Why I accept what the Church teaches about gay marriage

The article below is intended for a future edition of our parish magazine and was written in response to one expressing the view that gay marriage should be allowed.   

This is very much a topic of the moment, although some say that there are many injustices in the world to tackle such as poverty and violence and that we should “live and let love”... I would argue that marriage is in fact a subject that is so intrinsically bound up with our concept of who and what the human being is that we cannot form a true concept of human dignity without having a true understanding of human sexuality.  It is from a true concept of human dignity that all justice and peace issues draw their justification.

Of course the human person is more than his or her sexuality.  “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” as St Paul tells us in Galatians 3:28.  However this essential equality does not diminish the importance of masculinity and femininity, and much of that importance lies precisely in their relationship with each other.  We are made in the image of God, as Genesis 1:27 tells us, “male and female”.  Blessed Pope John Paul II in his writings on The Theology of the Body offers us a striking insight; the human person’s creation as male and female is in itself of foundational importance in the way in which he images God.  “It is not right that the man should be alone” (Gen 2:18); the human being made as a response to this is of the opposite sex to Adam.  In the union of man and woman - expressed consummately via sexual intercourse - they become, in John Paul II’s words, “an icon in some sense of the inner life of the Trinity”.  It is a fruitful union, for just as the love between Father and Son blossoms forth in the form of the Person of the Holy Spirit, the love of man and woman can produce a child. 

We should never reduce human sex and procreation to the level of mere biology. “The soul is the form of the body” (as Aristotle first put it), which means that every aspect of the human person’s physical existence in some way expresses and embodies his spiritual essence. Physical realities point to spiritual truths. That’s why the Church has always been able to see marriage and the sexual complementarity it involves as reflective of the relationship between Christ and His Church.  This isn’t an idea that originated with St Paul but from the Jewish tradition from which he came, as we see from reading the Old Testament. Three millennia of rich theology have emerged from reflection on the complementary union of the sexes; the time is ripe for us to rediscover and re-explore that theology.

Of course marriage is not the only relationship that can express something of the love and fidelity that exists between the three Persons of the Trinity.  Human beings do this in all our friendships and our loves but marriage does so in a particular way.  Love and commitment are wonderful things but sex is not the appropriate way to express every form of them.  

This leads us on to a major reason why the Church teaches that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman.  Sexual intercourse represents a total giving of oneself to another in such a way that binds the two partners together in an exclusive covenant relationship, mirroring the covenant between God and His people made in Christ.  Advocates of gay marriage argue that this can be the case between two men or two women as well - but in arguing thus, they fly in the face of the Church’s constant teaching that you cannot separate the unitive (loving) and procreative aspects of sex.  If you do, it is no longer an act involving the totality of being of each of the partners; something (each partner’s capacity to create life) is held back and sex is no longer expressive of what it is meant to express.  This rules out not only gay sex but also artificially contracepted or sterilised sex.  The special type of spiritual fruitfulness inherent in marriage is intrinsically bound up with its capacity for physical fruitfulness (and this capacity is an attribute of maleness and femaleness, even if a circumstance such as age or natural infertility thwarts it in practice). 

Developments in our scientific knowledge are in one sense irrelevant to the Church’s theology of marriage, although they can of course be of great benefit when it comes to pastoral care. We do not yet have a fully developed understanding of the biological, psychological and social factors that may interact to form an individual’s sexuality. We are all however aware that nature does not always work as it is intended to; this is a result of the Fallen state of our world.  Describing homosexual inclinations as “disordered” does not mean that the Church is denigrating homosexuals as being somehow worse than the rest of us, somehow “abnormal”.  We are all disordered in various ways.  The Catechism is clear about the dignity that gay people share in common with everyone else. “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible... They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity.  Every unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.  These persons are called to fulfil God’s will in their lives...” (CCC 2358).

We all have the same calling to sanctity and we all have the same chance to achieve it.  In Christ we are indeed all equal and, as St Peter exclaims, “God does not show favouritism” (Acts 10:34). There can be no justification for making anyone feel like an unwelcome outsider in our churches.  At the same time, true love means willing the best for the other and that means speaking the truth to our Christian brothers and sisters. 

Some may object, “All this is just the Church’s point of view and it is out of touch.”  Certainly, on a purely intellectual level there is always a counter-argument to be made.  Pope Francis on the other hand speaks a lot about the “heart”.  The Pope as we know is a Jesuit and in the Jesuit tradition, according to a recent article by Alejandro Bermudez in the National Catholic Register, “the heart is the core of the human person, the place of the soul, where the encounter between God and man takes place”.  It is in this sacred place, the place where we are most intimately ourselves and where we meet God face to face, that we need to find our answers to the issue of gay marriage.  How do we do this?  How will God speak to us through the great cloud of personal emotions and prejudices that we all have and the changeable winds of currently prevailing social attitudes?  

Like many other debates, the issue of gay marriage draws attention to something on which we all, as individual Catholics, need to sort out our position.  What authority do we accord to the Magisterium (the teaching function) of the Catholic Church?  Is it Christ’s voice to us or is it not?  What meaning do we take from the words of the Catechism that “It is this Magisterium’s task to preserve God’s people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error.  Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates.  To fulfil this service, Christ endowed the Church’s shepherds [the successors of the apostles, that is the Bishops in union with the Pope] with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals” (CCC 890).  

We can nit-pick about the conditions for infallibility, or we can simply reflect that the Church in the course of formulating her teachings has pondered for two thousand years on the insights of greater minds than ours.  The ultimate discernment about which of these insights into the Revelation of Christ’s Gospel are true rests with that part of the Church which bears Christ’s authority to formulate and defend His truths.  It is not, in the final analysis, a question of how many people in the pews of our parish or in the wider Church agree with something.  Faith and morals are not a matter of consensus.

Ice cream and ego

Maybe I've been a bit slow latching on to this, but it seems that Ben & Jerry's ice cream are weighing in to support the gay marriage cause in the UK.  The company have decided that their "Oh! My! Apple Pie!" flavour will be known as "Apple-y Ever After" in the UK and that the tub will display a pic of a wedding cake adorned with rainbow stripes and topped with two groom figures.

This is just part of a whole lobbying campaign in support of the redefinition of marriage, which includes placing contact information and a pro forma letter for contacting your MP on the Ben & Jerry website.  They have even launched a facebook app in partnership with Stonewall which enables you to "marry" someone of the same sex.  You can find out more over at Sisters of the Gospel of Life (thank you Sisters), who also point out that Ben & Jerry's have previously been involved in a gay marriage campaign in Vermont and are supporters of Planned Parenthood.

Oh well, another thing off the treat list.  I just hope Haagen-Daaz don't follow suit!

* * * * * * *

On another note, I came across the following in my current spiritual reading and it struck me as a pretty good description of how we human beings see ourselves these days when it comes to deciding on the value and meaning of human life...

"ON THE HUMAN 'I'.

"God alone has the right properly to say 'I', and to look at everything as it regards Himself, to be Himself the rule, the measure, and the centre of all things; because God alone exists of Himself, and everything else exists only by His will, and for Him, has no value whatever but the value He gives it, and considered by itself, is nothing, is worth nothing, and deserves nothing."

Except, we're not God...

The author is Fr Jean Nicolas Grou and he is writing in the 18th century, the period of the so-called "Enlightenment" when we began to focus on the "real/true" as being the empirically or logically provable.  We started to see ourselves as self-determining; biological entities with rational minds, the rational part having supremacy over the biological and the latter being seen as mere "matter" with no inherent moral status or meaning, to be "used" as best fits our purposes.  Fr Grou could not have foreseen exactly how far we would take that attitude using 21st century technology, but he does write,

"If we could once annihilate the human 'I', all crimes would disappear from the face of the earth, all men would live with each other like brothers, sharing their possessions without envy, helping each other in all their necessities, and each one of them looking upon his neighbour as a second self."

Amen! 

Stop the world?

It's a beautiful warm, sunny day, I've had a lovely time on my regular Saturday morning date with hubby (attending Mass and then having coffee and cake in our favourite coffee place, the Little Black Olive)  and am looking forward to a pleasant evening of pizza and DVD with friends.  Yet despite all this I've suddenly been hit by a "stop the world I want to get off" feeling...!

No one reason - just that browsing through some blogs at lunchtime, I began to feel that I was surrounded by madness (please don't anyone point out that mad people always think it's everyone else that's mad...).  Firstly I found out that John Bercow's peculiar kaleidoscope remark to the Queen had a specific meaning which, in my naivety, I was unaware of; I realised that he was referring to the "inclusivity" of the modern world including towards LGBT people, but hadn't known that he was being cheeky enough to use a very inappropriate context to plug a specific organisation.  Fr Tim Finnigan enlightened me on his blog.  I was not at all cheered to read in the same post that our Prime Minister has endorsed the organisation in question (The Kaleidoscope Trust, official charity partner of World Pride 2012) with the words, "Our country has made real progress on LGBT equality and, without forgetting how far we've still got to go domestically, it is right that we should now increasingly turn our attention towards bringing about change abroad."

Perhaps at this point I should pause and say that of course discrimination against and any form of cruelty towards gay people is quite wrong, as it is towards anybody.  Being gay is not a sin.  It is the active promotion of gay sexual relationships and "marriage" that I am talking about here.

Further proof of the institutionalisation of "gay rights" attitudes came to light on Fr Ray Blake's blog; he mentions two or three issues in connection with what he calls "That Issue, again", but what most interested me was a link he provided to a story in the Telegraph which details various changes that are going to be made to official forms such as those for immigration and benefits, replacing "husband and wife" with "spouses and partners".  The Telegraph claims, "It emerged yesterday that the overhaul could cost up to 4.5 million, including 2 million to adapt IT systems at the Home Office, which oversees the General Register Office.The Department of Work and Pensions is also expected to spend 1 million changing IT systems to accommodate same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, existing stocks of divorce petitions will have to be pulped and reprinted to allow for the change."  No, not a waste of staff time, money or resources at all - what better things do we have to spend them on?

Finally, Joanna Bogle writes about "Hate Mail on the Internet", remarking that "a campaigning group for the homosexual lobby" has posted "vicious anti-Catholic comments" which included an announcement that "the Catholic Emancipation Act should not have been allowed". She says that "one of the more mild comments describes the Church as 'an international criminal organisation committed to the grossest of immoralities, bigotries and nastiness. It should be closed down and prosecuted.' "

Is this madness really what the majority of people think, feel and want?  Or is there a vocal minority who have managed to make so much noise that they have got their own way?  In either case - whether this is the view of the majority or a very motivated minority - why is vitriol and abuse necessary to make their case?  Why do we have to respect the rights of LGBT people to redefine marriage and at the same time allow the Catholic Church to be unfairly defamed?  I say, and I believe, "unfairly" - because corruption exists wherever there is a human institution (that is NOT to defend the actions of some clergy and religious in the past, which were indeed appalling) and the good the Church has done over centuries is rarely alluded to.  Only those facts about the Church which can be used against its credibility are cherry-picked to be broadcast.

It's odd that many of those who shout most loudly about discrimination are those who are most prepared to engage in the slander of their ideological opponents.  What we have in reality is a new system of intolerance, injustice and discrimination to replace any that were there before.  It's just that the parties concerned are now different and the whole thing masquerades under labels like "liberalism", "tolerance" and "inclusivity".  Only too often the victims of the new system are, apart of course from anyone who is stupid enough to suggest there might be a God, the human family and the unborn child, and increasingly anyone who is not physically perfect or economically productive.

I didn't quite intend to go on so long about all these negatives!... because, of course, my instinct to stop the world and get off is quite wrong.  Christ did exactly the opposite; he got on to the world and loved it, loved it to the bitter end.  As Christians, this is our calling too.  If God could cope with being bitterly rejected and injured by His own children, we can cope with hanging on in there and continuing to make our voices heard, in the hope that perhaps some people will stop and think again about these issues. Stopping and thinking can be a challenging thing to do, when all the loudest voices around you - including that of the institutional government - are urging you to accept a certain view of equality and justice that has little or nothing to do with the truth about human nature and happiness. If we do not offer an alternative view, what hope is there?

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" (Romans 10:14)

Archbishop Nichols gives a lead on gay marriage

Thank you to Fr Ray Blake for publishing the full text of Archbishop Nichols' pastoral letter on gay marriage.  Go here to read it.

My feeling is that it's a firm but reasonable letter, stating the case clearly and calmly.  No-one can accuse it of being a "rant" but neither is it at all ambiguous. It is to be read out in all parishes of Westminster diocese this weekend; Lawrence England on his blog tells us that it is being circulated amongst parishes in the other dioceses of England & Wales too.  I certainly hope we will hear about it in ours.

Marriage: who's it for?

Alastair Roberts: courtesy Bump Babies Beyond

I'm going to dip my toe into the stormy waters of the gay marriage debate once more, because I think this article that appeared on Bump Babies Beyond over the weekend is very good.  Written by a PhD student at Durham University, Alastair Roberts, it makes a useful distinction between two ways of looking at the definition of marriage and from this explains why a commonly-held definition (as opposed to different individuals or sectors of society holding different ones) is important.

One position, which would be supported by defenders of gay marriage, can be defined as "additive" in character.  This means that the current definition of marriage can be "enlarged" to include a class of couple not currently included, without infringing on the rights of those already included.  The second position is "ecological" in nature.  As Alastair puts it, "Gay marriage does not just ‘extend’ marriage to a wider set of persons, leaving the institution itself fundamentally unchanged. Rather, gay marriage changes what marriage is for society as a whole: it alters the DNA of the institution itself."

Marriage is not simply a question of the private affections and interests of two individuals, or even the public celebration of their affection.  It is a public institution with ramifications for social structure and stability and the nurture of our future generations.  Its function in society transcends the interests of the two individuals who are getting married; that is why we need to consider carefully as to whether we can really consider its definition to be expandable, or whether the current definition is in fact reflecting an ecological reality beyond power of law to alter. (In Christian terms this roughly corresponds, in a sociological context, to the "natural law" argument, as alluded to by Fr Ray Blake today on his blog.) I will not attempt to repeat what Roberts says much better in his article; please read the original!

For Christians and pro-lifers there is another important consideration.  A homosexual couple wishing to bring up children, unless they adopt, will have to conceive via an "assisted" means like artificial insemination or IVF, using a surrogate mother in the case of a male couple.  These means of conception are an issue in themselves, as a future post will consider.

Speaking to the secular world about gay "marriage"

I have come across two very good posts today which explain the case against legalising same-sex "marriage" (hat-tip to A Reluctant Sinner) in terms that cannot be dismissed as "simply theological" but appeal to common reason.  Even Christians do well to be informed by these for when they are speaking with friends and colleagues who do not adhere to a religious faith.

Do have a look at James Preece's arguments at Catholic and Loving It and also James Shaw's at LMS Chairman.  I quote here James' summary:

"Traditional marriage, the lifelong commitment of a man and a woman ordered to procreation, is the indispensible condition for the family, and grows directly out of human nature. It is not the product of human convention or law; it is historically and logically prior to the state. Since it is the fundamental institution of human society, the state has an interest in recognising and protecting it, particularly as it provides the natural, normal, and by far the best environment for the raising of children. The proposal to extend the legal category of 'marriage' to same-sex couples is a proposal to cease to recognise the natural institution as such; those getting married will be accorded the same status as those engaged in something completely different. This is motivated by a social-engineering project in favour of sexual libertinism which is directly hostile to stable family life, and it is a move away from the state's engagement with human realities, towards a dystopian fantasy."

Sticks and stones

Thanks to Annie at the Arundel &
Brighton Latin Mass blogsite

"Hate" is a word I try to avoid using, but in certain contexts it's the only one that fits.  I hate the storms of invective and vitriol that rage every time certain topics are debated, those topics being anything to do with Christianity, the pro-life movement or gay rights.  It's not that I deny anyone the right to have a different opinion than myself on any of these subjects.  I can understand that they are sensitive areas in which there is a lot of potential for personal hurt and upset.  But why must people be gunned down for expressing their opinion?  Sometimes it doesn't matter how courteously the opinion has been expressed or whether the speaker's motivation is to defend what they see as a truth relating to the common good, rather than a personal predilection.  The very fact that it has been expressed, and that it disagrees with the current social ethos or even just the hearer's own opinion, is apparently justification for the release of a horrible whirlwind of anger, acidic words and even personal insult.  What happened to civil debate?

It was a lily-livered disinclination to put myself in the path of any of this vitriol that led me to step back from pro-life work for many years.  It took a good nudge from God and the illness of my daughter to make me realise I couldn't keep silent just because I didn't want to be called any nasty names.  Even so I believe, I hope, that my motivation is to positively promote the sanctity, the beauty, the preciousness of human life and its innate dignity, not first and foremost to engage in criticism.  That involves answering those who see certain things differently; but it shouldn't require shouting anyone down.  In case that makes me sound holier-than-thou, I admit that the futility of abrasive rhetoric and hot-headed indignation is a lesson I've had to learn the hard way over the years!

Bump Babies Beyond posts well on this topic today and mentions a Conservative MP, David Burrowes, who received a death threat and hate mail after speaking out in support of traditional marriage.   The Archbishop of York also received "racist and threatening messages" when he did the same, sparking a police hate crime investigation.  It's not good enough.  We've got to stop dealing with each other this way, not least because we're never going to see the arguments clearly through a fog of hatred and vitriol.

I was beginning to get utterly discouraged when I came across this inspiring message from the late and great, Blessed Pope John Paul II on the Sisters of the Gospel of Life blogsite.  And suddenly I remembered why I am doing my bit for pro-life!

“To be actively pro-life is to contribute to the renewal of society through the promotion of the common good. It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop.” (Pope John Paul II, "The Gospel of Life", n.101)

The pro-life DNA of marriage

“Gay marriage” is of course a hot topic of the moment, with David Cameron actively backing its legalisation and online campaigns both for and against being launched (see button on our own sidebar).  It is a topic pro-lifers must take seriously, because like the fundamental right to life, it concerns our very nature and identity as human beings.  That’s not for a moment to say that gay people are anything less than human: of course they are no different from heterosexuals in their personhood and dignity.  But a gay relationship cannot be equated with a heterosexual one and called a marriage.  They are essentially different beasts.

The purpose of sexual intercourse is not only for procreation, but procreation is an essential dimension of it, as the Catholic Church teachers teaches when it states that the unitive and procreative aspects of sex must not be artificially separated.  That’s why, in order to answer man’s deepest need for companionship and intimacy, God created a woman.  Their relationship – not a petri dish or artificial insemination – is the loving, sexual context in which children were intended to be conceived and born.  Over the millennia this committed, fruitful, life-giving relationship of two biologically and psychologically complementary persons came to represent first God’s relationship with His people Israel, and then Christ’s relationship with His Church.  Finally it was raised to the dignity of a sacrament, a vehicle of grace and a participation in the internal relationships of the Holy Trinity (which the human family mirrors).  In marriage between man and woman, then, we can read the spiritual as well as biological DNA of the human person, his nature, his dignity and his relationship to His creator.  It’s what we’re all about on a multitude of layers.

Sexual activity between a same-sex couple is something different.  It cannot be procreative and thus cannot co-create with God.  There is no biological complementarity to reflect the initiatory love of the Creator with the receptive love of His creatures (even if the couple assume roles).  Should children be desired – and this is particularly important from the pro-life point of view – then they will have to be conceived by artificial means (which at the very least will mean conception outside of the act of marriage, and at worst can mean IVF treatment with consequent loss of embryonic life).  In short, sex between two men or two women is just a different thing altogether.

 

One does not need to rely on religion - which of course will not bear weight with everyone - to protect the traditional definition of marriage.  Marriage, defined as the “voluntary union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others for life” (Hyde v Hyde 1866), has been a constant of human societies in all ages and all parts of the world.  Our own British society was founded on it and until recently held together by the familial bonds resulting from it. This is recognised by the UN Declaration of Human Rights in article 16 which allows that the family, headed by a man and a woman, “is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”.  Gay marriage will tend to undermine that because it cannot give rise to a family with the usual natural network of extended relationships around it; blood aunts and uncles, grandparents and so on.

The civil partnerships into which gay couples may legally enter bestow virtually identical legal rights to marriage already, so there is no practical reason to  redefine marriage in order to include them.  A gay relationship may be loving and stable, but it is a partnership, not a marriage.

Christian Medical Comment carries an excellent post which brings together 24 articles on the legalisation of same-sex “marriage” in the UK.  I am indebted to it for the definitions of marriage and family quoted above, and it is a mine of useful information and arguments to draw upon when debating this foundationally important topic with those inclined to support “equality in love”.  Do go over and read.

I have posted before on the difficulty of separating out the ethical wheat from the darnel in so many of the situations the modern world presents to us.  That isn’t to say the basic moral principles aren’t clear, but they are entwined with so many other hurts, challenges and considerations that they can be hard to tease out.  Coaxing the knots apart can be a very painful process and this whole debate is a case in point, because we are asking homosexual people to make a sacrifice, even if for the sake of receiving greater blessing and even if it is one we also ask of some heterosexual people, for example priests, religious and unmarried singles.

Being gay is not a sin (although it is a mis-orientation, a particular sharing in the state of disorder each and every one of us suffers from in one way or another); loving someone is not a sin; but the genital expression of that love is a sin outside of marriage, because it constitutes a distortion of what sex is meant to be for and about... and homosexual love can never constitute a marriage.  This is a hardship for those with same sex attraction.  However much we point out that our society gives too much weight to sex as the only means of complete human fulfilment, however much we draw attention to the myriad other types of loving and intimate relationships there are other than sexual ones and point out that celibacy can have positive value, it remains a hardship.  I think it was Michael Voris who said that homosexuals who remain celibate for love of Christ and His Church are “moral giants” amongst us, carrying a heavy cross, and I wholeheartedly agree.

One of the unhappiest aspects of this whole scenario is that, it seems, either you support “gay marriage” and active gay relationships generally, or you are labelled homophobic, unjust and a hater of gay people.  You are allowed no leeway to say “I love and respect my gay brothers and sisters just as I love and respect anyone else, but I believe that gay sex is wrong”.  That will simply arouse anger, disbelief and accusations of hypocrisy or arrogance.  I find that understandable... but very, very sad.