From an article in the Tablet about Charlie Angus who is the Canadian Catholic MP
No bishop will publicly contradict Bishop Henry’s damaging rhetoric, in large part because his template is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s rejection of same-sex marriage in “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons”. It is only the most glaring example of how the CDF document threatened the Canadian Church’s outreach to politicians – and, in the process, virtually scripted the drama surrounding Mr Angus’s vote.
The Church’s outreach to politicians was threatened? Well I guess in fact truth usually does make outreach to politicians problematic. If only truth would stop getting in the way of Church/State relations.
To begin with, the document’s timing could not have been any worse. Exactly one week after its release in June, 2003, an Ontario court struck down the traditional definition of marriage because it violated gays and lesbians’ equality rights. Whatever the merits of their theological and anthropological arguments, its defenders now had to contend with the official verdict that heterosexual-only marriage was legally (and, by extension, politically) unacceptable in Canada.
Actually the document’s timing was pretty good since it coincided with the legal maneuvering for same-sex unions and marriages. The Vatican is usually criticized for releasing documents long after a threat appears, for example just last year the Vatican was criticized just for that in relations to documents relating to radical feminism and new age movements. Of course the document proposed no new teachings and only affirmed what the Church has always taught, so it isn’t exactly as if the document was any surprise theologically in any way.
As the policymakers started to react to the court rulings, the bishops’ lawyers urged them to plead the best case they had: that in a diverse, pluralistic country like Canada, the most equitable way to reconcile the equality demands of gays and lesbians with the vital need for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience was to take marriage out of the public realm and to adopt a new system of governance for adult interdependent relationships. Reportedly, several bishops – notably Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic of Toronto – quietly favoured this strategy.
In the end, though, it was something the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) proved unwilling to pursue, either in the courts or with politicians, many of whom liked the idea but needed the Church’s blessing to give it political life. Where their lawyers cited constitutional law, the bishops cited the CDF.
I am surprised that they didn’t bring up the fact that when the document was released Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the CDF.
5 comments
“the most equitable way to reconcile the equality demands of gays and lesbians with the vital need for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience was to take marriage out of the public realm and to adopt a new system of governance for adult interdependent relationships. Reportedly, several bishops � notably Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic of Toronto � quietly favoured this strategy.”
His testimony, as reported by LifeSite News, does not fit my idea of “quiet”. And calling for a shift to “interdependent relationships” instead of insisting that sexual relationships are the only ones which deserve “recognition” strikes me as both sensible, and a promising preliminary to demanding that Caesar butt out of the marriage business — which I am increasingly convinced we would do if we really had the courage of our convictions.
The Canadian experiment of re-building its house on a sand dune will eventually end in social disaster, the proportions of which can only be glimpsed. Either a New Left police state is in the making with sufficient evidence of that now, or a grass roots rebellion will occur.
That Bishop Henry has the prescience, moral strength and courage to oppose the disatrous Canadian policies often without the wholehearted support of other prelates and Church attorneys puts him squarely on the side of St. Thomas More. In the end, he and the Law of the Lord will prevail.
Cardinal Ambrozic quietly favours a lot of strategies…often so quietly you don’t even know what they are.
What about this line:
“that heterosexual-only marriage was legally (and, by extension, politically) unacceptable in Canada.”
“and by extension, politically.”
When is that EVER true? Maybe I’ve lived too far away from the border already, but as I remember our friendly neighbors, they’re not that different than us. So there are many things that are legal which are, in fact, not politically acceptable because the population still largely directs them as immoral. Whether this is one of them, I don’t know. But if it was legalized in America, it would be.
RP,
I understand that if you removed Quebec from the vote, the bill would have been decisively defeated.
At least in Anglophone Canada, same sex marriage remains limited in its popularity.