The Attack on Marriage
Posted by: tony on 06/07/2006 11:01 AM
Updated by: tony on 06/07/2006 08:28 PM
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Expires: 07/08/2006 12:00 AM
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I always enjoy reading Todd at Catholic Sensibility's analyses of most Catholic issues. I dare say, I don't agree with him most of the time, and in the Pillow Fight tradition, this is one of those cases.
Somebody tell me when this document gets translated from the Italian, please.
Amy and her commentariat have been a-dither about how the Big Bad Media is raining on the Cardinal Trujillo parade.
CNS coverage didn't help much, let me tell you.
"Never before has the natural institution of matrimony and family been victim of such violent attacks," said the document, signed by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, council president.
The institution's worst enemy has always been the couples who are unwilling to delve into the true nature of a sacramental marriage, especially with the notions of sacrifice and the presence of Christ.
Absolutely! But this doesn't mean it's improper to address "Marriage Enemy #2". This is the same logic used by abortion proponents who claim that as long as there is one child in need of adoption, abortion will still be required.
We can set the "broken leg" and keep trying to address the masesticized cancer.
The cardinal said "radical currents" are not simply promoting acceptance of new models of the family, but actually are proposing them as positive alternatives to the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman open to having children.
Violence? Really? Western culture is all about disengagement, individualism, and paying for privilege. Violence happens with guns, knives, and bombs. Homosexuals are inconvenient to the predominant culture, especially when they aspire to nurture and sustain and do other things as part of natural human virtue.
And I don't see how the cardinal is able to sustain his whoop on man+woman+children. The fact is that many couples, particularly those who marry much later in life, cannot have children. The family is not dependent on a couple's ability to produce biological offspring outside of a laboratory.
The Cardinal is able to maintain his "whoop on man+woman+children" simply because he's right on target.
The fact is, an unintentional sterile man or woman was designed to produce children. Their remaining reproductive tract is being used to the purpose to which God intended it, that is for the placing of a penis within it to assist God in the creation of a new human.
A gay couple are missing one of the requesite parts to complete a fruitful, ordered sexual act (whether the act results in pregnancy or not).
As such, a gay couple parodys fruitful, life giving, sacramental sex. If that is indeed the case, "gay marriage" parodys the sacramental, covenantal, joining of a husband and wife. A parody seeks to poke fun at that which it parodys and to cheapen that which is parodys (ask Jeff Miller at The Curt Jester; he is the king of the Catholic parody).
Many families define themselves as "extended" or "adoptive." In history, parents have not always survived far into their children's lives. Does a family who has lost a parent cease to be a family because it is no longer procreative? Does a couple past childbearing age cease to be a family, or do we just wink and nod because we couldn't very well tell them to join monasteries in their retirement.
No, a family doesn't cease to be a family because it is no longer procreative. A family who is unable (as opposed to unwilling... artificial contracepting or sterilizing) to procreate doesn't cease to be a family regardless on whether it started out that way. Openness to children is the subjugating your will to God's and using His gift of fruitful sexuality as He intended.
Gay couples are unable to do that simply because of biology.
A marriage is not a marriage if it is not open to children. This means the couple cannot be intentionally sterile, and they must be able to complete the conjugal act (for those "biology challenged" that means a penis in a vagina with an ejaculation in said vagina).
I'll save my biggest criticism if I find the document glosses over the needs of the millions of children who are waiting for adoption. I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised, but from what I read on CNS, it looks like "Old Man Theology" biting the Church on the butt once again.
Maybe more Catholics who are having trouble conceiving will consider adoption before IVF. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Few United States Catholics are willing in these "personal freedom" times to subugate their will to that of God. Maybe this teaching will get through to them, but probably not. Like with most other Catholic teachings that those in the cafeteria don't like, they'll either simply ignore the teaching they don't like or stomp off in a huff.
There are times when it's better for these prelates to keep quiet than to damage the Body with documents like this.
I don't think this is one of these times. I would hazard a guess that most of these children requiring adoption are not a result of the faithful following of Church teaching. The sexual libertinism which brought us contraception, abortion and "gay marriage" is in a large part responsible for the glut of children needing adoption in the first place.
So to put out a fire, you douse it with gasoline, right?
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