The following comes from a March 21 interview of San Francisco’s Archbishop Cordileone in USA Today.
Q: What is the greatest threat posed by allowing gays and lesbians to marry?
A:The better question is: What is the great good in protecting the public understanding that to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife?
I can illustrate my point with a personal example. When I was Bishop of Oakland, I lived at a residence at the Cathedral, overlooking Lake Merritt. It’s very beautiful. But across the lake, as the streets go from 1st Avenue to the city limits at 100th Avenue, those 100 blocks consist entirely of inner city neighborhoods plagued by fatherlessness and all the suffering it produces: youth violence, poverty, drugs, crime, gangs, school dropouts, and incredibly high murder rates. Walk those blocks and you can see with your own eyes: A society that is careless about getting fathers and mothers together to raise their children in one loving family is causing enormous heartache.
To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant, and that marriage is essentially an institution about adults, not children; marriage would mean nothing more than giving adults recognition and benefits in their most significant relationship.
How can we do this to our children?
Q: If the Supreme Court opens the floodgates to gay marriage in California (or beyond), what will be the result?
A: If the Supreme Court overturns Prop 8, this will not go down in history as the Loving v. Virginia but as the Roe v. Wade decision of our generation.
No matter what the Supreme Court rules, this debate is not over. Marriage is too important and the issues raised by treating same-gender unions as marriages are too fundamental to just go away. Just as Roe v. Wade did not end the conversation about abortion, so a ruling that tries to import same-sex marriage into our Constitution is not going to end the marriage debate, but intensify it.
We will have a bitterly polarized country divided on the marriage issue for years if not generations to come.
Q: Why is this of such importance to children?
A: Why has virtually every known civilization across time and history recognized the need to bring together men and women to make and raise the next generation together? Clearly something important is at stake, or human beings of such different cultures, histories and religions would not come up with the basic idea of marriage as a male-female union over and over again.
… When we as a culture abandon that idea and ideal, children suffer, communities suffer, women suffer, and men are dehumanized by being told they aren’t important to the project of family life.
Modern social science evidence generally supports the idea that the ideal for a child is a married mother and father. The scientific study of children raised by two men or two women is in its infancy … several recent studies … are painting a less sanguine portrait thatsome professional organizations have yet acknowledged about whether two dads can make up for the absence of a mom, or vice versa.
We all know heroic single mothers who do a great job raising their kids (just as there are gay people who take good care of their children). But the question of the definition of marriage is not about success or failure in parenting in any particular case.
The job of single mothers is hard precisely because we aren’t as a society raising boys to believe they need to become faithful husbands and fathers, men who care for and protect their children, and the mother of their children, in marriage. And we aren’t raising girls to be the kind of young women with the high standards and the self-worth to expect and appreciate such men, and not to settle for less.
Q: How would the allegation that opponents are bigoted lead to their rights being abridged?
A: Notice the first right being taken away: the right of 7 million Californians who devoted time and treasure to the democratic process, to vote for our shared vision of marriage. Taking away people’s right to vote on marriage is not in itself a small thing.
But the larger picture that’s becoming increasingly clear is that this is not just a debate about what two people do in their private life, it’s a debate about a new public norm: Either you support redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex or you stand accused by law and culture of bigotry and discrimination.
If you want to know what this new public legal and social norm stigmatizing traditional believers will mean for real people, ask David and Tanya Parker, who objected to their kindergarten son being taught about same sex marriage after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized it in that state and wanted to pull him out of class for that lesson. He was arrested and handcuffed for trying to protect his son’s education, and they were told they had no right to do so.
Ask the good people of Ocean Grove Methodist camp in New Jersey that had part of its tax-exempt status rescinded because they don’t allow same-sex civil union ceremonies on their grounds. Ask Tammy Schulz of Illinois, who adopted four children (including a sibling group) through Evangelical Child Family Services — which was shut down because it refuses to place children with same-sex couples. (The same thing has happened in Illinois, Boston and Washington, D.C., to Catholic Charities adoption services). … Ask the doctor in San Diego County who did not want to personally create a fatherless child through artificial insemination, and was punished by the courts…. Ask Amy Rudnicki who testified in the Colorado Legislature recently that if Catholic Charities is shut out of the adoption business by new legislation, her family will lose the child they expected to adopt this year. … Nobody is better off if religious adoption agencies are excluded from helping find good homes for abused and neglected children, but governments are doing this because the principle of “anti-discrimination” is trumping liberty and compassion. …
When people say that opposition to gay marriage is discriminatory, like opposition to interracial marriage, they cannot also say their views won’t hurt anybody else. They seek to create and enforce a new moral and legal norm that stigmatizes those who view marriage as the union of husband and wife. … It’s not kind, and it doesn’t seem to lead to a “live and let live” pluralism.
Q: You have spoken of gay marriage as a “natural impossibility.” But in terms of procreation, how does it differ from opposite-sex couples who are elderly or infertile?
A: Our bodies have meaning. The conjugal union of a man and a woman is not a factory to produce babies; marriage seeks to create a total community of love, a “one flesh” union of mind, heart and body that includes a willingness to care for any children their bodily union makes together.
Two men and two women can certainly have a close loving committed emotional relationship, but they can never ever join as one flesh in the unique way a husband and wife do.
Infertility is, as you point out, part of the natural life cycle of marriage (people age!), as well as a challenge and disappointment some husbands and wives have to go through. People who have been married for 50 years are no less married because they can no longer have children.
Adoption can be a wonderful happy ending for children who lack even one parent able or willing to care for them. But notice, when a man and woman cannot have children together, that’s an accident of circumstances, the exception to the rule. When a husband and wife adopt, they are mirroring the pattern set in nature itself. …
Treating same-sex relationships as marriage is the final severing by government of the natural link between marriage and the great task of bringing together male and female to make and raise the next generation together in love.
Q: Is it particularly difficult for you to play a leading role against gay marriage in a place like San Francisco? Does it change your relationship with gay congregants?
A: Truthfully, I am really excited to be in San Francisco. I remember the first time I saw the city as a boy when our family drove up from San Diego to meet my father who was unloading his tuna boat here. … To me San Francisco was and is The City! It represents vibrant, pulsating, creative, cosmopolitan life and I love it. Of course I realize many people in San Francisco disagree with the church’s teachings on marriage and sex, but there is also a very deeply embedded Catholic culture here with many people who understand and cherish the church’s teachings. My job as an archbishop is to teach the truths of our faith and the truths of the natural moral law, and whatever challenges that entails I embrace with enthusiasm.
We can learn to respect each other across differences and even to love one another. That’s my hope anyway. And my job description.
Q: Has it become more difficult to oppose gay marriage over the years? Does it seem the tide is turning against you?
A: There is a problem here – an injustice, really – in the way that some people are so often identified by what they are against. Opposition to same-sex marriage is a natural consequence of what we are for, i.e., preserving the traditional, natural understanding of marriage in the culture and in the law.
But of course people who are for the redefinition of marriage to include two men or two women are also against something: They are against protecting the social and legal understanding that marriage is the union of a husband and wife who can give children a mother and father.
So there are really two different ideas of marriage being debated in our society right now, and they cannot coexist: Marriage is either a conjugal union of a man and a woman designed to unite husband and wife to each other and to any children who may come from their union, or it is a relationship for the mutual benefit of adults which the state recognizes and to which it grants certain benefits. Whoever is for one, is opposed to the other. …
Those of us who favor preserving the traditional understanding of marriage do not do so because we want people who experience attraction to their same sex to suffer. We recognize and respect the equal human dignity of everyone. Everyone should be treated equally, but it is not discrimination to treat differently things that are different. Marriage really is unique for a reason.
Q: Do you have friends or family members who are gay? How do you balance your public policy positions with those relationships?
A: Of course! I am a Baby Boomer, and I grew up in Southern California. The larger question you raise about my relationships with people I care about is: How can we love each other across deep differences in moral views? The answer I have found is that when we want to stay in relationship, we can and do. Love finds a way. When we want to exclude or hate, we find each other’s views literally intolerable.
Of course, it helps that my friends know me, directly and unfiltered through any other source. When you know someone personally, it’s much harder to rely on stereotyped or media-created images. It’s a lot harder to be hateful or prejudiced against a person, or group of people, that one knows personally. When there is personal knowledge and human interaction, the barriers of prejudice and pre-conceived ideas come down.
Q: What are your main goals: Supreme Court, lower courts, state legislatures, public opinion, religious liberty?
A: My main goal is none of these. I’m a faith leader, and my main goal is to seek to create a Catholic community in San Francisco where people know what the church teaches and uses this knowledge to guide their own lives and get to heaven. I want to help people understand the truth of natural marriage and, for people of my own faith, the deeper, theological, even mystical meaning of marriage as designed by God.
Using words, though, is only one way of teaching. Usually one’s actions speak louder than words. So there is a place for public manifestations of principle. The civil rights marches of the ’60s are a good example of that. Yes, they were a way to agitate for long overdue political change, but they also had a teaching effect in that they got people to think about the injustices of racism.
Engaging with the broader culture is also part of my teaching role as an archbishop, and of course my right as U.S. citizen.
Q: Are you worried about the recent trend in courts and states going against you? How best to stop that trend?
A: The natural law has a power written on the human heart that doesn’t go away.
Notice how there is no controversy in this country now over the evil of Jim Crow laws. Shortly after the Civil Rights Act the cultural change was complete. This is because it was the right thing to do. The truth cannot be suppressed indefinitely.
Draw a contrast here with the pro-life movement: After the Roe decision, it was commonly thought that our society would soon easily accept the legitimacy of abortion. But what has happened? The pro-life movement is stronger now, 40 years later, than it ever has been. This is because of the truth: Abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. That is not a matter of opinion or religious belief; it is a simple fact that cannot be denied.
The same principle applies with marriage: It is simply a natural fact that you need a man and a woman to make a marriage and that a child’s heart longs for the love of both his or her mother and father. Even if the Supreme Court rules against this truth, the controversy will not die out, as it hasn’t on the abortion issue.
The problem is, the longer a society operates in denial of the truth, the greater is the harm that will be done. The examples of the racist policies and practices of the past in our own country make this clear, as does all the harm that abortion has done to women and all those in her network of relationships.
With marriage, we have to consider the harm that will be caused by enshrining in the law the principle that children do not need a mother and a father. The circumstances of our struggles change but the truth does not.
To read original story, click here.
Right on, dear Archbishop. So happy you have come to San Francisco. Welcome from a native San Franciscan and the daughter of a native San Franciscan born here in 1890!
YES, I TOTALLY AGREE WITH CAROLINE!
MY GRANDMOTHER HAD 14 CHILDREN IN THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO!
I AM A FOURTH GENERATION, AND PRAY THAT THE CITY WILL ONCE AGAIN BECOME A CITY OF FAMILY AND LIFE.
Keep praying and Good luck…
Elizabeth, women, including myself used to wear hats, gloves and dresses when we went to San Francisco because we were going to The City. My husband and I used to love to take our children to the zoo and museums which were at that time clean and well kept. Now one cannot even go by Bart Rail because the transvestites are using the women’s restrooms as a changing room. At least that was my experience about ten to fifteen years ago, and men were hanging around the women’s restrooms at the Bart station waiting for the transvestites to come out, so one knews some very illegal and immoral things were taking place. I have only been back to San Francisco once since. That is sad. It always had it seedy places as all large cities do, but they used to be contained. I feel for you. God bless you. Hopefully, it will one day return to being The City and traditional family friendly. May St. Francis through his tears pray for it.
The answer is fairly simple. The gays (homosexuals, perverts) movement is very similar to the democratic political party – they have gained their positions by overpowering the public with propaganda that ignores the facts. In the case of the homoxesuals it is a fact that up to 85% of those treated professionally return to being normal — but have you EVER heard of treatment being suggested or advertised? No, these organizations want power any way they can get it. It is interesting to note that all the great civilizations that have fallen, Romans, Greeks, embraced homosexuality before their fall.
Where do you get this “data”?
It’s all over the place…try googling it YFC…
What do you think of Archbishop Cordileone’s statement here, Our Fellow Catholic?
Sorry, I meant Your Fellow Catholic.
Mr. Lockwood, It seems that a large section of the Q-and-A is about continuing to love all of Christ’s children, and not using hate (including hateful words) or discrimination, e.g. “We recognize and respect the equal human dignity of everyone.” By using a derogatory term (perverts) you are immediately revoking the legitimacy of any point you want to make. Add to the conversation in a thoughtful, respectful way. Christ taught that the three greatest things to abide by are Faith, Hope, and Love. You can show your faith through support and hope for the outcome sought, but you must continue to hold love of each other as the greatest. So show the respect fundamentally due to *everyone* and stop being an asshole.
Taipan – There is no such data on Google, or otherwise. If there were, you and others would point right to it.
Mark: Obviously, I think that he says things that are untrue on their face, and some other things that are non-sequiteurs, but by and large he doesn’t even answer the biggest question of all.
Making marriage licenses accessible for same sex couples can indeed co-exist with marriage licenses for opposite sex couples. it co-exists in Massachusettes. It coexists in Iowa. It co-exists in New York, Maryland, Washington State, Washington DC, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont. It co-exists in Canada, Spain, Argentina, Holland, and Denmark. Saying they can’t co-exist is like saying that you can grow apples and you can grow oranges, but not both.
In terms of non-sequitors, the most obvious one is his observation about fatherless children in Oakland. Gay people have nothing to do with single-parent straight families. Nothing! Do you think those fathers left (or never married) their kid’s mothers because the gays across the bay had six months to tie the knot?
The biggest question of all is what the Archbishop would do to protect the children of same-sex marriage, and give them the best chance at a happy, successful, even holy life if their parents must remain forever legal strangers to one another? How would he protect those children?
YFC, he is saying not that straight and gay marriage can’t coexist, but that the two definitions can not co-exist. One that marriage is a life long exclusive commitment between a man and a woman for the purpose of generating offspring and for the mutual support of the man and woman. The other that marriage is a civil contract between two people (does it have to be two?) who have agreed to (what? live together-maybe; pool resources-maybe? raise someones children-maybe; for a length of time to be decided by them-maybe; help each other live a great life-maybe) Although, what the Archbishop doesn’t acknowledge is that there is already differing definitions of marriage. Celebrities call themselves single as soon as they break up with someone-whether they are still married legally or not. They flaunt their new relationships. Maybe even have a child with someone other than their spouse. I know two people who cohabit-the woman would like to marry; the man says they’ve been married for 10 years. People answer the question how long have you been married like this: “We’ve been married for two years but really for 8.” People make their lives really messy by leaving the path of the Lord. As a person in a long relationship (you haven’t said whether you are civilly married or not), who has chosen to live a celebate Catholic life in this relationship, you have a great duty to contact the archbishop and put him in contact with others so that he can see that the only reason for not having same sex marriage would be if it is offensive to the Lord. Secular reasons are just not adequate.
How can a moral wrong become a civil right?
Where is our collective moral compass?
Mr. Lockwood,
I agree especially with your last comment “It is interesting to note that all the great civilizations that have fallen, Romans, Greeks, embraced homosexuality before their fall”…..and that is exactly what is going to happen once again…..
Ummm Robert, can you cite the study that 85% of professionally treated homosexuas return to being normal?
I thought that both Narth and Courage cite numbers that 80+% of their members give up homosexual sex, but that only a relatively small percentage “flip” orientations. The rest live in celibacy while still having same sex attraction.
That’s not a cure. That’s failure (at least from the perspective of “orientation change”)—though certainly is a vast improvement in terms of their spiritual profile as long as you agree with the Church’s theology.
Secondly, the Courage “solution” isn’t something that’s going to work outside faithful Catholics, since much of their program (from what I’ve read, I have no direct knowledge) involves prayer and active catholic faith. Obviously a muslim, an atheist or the spiritually ambivalent mass aren’t going to “buy in” to such a program.
The cynic in me wonders just how much good the prayer really does. In that, I really doubt that homosexuality is due to people not praying enough or results from rejecting God, but, insofar as the behavior is addressable by therapy, is a relationship/self image problem. If the problem were a rejection of God problem, then why would clearly evil people such as rapists and serial killers still be overwhelmingly heterosexual?
Courage, I think works, by giving people who had early socialization problems—compounded by social rejection of self-identifying as gay—by giving them a group with which to “fit in”. If the problem were lack of faith or rejecting God, why would they be attracted to a faith-based program in the first place?
However, I did read something about “nueroplasticity” and how the brain retained the ability to build new connections longer than scientists used to believe. The upshot is that research has shown that meditation has helped build neural pathways shown to be important to enjoying healthy relationships with others. Maybe prayer MIGHT have a similar effect and you might be able to show a correlation between prayer and building the neural pathways that build relationships (suggesting that maybe prayer itself is indeed an important factor).
What would really be interesting to see is to have a group use meditation and another use prayer and compare the buildup of pathways associated with strong interpersonal relationships. Wouldn’t it be something for faith to show a scientific basis for benefits from prayer? (In an ideal world for the faithful, prayer would be more effective—but I suspect the mainstream would reject such a result as being due to experimenter bias).
False once again, JonJ. Ending one’s adultery is the cure. Same with bank robbers and idol worshipers … when they stop then they’re cured. Brain “re-wiring” is perhaps impossible; however, relearning is possible. This is why it is absolutely necessary to protect children from gay influences and abuse, because these environments “wire” their brains wrong by instilling rewards for deviant behavior.
BINGO SKAI!
Thanks, Taipan; It’s always a good feeling to hit the bullseye after firing so many shots into the dirt : ))
Celibacy is not a CURE for same sex attraction, if the attraction still exists—it’s simply behavior modification.
Let’s suppose you have Tourette’s syndrome and have an unfortunate tendency to say inappropriate things. Gagging yourself might prevent the inappropriate outbursts but can’t be said to CURE the Tourette’s.
Perhaps selfish people who have no concern for the suffering of their fellow man would consider it a cure. If there is no obvious behavior, they can go on pretending “those people” don’t exist. Of course, I fail to see how such individuals are following the example of Christ, who embraced the most scorned and reviled people of his day (lepers).
Whether you disagree or agree with Courage’s methods and theories, I think we should all recognize they are trying to help others that they see in need—which places them far ahead of those who spout little more than vituperative revulsion.
Tourette’s syndrome is an organic condition Jon J…you are wrong again…sexual paraphilias and sexual deviance is “NOT”…behavior modification for social deviance can be done through operant conditioning… or incarceration (depending on the behavior), such as “Frotteurism”, which can very well land you in jail as can “Exhibitionism”…Tourette’s Syndrome will not!…furthermore sodomy, homosexual activity, e.g sex with a male partner, as well as other forms of sexual deviance are all sins against the 6th commandment and some are even “criminal”, your high powered analogy needs some reworking sport…
Hey, “sport”, your knowledge of law is out of date. Homosexual activity and sodomy is NOT criminal and it is unconstitutional to pass such a law (see. Lawrence v. Texas). Though, I do understand why you might think so, since Lawrence overturned one of the most amusingly appropriate case names I ever heard (Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld Georgia’s criminal statute punishing sodomy).
Your knowledge of psychiatry is also out of date. Lawrence also notes that homosexuality has been removed from the diagnostic list of maladies (something like DSVM-IV, I forget the acronym) back in 1973, therefore conflating homosexuality with sexual paraphilias is NOT the current accepted practice of the psychiatric community.
Further, even the Church recognizes in its teaching about homosexuals that SSA is “deeply rooted” and at least seems innate to the person with the affliction. If you modify the behavior but the impulse still exists, you have in no way “cured” the problem—at least as far as the individual is concerned.
I am certain YOU would view it as a “cure” since you could go on pretending that “those people don’t exist” and hurl insults at them in social settings.
neural pathways?…that are used in the building up of prayer?…science has shown how the confessional benefits anxiety, depression, and fear…all seen by the medical community as neurosis and other forms of diseases of the mind…it’s amazing how much depression and anxiety and useless fear can be ameliorated when a person makes a good sacramental confession!…Many psychotherapists have agrees that “confession” has done more for their patient’s then 2 years of therapy!…why?…because the disease these people were afflicted with was a “healthy awareness of sin”, thank goodness that was not yet compromised by repeated sinful activity, that would have numbed the conscience over a period of time!…The spiritual liberation that takes place in the confessional is a “gift and grace from God…that not all the therapy in the world could touch…I am a firm proponent and advocate for mental health counseling, when appropriate of course, but when it comes to moral issues that cause depression and anxiety…the only “cure” is the confessional…Praise be Jesus Christ!
Thanks for your interesting contributions, JonJ. You are correct. Most gay people don’t change their inborn orientations even with therapy. The people in Courage practice celibacy, so they avoid having sex. Very few of the people that have the therapy mentioned develop a sexual interest in the opposite sex. So Robert, do you consider people giving up sexual activity as “returning to normal”?
PA when the sodomites turn their sites on the Church to bend to their will, whose side will you be on? I really want an answer… Christ or the anti-Christ will be your choice…
Well, Canisius, I have read the four gospels many times over. Christ never had anything to say against homosexual persons. Christ was criticized by the Scribes and the Pharisees for associating with people who were considered outcasts in their society. If Christ came back here today and protected gay youth against bullying and mistreatment, I can see him being criticized by many so called Christians. It is amazing to me that some people think certain passages in the Old Testament are more important than the words of Christ. Treating people with kindness, love and compassion is not being anti-Christ.
PA, how do you compare/contrast “inborn orientations” with Jesus’ “But the things which proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart, and those things defile a man.” (Matthew 15:18)? Also, PA, what is the point of the Cross and Resurrection if man is not responsible for the defilement that comes from his heart? So, you really not only defy some dogma of the Church but you also in effect deny Christ, by saying that He has no purpose.
Skai, same sex attraction is not a sin. Same sex attraction does not equal lust.
What is the greatest threat posed by allowing gays and lesbians to marry? Fire from the sky
If the Supreme Court opens the floodgates to gay marriage in California (and beyond), what will be the result? Civil War
Why is this of such importance to children? Because they will grow up thinking wrong is right.
How would the allegation that opponents are bigoted lead to their rights being abridged? We are not bigots. We have no hatred nor do we hold them in contempt. Sometimes the most loving and caring thing you can do for people is to tell them no.
You have spoken of gay marriage as a “natual impossibility.” But in terms of procreation, how does it differ from opposite sex couples who are infertile or elderly? You need an anatomy class.
For many of us, this is just one more symptom of a culture that has forgotten God or who creates a substitute for God based on their own narciscism. I understand that AbC does not think that religion should enter in the discussion, but it is why the tide is turning against us. Those who have been swayed are those who discredit Divine Revelation or who don’t know it. We are supposed to be holy and joyous-so holy and joyous that we inspire others to desire Christ.
Anonymous, lots of false or unwise religious philosophies and fads today, such as two of them that appear in your post. One, and who knows where it came from, seems to go over well with bishops who have a problem standing up for Jesus; it is “well, this is not a religious thing … ie abortion and sodomy; it’s a natural thing”: And this teaching, which is not dogma, defies the reality that the Catholic religion is “all in all” because Jesus is “all in all”. So to imagine the natural world being distinct from religion makes no sense at all because it is false. You cannot win battles with fantasy but only with reality. Not only the “filth” has infiltrated the Church but soothsaying is wreaking havoc also. The second, Anonymous, “We are supposed to be” is also a crock: There is no “supposed” about it; you either are or you are not Catholic. It’s not a script from a video game, a movie, a song … It is the Holy Eucharist which makes you holy. Nor is it a persona that one dresses up in each day … Cosmetics and symbolic clothing simply do not enter into eternity, so the soul needs to become holy … “painted faces” or other pretenses or “supposed to be” do not cut it, Anonymous. You can’t beat hollywood at its own game.
Your first point-that was my point.
Your second point-we’re not.
Doubtless the Supreme Court will give in to the homosexual mafia. We should not be surprised when the wrath of God is unleashed upon us. Pray for His mercy. We are a stiff necked people who have turned against Him.
Right, the US Constitution does not guard against the sodomites, nor any other evil; only holy people can guard against the world, the flesh and the devil, especially against the devil.
Bishop Cordileone is doing much better with this issue than when he was parroting that awkward, quasi-constitutional right’s rubric of children having a right to be raised by their natural parents.
Some time ago, on this website, he had made such a statement in an article printed here and I basically wrote how it was terrible PR and why (though many here attacked me for it before a few understood why I said it). Soon after, Bishop Cordileone used a phrase very similar to one I suggested (i don’t remember precisely, but something along the lines of how research shows children simply do better when raised by a mother and father).
I also suggested citing favorable research that backed my position and then talk about how same sex marriage would make the optimal nurturing conditions for children less likely. Whether my comments somehow got communicated to the Bishop, or (more likely) he independently came to a similar assessment—it’s good to see him make sounder arguments that don’t throw adoptive families under the bus.
Here, we see that he’s expanded and researched the facts more extensively to support this position.
I do, however, take some issue with his argument that 7 million californian’s will be denied their voting rights if the court rules against prop 8. The very question presented is whether those voters have the constitutional right to determine their fellow citizen’s behavior with respect to their marriage choices. If the court rules against prop 8, they aren’t denying Californians their votes, they’re denying their right to pass such a law in the first place.
To understand this issue more clearly, lets use an analogy. Let us now suppose 7 million Californians vote to decide that the Catholic Church should lose its tax exempt status to fix California’s tax deficit. California church lawyers would argue such a law is unconstitutional due to 1st amendment free exercise (of religion) clause. Have 7 million voters been denied their votes?
Of course not, because the voters DID NOT HAVE THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO MAKE SUCH A LAW IN THE FIRST PLACE. Now, you may disagree about the constitutional interpretation of these admin rules, but its clear that the Supreme Court is operating within the proper scope of it’s authority and is not in the business of denying 7 million votes.
Or, to take another example, let us suppose 7 million calfornians came to this site, read my entire library of posts in the archives here, and decided I was such an obnoxious and disgusting person that I should be put in prison for 30 years and passes a ballot Proposition JonJ. I am promptly thrown in a maximum security prison.
Now, having little else to do, I burrow in the prison law library and decide, HEY, they violated my 1st amendment free speech rights and I file a lawsuit to rescind my imprisonment. Have I just denied the voting rights of 7 million Californians? Of course I haven’t, I’ve simply exerted my constitutional rights.
Children have a right to be raised by God through the natural parents. If the natural parents are not available to raise their child, then as St Paul says, the Church is our mother and father. There is a reason why priests are called, “father”; and why nuns are sometimes referred to as “mother”. The betrayal by some of these people is simply one more cause of child abuse in all its forms.
JonJ, you consistently get hung up in gay minutia … you need to stay away from the deep things of Satan, which you seem mezmerized by.
The devil uses the “glamour” of evil to mesmerize and entice…the devil will use one of man’s greatest gift’s…the “intellect”…in order to tempt him in ways that are in conflict with the Church…all of this sin is rooted in pride…those who continue to stump and advocate for same sex union’s are being disobedient and in their disobedience they sin…just like Luther, who couldn’t master his own carnal impulses and chose to break from Rome…it was his pride…his vainglorious pride that was fueled by the devil’s oldest seduction, using man’s keen intellect to seek nonconformity…our Church is not a democracy…we don’t vote on what we approve of!…the Church in her infinitesimal wisdom, knows that when man is left to his own sinful devices, he will invariably choose the latter and transgress…when he humbles himself and takes up his cross…he will suffer, denial and conformity is not always easy, “we must work out our salvation in fear and trembling” as Saint Paul says… if we follow this spiritual recipe and can navigate through this labyrinth of darkness…we may one day be be crowned with glory, after this battle is won, and we stand forever before the beatific vision of Christ our Savior…with the Church triumphant for all time…
I continue to think that one of man’s sinful devices is the Church bureaucracy.
Skai, you consistently revel in using force against people you don’t like. Second, you express little empathy or compassion for sinners.
One of satan’s methods of corrupting mankind is to tempt him through the desire to exert power over others. Since most of us are NOT powerful authorities, people who have failed to attain those positions in life are still tempted through this desire by the mechanism of VICARIOUS dominance.
When one professes devotion to Christ, yet the form of that devotion is little more than vicariously supporting the “rightness” of exerting force against others, then your faith could be little more than a lust for dominance over others.
Constitutional rights have NOTHING to do with following the teaching of the Church, on matters of “faith and morals”…it is not “illegal” for men to “bugger” other men…gay men have the “legal” right to indulge in this revolting perversion!…the Church has CONDEMNED sodomy as a SIN THAT CRY’S TO HEAVEN FOR VENGEANCE!…irrespective of what the legal “rights” are for actively homosexual men…do we choose God or mammon?…that decision may determine where you spend your eternity…
As a native San Franciscan, I say, NONSENSE, the Archbishop needs a course in psycho-sexual development! He also needs a better understanding of Civics, it is over when the United States Supreme Court rules unless the Congress becomes involved!
This is not about the “constitution”…it is about what “we” as Catholics must do to save our soul’s!…Conformity to immoral laws is a sure fire way to embrace perdition’s flame, when we pass away!…it is legal to secure an abortion in our land as well…the Church teach’s that this is a mortal sin and grounds for ipso facto excommunication as well!…when the law of the land is not congruent with the Church on matters of faith and morals, we are bound to follow the Church…remember what happened in England about five hundred years ago?…a fellow by the name of Henry wanted a divorce…get my drift?
So Taipan, the salvation of your soul commands you to not have an abortion and not to marry someone of the same sex. But God’s greatest gift is that of free will, yet you want to take away that gift. If God is willing to give us the freedom to sin, why can’t you?
No…you can sin YFC…we all have choices…the “wrong” choice(s) can invariably lead to hell of course…you have the free-will to choose a life of debauchery and perversion…of course when you die, you will pay for these sinful excesses…
YFC, this is a good point that I think too many forget about—even the Church itself many times in its history.
I have always been puzzled about how people who claim to follow Christ seem to think they possess the wisdom to compel the behavior of their fellow man when Christ himself refrained from seizing control of the government and using the coercive power of society to enforce God’s will.
Certainly, an omniscient and omnipotent Jesus could have created a perfect statutory regime and enforced it with a wave of his hand. If Jesus refrained from using the government force to compel conformity to his perfect will, how is it that so called followers think they have the duty to force others to conform to their imperfect interpretations of His will?
Jon…your analogy is as flawed as is YFC’s thinking…the Church teach’s it’s member’s what to believe on matters of faith and morals… People of course are “free” to do what they will… God did not create robot’s, He wants man to love Him freely…and serve Him freely…man can choose to love and worship the “material”…as free will dictates that we have the capacity and luxury to pursue our own self interest’s…even in the Garden of Eden, man was not denied the freedom to transgress…he was told that if he did…he would surely die…Adam listened to Eve, who was beguiled by the serpent…they both fell, and died…God the father then gave us His Son, who would now be our advocate after our trangression’s…in fact He died upon the cross for our sins, because He loved us so much…and wanted us to be forever reconciled with the Trinity, after we left this earthly struggle…”because of this original sin”, death entered humankind’s reality…and because of Jesus Christ our Savior , eternal life has now superseded the “sting” of mortal death…in order to lead man to eternal happiness and eternal life…if he chooses to “work” out his salvation…the choice is predicated on who and what we serve…is it God or mammon…that free choice is yours…and mine
Taipan the simple and obvious thing here is that the Archbishop believes that gay couples ought NOT to be free to be married. He has exhorted voters, legislators, and justices to deny gay couples the free will to get married. He has walled them off and said “You shall not be entitled to free will”, while at the same time, presumably, allows every other person to be able to make appropriate moral choices in their life.
The last place wisdom is found is in the sodomite, JonJ. And few sodomites display any real wisdom; for, if they did, then they’d give up sodomy as their first wise act. Sodomy is the repository of sin.
Skai, “the last place wisdom is found is in the sodomite”—gee, ever hear of the logical fallacy known as the “ad hominem”?
If “sodomites” are inherently unwise, are you telling me that, had I lived in the ancient world, then I should have consulted Darius III for military wisdom rather than Alexander the Great? Or that if I were an aspiring Olympic diver, that I should come to you for advice rather than Greg Louganis?
Asserting that sinners do not possess any talent, abilities or wisdom is bearing false witness against your neighbor. Since we are all sinners, there is a basis to deny ANY person currently alive today lacks wisdom.
er…possesses wisdom.
YFC please by all mean sin as much as you want, but don’t ever try to reconcile it the teachings of the Church…burn the rainbow flag
But Canisius, the justification you and others give for denying us the freedom to marry is that it is a sin. So no, you are denying me that free will. The story of Adam has no meaning except to understand it as God giving humanity the gift of free will. You would deny us that free will. If it is good enough for God, why isn’t good enough for you?
YFC, free will is not what you think it is. You errantly make “license” into free will, but these two things are different. Free will comes from God and thus is defined by God through His one holy catholic and apostolic church: It simply means that there is no power on earth or in heaven that prevents you from freely choosing not to sin. YFC, you as a sodomite, may have nearly made your free will extinct, but no matter how dulled down your conscience has become, you still can always and at any time choose not to sin.
False again, YFC. God’s greatest gift in not free will but union with Him for eternity. This involves free will, but it also involves the right response. If you make the wrong choice, then you will not benefit from God’s greatest gift.
So a celebate gay person is OK then, right?
Of course TEM is still in bad will….when anyone thinks they know better than God….How are they different from the fallen angels who chose their pride over our Lord.
Choose correctly…..
TEM your opinion is irrelevant since it is based on lies……
TEM,
Neither the so called Supreme Court nor the Congress will do you any good when you stand before the Real Supreme Judge!
May God have mercy on your poor soul,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Civics, TEM, was brought to prominence in God’s act of total destruction of the pervert cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Bp Cordileone is inspiring in many regards in his leadership. What is lacking is the hammer to bring down upon Most Holy Redeemer. The skewed practice of the Faith there is a scandal to the Universal Church.
AnnAsher, what in the WORLD are you talking about?
Most Holy Redeemer Church is a mixed bag, like most parishes: good and evil, dedicated and lukewarm.
They do some really good things (such as outreach to the homebound, the dying, the poor; and also giving money to nearby Catholic schools that the children of Most Holy Redeemer attend), and some bad things (like the “Gay Pride Parade”).
However, from everything I’ve read about the place, it’s full, thriving, and has lots of money — so it’s no drain on the Archdiocese of San Francisco, unlike some other places.
Fritz, read two of the Letters to the Seven Churches, which are dogmatic. They both warn the faithful to stay away from the deep things of evil … MHR invites these deep things of evil into its midst. This is the converse of what Jesus taught … for example, which accounts of Jesus have Him inviting evil into His faithful gatherings? You might say “Judas Iscariot”; however, the reverse was the case, when that traitor was kicked out, through his betraying pride.
Skai, hoo boy! Please join your parishes RCIA program or find another way to learn the Catholic faith. You take what you read in scripture and misapply it often.
Anonymous, whatever RCIA program you took didn’t provide much from what your posts reflect. Did it inform you that there is life beyond a bowl of mush?
Quite the accomplished liar, this archbishop of yours . . .
Repent for you have offended our Lord’s child!
The whole constitutional aspect is IRRELEVANT!…We as Catholics are called to a higher MORAL law then that which the constitution recognizes!…The law of the land says “abortion” is legal…as a catholic you are forbidden to get one on pain of “mortal sin” and excommunication…when the law of the land conflicts with the Church’s on matters of faith and morals, we MUST FOLLOW THE TEACHING OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH!…Has this cleared up any or all ambiguity?
Taipan you are correct when you say that Catholic moral law ought to ask more of us than civil law. Just as Catholics are not permitted to divorce and remarry, secular law allows it. Just as Catholics are required to go to Mass on Sunday, secular law allows you to stay at home and pick your nose. Just as Catholics are required to turn the other cheek, civil law allows you to defend yourself with mortal force. Opening civil law to same sex couples is no more offensive than any of these other laws.
Correct…you can serve God or mammon…the choice is yours YFC…although their are consequences to making the “wrong” choice…you and I are not in states of “invincible ignorance”…you and I are both critically aware of what the Church teach’s on matters of faith and morals, regarding same sex union’s and active homosexual relations…Prelates and priest’s in Henry’s England of the 1530’s took “the oath of supremacy”, declaring Henry “head of the Church in England” and not the Holy Father in Rome!… This was a choice many made, for fear of death…these were tough times…the Catholics who refuse the oath, gained a martyr’s death and crow…think of the canonized Holy martyr’s of England and Wales, who were resolute and stood firm, rejecting this “immoral law”…their victory was “death” for following the teaching of Holy Mother Church…for upon the day of meeting the executioner of London Tower, was the day, they entered a new and eternal home, with Christ Jesus…you know the truth of the matter, you as a Catholic know what is expected of you…do we serve God or mammon?…that is your choice
Correct, Taipan, it is MY choice. It offends the first amendment guarantee of religious liberty to interrupt my spiritual choice, and the choices of other couples, and the fourteenth amendment guarantee of equal protection of the law.
God or mammon…the choice is yours
No Taipan, the choice is NOT mine if the law does not allow it. That is my point. I cannot choose between “God and mammon” if I am not allowed to buy “mammon” at my local city hall.
The Church’s ideal government is not anarchy in order that no one’s free will is impeded. It is a government with laws that protect human life and human dignity and promote the common good.
The question the Church, taipan or skai fail to even address is: when is it moral to enforce moral doctrine through the bully force of the state?
One one hand we know that it is not ALWAYS proper to compel obedience to moral law through state force. The CCC tells us this when it instructs us that it is immoral to compel attendance at mass, or any other specie of catholic worship, through legal force. Presumably, it is also wrong to force financial support for the Church using the mechanism of taxation.
Now, we can’t say that secular law can enforce moral law to the extent it is consistent with natural law, because natural law suggests there is one true god and that human beings have the duty or worshiping that one true God. The CCC proscription on compelled worship also implicitly negates that moral construction.
So, when do people of faith have the privilege of compelling others to conform with moral beliefs? We also know that there is some allowance to do so. I think it is intuitively obvious that punishing murderers in order to deter the slaughter of others is perfectly sound—enforcing the DO NOT KILL commandment.
So the pertinent question is: why do Catholics have the moral right and duty of compelling others to conform to their beliefs about marriage through the power of state force?
This is a question that never seems to get addressed. Almost always the analysis simply ends with the moral argument and simply ASSUMES that it is proper to use the bully force of social coercion. If you fail to set out limits and consistently refuse to address this question, human nature will ensure that you will overstep your authority and commit sin. The internal bias of self-interest and the subconscious desire of worldly status will entice you to improperly exercise power.
The most horrible errors of Church history are of this nature (such as the decision to torture accused heretics in ecclesiastical courts, and the whole Spanish Inquisition). You can list many more moral atrocities of the Church and you will find at their root the sick desire to exercise too much worldly power over others.
JonJ, your memory has failed you. You’ve posted on this site for a long time, and in this span I’ve offered my views on when govt should hammer immorality. But here it is again: Make it illegal to engage in any gay activity, meaning any sexual activity that involves people of the same sex.
Skai, you fail to understand my point.
The issue is much larger than the singular gay sex question. How much, and to what extent, is it proper to make fellow human beings conform to God’s will through compulsion by the state? Ultimately, such rules will be enforce by a SWAT team breaking into your house and taking you away at gunpoint (all law ultimately rests on such naked force—because this is what will happen if you, for example, continue to refuse payment of legally imposed fines or court orders).
The Church implicitly recognizes that it’s immoral to enforce ALL moral doctrines (even mortal sin) with the CCC proscription on compelled worship. I’m looking for some underlying principle behind when you can or cannot enforce moral rules using state force—rather than a series of ad hoc assertions that it’s ok on a case-by-case basis.
The “case-by-case” assertion approach is what led us to clerical atrocities such as the Inquisition.
Catholicism provides that one is obligated to defend oneself and family and neighbor, YFC. It is not a pacifist ideology; among the flocks of sheep there are many rams, whose horns and hooves are useful means of dispatching predators. God also provides sheepdogs and shepherds who are variously provided with means, sometimes lethal, for preventing the ravishing and ravaging of His flocks. One of the predator forces is the gay agenda, and God has shown us that it is one of the worst of the worst predators of His creation. There is nothing good about the gay agenda.
Grammar correction: The gay agenda is a predator against God’s creation, not “of” it as I errantly wrote. The devil devours instead of nurishing creation, and the gay agenda is Satanic, Luciferian, and totally stems from the depths of evil. Sodomy is absolutely corrupt, and its agenda, its politics, its ideologies, its relgions … these are all totally evil.
There is a sign one commonly sees at rallies and such which I think is pretty right on:
THE GAY AGENDA
1) Equality
2) See #1
Equality in marriage is one man and one woman. All else is lopsided.
Equality is shear fantasy, YFC. Creation is not made to have everything equal. How can you indulge is such vacant mental exercise?
YFC, what you are doing is what Pilate did in his one way convo with Jesus, making the state out to be superior to God.
Thank you Archbishop, your use of language and logic is irrefutable. Will the priests of this archdiocese learn from this man, that is the real question, there is so deep a liberal approach that our church suffers. Perhaps the word liberal is not correct, progressive in the sense of political correctness is more correct.
I hope Pope Francis has Archbishop Cordileone on his short list to become a cardinal.
The Archbishop goes as far as he can to the line in extending the hand of friendship to those in his archdiocese and elsewhere who disagree with the Church on the meaning of human sexuality. He is talking in public policy terms, avoiding, quite rightly, the substratum of the issue, the Church’s teaching as summarized in Humanae Vitae. When asked why the case of homosexual unions is not parallel to heterosexual unions of infertile couples he responds: “Our bodies have meaning. The conjugal union of a man and a woman is not a factory to produce babies; marriage seeks to create a total community of love, a “one flesh” union of mind, heart and body that includes a willingness to care for any children their bodily union makes together.” In other words, the elderly or otherwise infertile couple can still be open to life insofar as conditions allow, always with the understanding that some conditions make fertility impossible, whether through natural or other changes. This means that their union still has a sign value pointing to the highest good of human sexuality, irrevocable male-female union which does not exclude life.
Ultimately it is very hard if not impossible to argue that societal recognition of homosexual marriage is something we should avoid, given that acceptance of artificial contraception is so widespread.
Just as abortions and the availability of abortions have decreased enormously through pro-life action during the 40 years since Roe v. Wade, the answer to
legal recognition for homosexual unions may very well be a renewal of faithfulness in heterosexual couples inspired to model the beauty of Humanae Vitae.
The Abp said that?!?!?! That’s good; it’s one of the best statements on the topic I’ve ever read. It gets at the essense of the first recorded thing that God told man after the Fall. If the Church can actually get this down and hold to it and stop prevaricating, then there is a good outlook for attracting Muslims. And Pope Francis wants to do just that.
Everyone on the planet knows what the Catholic Church teaches about homosexuality, contraception, abortion, etc.
The problem is not a lack of knowledge — it’s the fact that many Catholics don’t live according to their own religion, when it comes to money, sex, honesty, protecting the environment, and so forth.
They pick and choose.
Fritz,
Yes, many pick and chose Eternal damnation!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
I flat out admire this guy (Cordileone).
Exactly! Archbishop Cordileone. Exactly! thank you.
I continue to cheer for ArchBishop Cordieleone and I have even sent him a personal note thanking him for his many efforts. Even if there are others I would do differently (more swiftly) I am impressed almost daily by what he is doing.
Right on, Bishop, I believe that marriage will be between one man and one woman. I have a nephew who is gay, but that does not deter me from believing that it is OK for gays to be married.
While the Archbishop is correct to go to Washington to defend Marriege, Cal Catholic Daily has reported the problems within his home diocese that need his immidiete attention.
Don’t confuse “free-will” with the freedom to indulge in carnal and depraved acts of sodomy…without answering for this gravely sinful activity…you are free to “sin”… of course sin does invariably come with consequences…
If YFC wants…he can move to Maryland or Maine…both of these states allow same sex marriage…never could figure out who is the wife and who would be the husband though?…huh, that one’s a real puzzler…
“that one’s a real puzzler…”: But, that is what the gay agenda is after, confusion. With everyone confused, then the gays can advance their agenda further towards the fantasy goal of abusing God, His angels, His saints, and his creation.
YFC…you should make a spiritual retreat after Easter. Spend time reflecting on the Gospel’s and Jesus’s resurrection, and what He died upon the cross for. Your inability to reconcile your lifestyle to the teaching of the Church, should be a barometer that something is not right in your catholic presentation. All the legal, secular, and philosophic theatrics, generously flavored with your colorful rhetoric and prose comes to naught…you must conform to the teaching’s of the Church on faith and morals…PERIOD…You can serve God or mammon, the choice is yours YFC
The question of the day; How can a moral wrong become a civil right?
Where America is your moral compass?
Why does the media not record the hundreds of pro life and pro traditional marriage demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of people. They can spend weeks on cindysheehan or trayvonmartinthethug.
Wake up America and throw the bums out!
SK, you need to ask this question of the writers of the CCC.
The CCC states we have the moral duty to worship the one God and attend mass. The CCC also recognizes that it is immoral to compel attendance at mass through the mechanism of law.
Thus, we have the “civil right” to refuse to attend mass, despite the fact that obstinant refusal by a catholic is mortal sin.
All I have to worry is about how I am going to stand in front of God on the Judgement Day. I try the best to follow my own conscience and to follow the 10
commandments. I have to pray daily for those ignorant who only GOD can judge.
Dont wait to long for having a conversion, I love you all