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Meditation 952
Why the same-sex focus by the Catholic Church?

by: JT

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Once again, the Pope has spoken out[1] against same-sex marriage. He calls it a threat to humanity's future. I suppose it could be if everyone wanted to go gay, but that clearly is not the case.

As the Pope has spoken once again on this issue, his bishops and priests around the world are required to dutifully pass the message on to their flocks.

In passing the Pope's message in the Philippines, Archbishop emeritus Oscar Cruz pointed out that marriage is only for procreation. As he expanded on the idea, it ended up in his words being interpreted as not only a Catholic policy against same-sex marriage, but also a Catholic policy against infertile individuals getting married.[2]

That report went viral, and Archbishop Cruz found it necessary to issue a correction on his blog:[3]

Correction, please. It was reported:

THAT I said something to the effect that infertility is an impediment for Church marriage.

ANSWER: Impotence is an impediment for valid Church marriage but not infertility. That is elementary knowledge. (emphasis added)

I won't get into the technical differences between impotence and infertility here, but what comes out of this is that it is official Catholic policy that marriage is for procreation only, consequently an impotent person cannot get married even to a consenting adult of the opposite sex. And of course, same sex couples cannot get married regardless of potency.

Here's the question. Why isn't the Catholic Church campaigning to have impotent marriage made illegal? Why don't they want this particular Catholic marriage policy imposed on everyone, Catholic or otherwise?

The Catholic Church is active in trying to impose Catholic policies on everyone regardless of the religious and moral views of non-Catholics by influencing politicians and government. They try to get laws preventing birth control - or at least made difficult; they promote laws opposing abortion; they oppose same sex marriage. But for some reason they give marriage of impotent individuals a pass. They don't care what non-Catholics are doing in this particular case. Why is that?

Is it because it would expose the shallowness of the rationale for their views on which marriages are appropriate and which are not?

 

Notes:

  1. Gay marriage a threat to humanity's future: Pope, Reuters 9 Jan 2012
  2. Infertile people can't marry says Catholic Church, Urban Meter 10 Jan 2012
  3. Correction please: MOST REV. OSCAR V. CRUZ, D.D., 13 Jan 2012