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Pope Benedict speaks to US Bishops on denouncing legalizing gay marriage

Says gay marriage 'harms' heterosexual marriage, does not say how

ANTOINETTE KELLY,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Saturday, March 10, 2012, 11:00 AM

Updated Saturday, March 10, 2012, 11:00 AM

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Pope Benedict XVI

Photo by AP

Opening up a culture war on another front this weekend, US Catholic Church leaders have just been warned by Pope Benedict to strongly oppose every measure that could lead to the federal legislation of marriage rights for same sex couples here.

It's the latest anti-gay marriage salvo from the 84-year-old Pope, who on Friday denounced unnamed but 'powerful political and cultural currents' here whose aim is to legalize gay marriage in the United States.

In a report in the Huffington Post on Friday the pope said that the traditional family and traditional man woman marriage must be 'defended' because same sex marriage 'injures' families and injures society. The pontiff did not outline exactly how traditional families are injured, however.

Benedict then called on American bishops to 'defend' marriage and 'procreation' from attacks by homosexual couples wishing to be married. Earlier this year the pope claimed that same sex marriage would 'threaten the future of humanity.'

Critics contend that gays are a part of humanity, not a threat, and that the church is ratcheting up the rhetoric in an attempt to scare the public, based on the premise that frightened people are easier to manipulate in an election year.

Meanwhile Cardinal Dolan, also a same sex marriage foe, made headlines this week when he released details of the head-to-head he's been conducting with the Obama administration over health care access to contraception. Both leaders now appear be assailing the administration with hardline, hot button issues.

Groups of visiting U.S. bishops have been traveling to Rome for the past several months as part of the bishops’ once-every-five-year visits with the pope and with senior Vatican officials.

Nster.com

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warlocks | Mar 13, 2012, 12:11 AM EDT

The Vatican can't control their own Pedophile's what makes the pope think he can control the Human Masses. its 2012 AD Not the 3rd century The Church should cast no stones till it solves its own problems.

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peterson | Mar 12, 2012, 08:29 PM EDT

AMEN to Irelandnorth !!

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Gearoid4 | Mar 12, 2012, 04:25 PM EDT

jamieLM, I acknowledge the points that you have made. I mean't of course baptism and Holy Communion as being recognized as sacraments by the Mainline protestant churches. Marriage has not been sacramentalized by those groups and thus should not have been included. I know that protestantism is contained within such a large tent that often one finds disagreements between different denominations over such areas as the sacraments, mode of government i.e hierarchy v congregationalism etc.

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jamieLM | Mar 12, 2012, 09:40 AM EDT

@Geroid4, where in the world do you get your information about Protestants? They have 2 sacraments: baptism and Holy Communion (Eucharist). Quakers don't even have that. Marriage is NOT a sacrament in Protestant churches. You need to do better research before passing on misinformation.

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jamieLM | Mar 12, 2012, 09:35 AM EDT

Marriage is NOT for procreation. Lots of people procreate without being married and many married people can't or choose not to procreate. Children can be created by joining sperm and eggs without 2 people even knowing each other, let alone being married.

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montour | Mar 12, 2012, 08:37 AM EDT

i know many gay with children they have the same organs as straight men, do you know about the birds and bees, tommy nawn in the usa

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IrelandNorth | Mar 12, 2012, 07:42 AM EDT

Marriage is for procreation. Homosexuals can't procreate. So why marry? Cease and desist from this pink revolution. The silent majority of people don't subscribe to this enforced alternative lifestyle. Though I do have to say that there's something oxymoronic about sexually inactive misogynistic celibate clergyment dic[k]tating sexual morality. Less dick- and more ta[s]te is what I say.

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alisaann | Mar 12, 2012, 03:19 AM EDT

it DOESN'T injure ANYONE....the closed-minded bigots are WHAT HURTS PEOPLE...this is about EQUAL "HUMAN CIVIL RIGHTS"...and wanting what STRAIGHT couples TAKE FOR "GRANTED". alisa

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HorsesInMdstrm | Mar 11, 2012, 09:20 PM EDT

Amen to Jamthecat and his suggestion that's it's time to revisit the religious tax exemption. I'm fine with it until the churches start to use their money to influence the political process, and I think we've crossed that bridge. There is much church property in cities around the country not paying taxes, and even if we exempted direct houses of worship, we'd take some steps to eliminate the fiscal crisis affecting many of our communities.

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barneyjo | Mar 11, 2012, 07:26 PM EDT

@Gearoid4 - To my mind the Marriage Feast of Cana also indirectly gives the clearest possible indication that Jesus's view of the world and his ministry were not set in stone. We told in scripture that is was his mother's entreatments that pursuaded Jesus to intervene. "Woman my hour is not yet come" but yet did just that and gave us the first recorded miracle attributed to him during his ministry. That is but one instance (and there are others) when God, as man, changed his mind. Who among us can say with certainty and conviction that they know the mind of christ to the point where it would never change again. Maybe it has, and his church on earth is slow to realise this??

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Gearoid4 | Mar 11, 2012, 04:58 PM EDT

Protestant groupings reduced the sacraments to just the baptismal rite and marriage. But the historical Christian Churches with apostolic foundations,i.e Catholic and Orthodox Churches, have maintained the original 7 sacraments which are overt signs of Christ's healing power through the priesthood. Marriage has been consistently viewed as the blessing of the union between one man and one woman(except where polygamy existed) and open to procreation,across the span of centuries by a great variety of global societies. The Marriage Feast of Cana marked the elevation by Jesus of the civil but blessed union of marriage up until that time, to the status of sacrament. It was unambiguously a ceremony between one woman and one man that was given the benediction of Our Lord.

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eiriamach | Mar 11, 2012, 04:52 PM EDT

jacersagain writes, "eiriamach suggests ... that the laity know better than the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops and priests and are moving on without them." I did not say that they laity "know better," but I did suggest that the laity are able to connect with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit creates new forms of God in the world. I would suggest that the laity no longer trust in the "moral authority" of church officials, eroded as it has been by decades of lies and abuse. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote, echoing a Vatican II constitution, "Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which is in the last resort beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principle of opposition to increasing totalitarianism. Genuine ecclesiastical obedience is distinguished from any totalitarian claim which cannot accept any ultimate obligation of this kind beyond the reach of its dominating will." But that was back in the days before the Curia confused Catholics into thinking that centralized decision-making was the same as moral authority, before Pope Ratzinger began his own "increasing totalitarianism" and communicated the Vatican's "dominating will" to the bishops.

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eiriamach | Mar 11, 2012, 04:31 PM EDT

Jacers, I'm not aware of any recorded wedding at which Jesus officiated. He honored a married couple at a reception for family and friends, but we know nothing of their marriage ritual. By the time of the Reformation Christians realized the pitfall of allowing church officials to interpret a gospel story in a way that gives the officials doctrinal control over a foundational social institution. Most American Christians do not, in effect, invite priests or prelates into the bedroom with them to hear "This and that ye may do, and that other ye Maynooth." Surely that's what Christ would want for the most exclusive and intimate of all human relationships.

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eiriamach | Mar 11, 2012, 04:15 PM EDT

There's much to reply to in jacersagain's comment, but I'll just point out one small point of disagreement within Christ's global Church--the Body of Christ. Most Christian communities consider only baptism and the Eucharist to be biblical sacraments, bequeathed by Jesus during his lifetime with a mandate to his followers to continue them. Matrimony is a sacramental rite, with a betrothed couple blessed by priests and people, in most Christian congregations. And, with the blessing of clergy, it has existed in dramatically different forms over the centuries from a mercenary barter (of children by parents) to today's voluntary commitment between adults. To say that Jesus instituted a sacrament of matrimony when he was a wedding guest at Cana is very much a stretch. On the same thin evidence, you could say that Jesus made wine drinking a sacrament, at least at wedding feasts. And, of course, there is no basis in the New Testament for excluding anyone from any marriage contract.

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mamaginnty | Mar 11, 2012, 03:11 PM EDT

The pope mentions marriage and procreation, procreation, a word that was drummed into irish women years ago, the church had no respect for women, you were made to believe even if your husband beat or raped you, it was your duty to procreate, to bring more little catholics into the world. That's the reason they are against contraceptives, and of course gay couples can't have children. God made us all ...black white or gay. The church should have no say in the running of a country, they did it for far to long in Ireland.

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