"Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me." --Eucharistic Prayer IV from the Third Edition of the Roman Missal
This past Sunday, like other Catholics throughout the English speaking world, I sat in a pew and listened to yet another installment about the forthcoming changes to the Mass. Being in Church this past Sunday, I couldn't help but wonder whether I'm one of the former members of the "all" that will be lost in the "many" of the newly translated Eucharistic Prayer IV. It is amidst these changes and other issues facing the Church that I'm left asking why Catholics are not occupying the General Assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) taking place in Washington, D.C. this week. Observing the proceedings of the General Assembly, it's clear that instead of listening to the concerns of the laity regarding this new translation, the USCCB and its leadership have decided to proclaim an attack on religious liberty.
As Catholics around the country stand in bewilderment as to the significance of words such as "dew fall," "oblation" and "coutenance" to their personal spiritual growth and communal celebration of the Mass, Archbishop Dolan attacked what he described as "a drive to neuter religion." At the episcopal gathering, the leadership has argued that government actions related to marriage equality and abortion rights infringe upon individual religious liberty. In fact, Bishop Lori of Bridgeport (who also serves as the Supreme Chaplain for the Knights of Columbus) characterized the United States Department of Justice's refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act "as an act of 'bias and prejudice' akin to racism, thereby implying that churches which teach that marriage is between a man and a woman are guilty of bigotry." The concern that I have with Bishop Lori's statement is that it denies the ability of the state to discern and develop a secular definition of marriage. Perhaps what Bishop Lori forgets is that marriage is not only a Catholic institution, but rather a legal state and sacrament in other religious and secular traditions. Further, Bishop Lori should be careful not to neuter secular institutions of their constitutional responsibility to protect the rights of all and not just the many.
Considering the bishops' statements, it's only natural that we ask the Catholic Church what makes its definition of marriage more accurate than that of other Christian communities? For example, the Episcopal Church, Anglican Church of Canada, Unitarian Universalists, Metropolitan Community Churches, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and others all provide blessings for same-sex unions and/or marriages. Isn't the Catholic Church infringing on the religious liberties of progressive (and I would argue prophetic) Christian communities that have embraced marriage equality? Yes.
For the Catholic Church to argue that its definition of marriage is the only true definition is to deny the validity of other religious traditions to in a discerning manner define their own practices and beliefs. Bishop Lori and Dolan's statements on religious liberty are dangerous, in that if accepted they threaten not only the principle of separation of church and state, but also the ability of the state as well as other religious traditions to exercise their own freedoms independent of the Catholic Church. Demanding that an entire society acquiesce to the USCCB and the Holy See's views on marriage acts to impede not only on the Halls of Congress, but also the mosques, churches, synagogues and other houses of worship that exercise a freedom of conscience that is not, and should not be, subject to Rome.
As the USCCB attacks efforts to pursue marriage equality and to protect the rights of women, I'm left wondering where the moral voice of the Church is on issues of social justice. As thousands of Americans take to the streets with the Occupy Wall Street movement (including many Catholics), Dolan and other leaders have remained silent even though the movement is well aligned with Catholic social teaching on economic justice. If the American Catholic Church were to focus its moral might on an issue like economic justice (in short, follow the Holy See's lead), they would be uniting rather than dividing Catholics and Americans. It saddens me to think that the American Church's episcopal leaders continue to speak out against secular definitions of marriage while failing to adequately respond to the great injustices of our time.
If the Church remains silent in the face of injustice and instead continues to use the religious liberty argument, and succeeds in bullying legislators to accept religious principles and beliefs as secular definitions, the all that are protected by the liberties enshrined in our Constitution may not merely become the many, but rather the few. As Catholics, we should occupy the pews and call out to the Church's leaders to be a voice for justice rather than an institution that seeks to infringe on the liberties of Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
When will Catholics start to occupy the United States Conference Catholic Bishops and diocesan offices across the country to demand a moral voice that focuses on Christ's message of love and justice?
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No, it's not. It finds homosexual marriages morally wrong, so why should it support it? I don't understand your reasoning. The fact that a *few* Christian churches in the past 20 years in the US and Western Europe (nowhere else, mind you) have agreed with SSM, doesn't mean that this is the correct definition of marriage. In the whole of Christianity, they represent less than 0.00001 of all Christians.
The point is that people who object to this "marriage" have every right NOT to take part in it. The objectors are not infringing on anyone's rights -- rather, if they don't have the freedom to abstain from taking part in these ceremonies, then their rights are being infringed upon.
Why don't you become familiar with the *hundreds* of worthy social justice causes the church is engaging in right now than bemoaning the fact that the Church doesn't bow to every secular social trend?
So I kinda disagree. It's mostly about civil marriage rights, but the freedom of religion is involved, too--just in 100% the opposite way than the people who scream about it claim that it does (note: allowing civil recognition for gay marriage does not have any affect on those who do not perform them, let alone infringe upon their rights; this is, frankly, really obvious if you didn't decide your conclusion before you started thinking about it).
That's the thing. They are opposing people's rights to do something other than what they want--and they are referring to this attack on religious freedom as.. er, "religious freedom". If people are free to have religious beliefs other than Catholicism, then the Catholic Church's freedom of religion is hindered.
That's like calling water a "towel".
Oh, and at some point we get to the point that their arguments make no sense and contradict the things that Jesus actually stood for, but that's an argument to take place within the church.
I'm pleased by the new translations. Quite simply, they're more accurate. Is there a problem with learning new words? Ten minutes spent with a dictionary will clear up any confusion for you and will shed light on deeper meanings of the liturgy.
You need to translate the meaning, to translate the thing as a whole, not the individual words. So, since only a few words are changing, the whole thing is silly.
Catholic officials, or other groups, acting like the law allowing something they don't do infringes upon their rights? Completely insane.
And really dangerous--some day, your church might be disfavored. You want to have no religious freedom because the dominant church has redefined religious freedom to mean "We don't like Catholics"? Then maybe you shouldn't be arguing that that's what religious freedom means.
Thank you for sharing your views on the issues I've presented. Just as your comment is a statement of views, so is my article intended to be a statement of my personal views which I have discerned. I do not seek to present my article as the only perspective nor do I present myself as "the authority," but rather one perspective among many.
One need only read the works of our faith's great theologians and thinkers to witness that we are not always in agreement on every issue, which I would argue is part of the beauty of Catholicism. If we were always in agreement, there would be no need for councils to address the big questions of our time.
As to your point regarding marriage, the vast majority of Americans - and Catholics - do support marriage equality. This is supported by a 2011 study conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute; the study found that:
"Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43%) or allowing them to form civil unions (31%). Only 22% of Catholics say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship."
The survey also found that:
"If marriage for gay couples is defined as a civil marriage “like you get at city hall,” Catholic support for allowing gay couples to marry increases by 28 points, from 43% to 71%."
Again, thank you for your comments. Please be assured of my prayers.
Peace,
Joseph
They don't represent as many voters as they claim to.
His view boils down to, "Catholics' right to religious freedom does not give them the right to define marriage for non-Catholics." This is based on the well-established tradition of American religious freedom, over 220 years old.
" you neglect that which has been embraced for thousands and thousands of years by all the above Faiths"
Just "thousands". Two thousand. Let's not get carried away.
To your point, the same argument has been made before. Against two thousand years of Christian tradition, who cares about the mere forty years we've tolerated interracial marriage, or the ninety years we've allowed women to vote, or even the 150 years we've prohibited slavery? "Tradition" is the last rallying cry of people who can't win the intellectual debate. If that's your best argument, you've already lost.
Indeed, suffrage is an object lesson. Catholicism opposed allowing women to vote but nations did it anyway. In 2015 even Saudi Arabia plans to enfranchise women. If it does, the only nation where women can't vote will be Vatican City. My point is that Catholics don't have to embrace every social policy as a religious dogma. If you can live in a world where women vote, you can survive in a world where gays marry.
The Catholic Church still has a hidebound view that the temporal order (Caesar/civil government) is subject to the 'higher' dictates of the spiritual order. Hence, it will never render unto Caesar/civil government its due. It believes itself morally bound to impose its views on everyone, Catholic or not, all of the time, by using secular instruments of government to its advantage.
There are good Catholic arguments to be made for prudentially being respectful of the secular law. But when push comes to shove, how does any religious person privilege the secular law over what they believe to be divine law?
As for your question :: how does any religious person privilege the secular law over what they believe to be divine law? :: morals are something a particular person lives by in living together with others. Imposing one's beliefs about morality upon others can hardly be considered condoned by 'divine law'. It is rather a religious stricture imposed as it were from above with each religious tradition having very different ideas about morality. Our secular law reflects more what we can agree upon as actually harmful to our living together. Among such things, I believe, are religious doctrines that attempt to override secular, politically determined laws.
Our politics reflects our common values in living together...not some set of religiously derived absolute statements that are, in their sequelae, often immoral.
“The separation of church and state we so cherish here in America is as much about protecting religious bodies from government interference as it is the other way around. And rightly so: We cannot freely worship (or choose not to worship) God if government officials have the power to tell us how to do so. Sadly, there has been a growing trend of government intrusion into the institutional and administrative life of the Church.
http://www.mdcathcon.org/library/resources/RLLaunch/ReligiousLibertyStatementbyMdBishops.pdf
This is not simply "freedom" or "gay rights." It's about forcing others, especially religions to support and promote "same-sex marriage." Churches are not protected by these bills.
becuase she violated laws banning discrimination in public services on the basis of religion and
sexual orientaion? Special rights, anyone?
A Methodist church in New Jersey lost its tax-exempt status for declining to allow a same-sex couple to marry in a pavilion it owned.
A flat out lie. The pavillion was not the church. Nor did it lose its tax exmpt staus-- just a sales tax exemption. Marriage equality is not the law in NJ, so there was no marriage involved. They gave up their exemption. Now, they can discirminate all they want.
What concerns? The new translation is more accurate. What's wrong with more accuracy?
"the American Church's episcopal leaders... failing to adequately respond to the great injustices of our time"
The definition of marriage between a man and a woman is not a great injustice of our time. With regards to other injustices of our time, I encourage you to read more Church documents and encyclicals on poverty, morality, theology, justice, sexuality, etc. ( www.vatican.va,www.usccb.org) as well as explore the Catholic charities, missionaries, and religious orders around the world who dedicate their lives to helping the most vulnerable, and the 1 billion Catholics who give their prayers, finances, and support of them. Furthermore, I'd challenge you to name anyone who has done more.
From the Catholic Bishops of Maryland:
“the recognition that the union of a man and woman is the only possible source – and their married relationship the best possible environment – for the children who will become society’s next generation. Efforts to alter society’s longstanding definition of marriage distort this important reality. Moreover, and despite protestations to the contrary, they infringe upon the religious liberties of individuals and institutions that acknowledge heterosexual marriage not only as a fact of nature but also as an article of faith.
http://www.mdcathcon.org/library/resources/RLLaunch/ReligiousLibertyStatementbyMdBishops.pdf
So, they are in favor of infringing upon the religious liberties of individuals as long as it's not their own.
Its Jesus's will don'tcha know?
The injestice is that gay people are not allowed to get married. World of difference.