dust, most of our “modern” students don’t know anything about them and yet we know that “who don’t learn about the mistakes in history are doomed to repeat them”

America, Europe will be another example of this. Long after no one will remember who or what they were about the Catholic Church will still be on this earth sheperding it’s flock with the true values and virtues.

 

[rfournier103]

No. As several have said… divorce is still wrong and considered a sin. As are pre-marital sex and contraception. Those will be allowed before gay ‘marriage’.

There’s a difference between tolerance and acceptance. It’s not even a real marriage. It’s almost laughable that it’s called marriage. And your viewpoint that disapproval equals bigotry is insulting. This is still the United States and we can disagree without name-calling, can’t we?

 

[epan]

Three States have approved same-sex marriage in this election. It looks like the Supreme Court, like it did in 1947, will prevent discrimination of people to marry based on race or sexuality. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church reexamine it’s position on homosexuals? Homosexuals have been discriminated against across the ages by the Church for who they love. I have homosexual friends that are in committed relationships that span decades. Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

There is more than one question here.

The Church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful regardless of context. They find the authority for this in scripture, and in their concept of “natural law”, which states basically that all sexual relations must occur in the context of a marriage, must be “unitive” and must be open to the possibility of procreation.

Sex in a legal gay marriage could satisfy the first two requirements of natural law, but not the third requirement which I stated. Therefore, even without the scriptural prohibitions, you are asking if the Catholic Church will be changing its understanding of “natural law” sometime soon. I see this as unlikely, as many Catholics believe that this law comes from God.

I don’t think I need to repeat what is in the bible. There are a few scholars who do not see a clear condemnation of gay sex there, but these scholars are a minority. The Catholic Church tends to anchor itself on the more mainstream and conservative side of biblical thinking. Therefore, I think what you are asking is also unlikely on these grounds.

Finally, you bring up the topic of bigotry. Yes, it is true that the Catholic Church has promoted bigotry against homosexuals in previous times. This is unfortunate. But it is in the past. No institution is perfect, and no member of the institution is perfect. We are all sinners.

I do not see a anything in Catholic teachings, or Church actions today which look like bigotry against homosexuals to me. This perception is my own. I can’t speak for others, who may feel discriminated against. There was a bishop in the Scotland recently who used language which some people found offensive. A minority which has in fact been persecuted historically, does have the right to given special consideration in the choice of one’s language about them, in my opinion. Words to incite violence and prejudice. When there is a history of violence and prejudice, then I see a moral obligation not to continue that history into the present, but rather to try to change it. I can’t say that I see the Church doing much of this. It does use words which homosexuals find personally offensive, and it seems that high Church officials sometimes do too. But the doctrine itself does not appear to promote bigotry, in my opinion.

 

[LittleFlower378]

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS
TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION
TO UNIONS
BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

part of the linked document
“11. The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. 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.”

 

[hotdiggity]

Three States have approved same-sex marriage in this election. It looks like the Supreme Court, like it did in 1947, will prevent discrimination of people to marry based on race or sexuality. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church reexamine it’s position on homosexuals? Homosexuals have been discriminated against across the ages by the Church for who they love. I have homosexual friends that are in committed relationships that span decades. Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

NO

 

[hotdiggity]

Are you certain of this? My understanding is that the grounds for annulment have changed over the years, until today, while there is a process, it is pretty much a rubber stamp. Is that untrue? I am asking two distinct questions.

no rubber stamp at all, in my personal experience from this year… i have no personal experience from any other time in the history of the Church though…

 

[dshix]

Three States have approved same-sex marriage in this election. It looks like the Supreme Court, like it did in 1947, will prevent discrimination of people to marry based on race or sexuality. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church reexamine it’s position on homosexuals? Homosexuals have been discriminated against across the ages by the Church for who they love. I have homosexual friends that are in committed relationships that span decades. Is bigotry clouding our view of homosexuals in committed relationships?

The Church does not change her infallible stance on moral issues due to the whim of governments. Government is not a religious institution (at least it should not be) and Religion transcends government. If the Catholic Church changed her teaching just because of what government says, it would have ceased to exist centuries ago!

 

[JimG]

The Church doesn’t have to reexamine it’s position on homosexuality. The Catechism already says that we should never support any discrimination against gays.

What should be reexamined is the opinion of Catholics with politcal axes to grind that attempt to userp the Church for their own agenda. The Catholic church is not anti-gay… It teaches us that if we are gay, we should live a chast life, and that if we are not gay that we should defend gays from all forms of discrimination.

God bless

You are right; the Church teaches that there should be no unjust discrimination against homosexuals. It also teaches that sex is reserved for marriage, and that marriage is reserved to opposite sex couples capable of marital relations. I’m not sure about any political axes to grind. This was not even a prominent issue until some began to push for gay marriage, which of course the Church opposes.