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Marriage: Strengthened, not redefined
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June 30, 2015
Most Reverend Michael Mulvey is bishop of the Diocese of Corpus Christi.
Perhaps one of the most prevalent attacks on marriage and family life in our society today is the attempt at redefining marriage to include the so-called same-sex “marriage.” In our own country, as well as in many places in the world, intense political pressure from various interest groups has lobbied for enshrining in law alternative definitions of marriage that go against God’s design for husband and wife.
At no time in recent history has it been more important than now to protect the dignity and truth about marriage and the family. In our time, marriage needs to be strengthened, not redefined.
Marriage is a beautiful gift. It is what we call a “natural institution,” that is, we can understand it simply by observing what it is: a union of one man and one woman in equal complementarity, in a permanent loving relationship. The profound wonder of this natural structure, which we as people of faith believe to be designed by God, is most especially seen in the sexual complementarity of husband and wife that in its nature brings forth new human life.
So important is this truth that our Lord Jesus Christ chose to elevate the natural institution of marriage to the level of a Sacrament. Between the baptized, marriage–aside from being the basic and most important unit of society–becomes also a true channel of God’s grace, sanctifying the husband and wife and strengthening them for the important vocation to which he has called them.
Marriage then, is the bedrock of the family and the family, in turn, is the foundation of society. While marriage is indeed an intimate union between a man and a woman, it is a relationship that has profound public importance to society as well.
From families come the future members of society. The family, built on marriage, is a stable school of love in which human persons learn to live in relationship with each other, to be formed in kindness and self-sacrifice, and to learn that love is not just living as one pleases but rather choosing the good of the other in truth.
As history has shown time and again, strong families create strong societies. When the truth about marriage is respected, the common good is served. Contrarily, where it is lost, the society, especially its children, suffer great harm. Pope St. John Paul II profoundly reminded us, “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
It is important to remember that the truth about marriage is based on nature and cannot be redefined by popular vote, politicians, judges or even by the Church. Rather, the role of legitimate authority, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is to recognize, strengthen and, most importantly, protect the reality about marriage.
For this reason, any attempt to redefine marriage as being something other than a permanent relationship between one man and one woman is an attack on the very foundation of society. It dangerously shifts the reality of marriage from one of natural sexual complementarity to simply a relationship based on the desire of “consenting adults.”
Redefining marriage in law to include also same-sex couples changes marriage itself and violates its true nature and meaning. It teaches that maleness and femaleness are somehow inconsequential to marriage and can be interchangeable. This simply is not marriage and it affects all in society.
The Church’s defense of marriage is not based on bigotry or unjust discrimination. When then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) and the Argentine bishops were accused of bigotry for defending the nature of marriage as being between one man and one woman, they responded, “the recognition of a real difference is not discrimination…nature does not discriminate when it makes us a man or a woman. Our Civil Code does not discriminate when it demands the requirement of being a man and a woman to contract marriage; it only recognizes a natural reality.”
Our Catholic faith teaches us that all persons are created by God and have an inviolable dignity worthy of respect and love. There is no room for unjust discrimination of any person, including those who experience same-sex attraction.
Vitally important is our pastoral outreach to these persons and their families so that they too can embrace the love of God and the truth of the Gospel. In fact, it is from our love for society and for all persons in it, including those with same-sex attractions and their families that we seek to uphold in charity and compassion the truth about marriage.
Regardless of any decision by the state or national legislators, or by the Supreme Court, the truth about the dignity of the human person, about man and woman, and about marriage and the family will always remain. Let us not be afraid to talk about it. Let us strengthen it. Let us, with the greatest charity and compassion, bear witness to it.
