Will The Catholic Church Marry Same Sex Couples?

[Dr_Asik]

No it will not happen. It's almost a linguistic problem at this point, because given what "marriage" means to most people today it's pretty natural to think it should be extended to include same sex couples. After all if marriage is just some sort of social recognition of the love between two people, well it's hard to argue why same-sex couples shouldn't count.

But for the Church it's much more than that. It's the basis of family first and foremost, so the link with reproduction and thus heterosexual sex is not optional.

[Dr_Asik]

One interesting development here in Quebec, where same sex marriage has been legal for a while, is that we're starting to see social rights and responsibilities associated with marriage come to be associated with simply having a baby. Basically marriage is progressively losing ever more of its relevance, so the family has to be protected through new laws that have nothing to do with marriage.

I suspect that once the dust settles around the whole "gay rights" drama, a social reflexion will take place where it will be acknowledged that marriage used to serve some important functions in society and that a return to something like that is warranted. But this is going to take decades probably.

[Nihil Obstat]

I suspect the church will get out of the civil marriage business. 

I sure hope not. I think that would be highly imprudent.

[MarysLittleFlower]

So a future Pope couldn't claim to be speaking infallibly and say Homosexual marriage is not a sin and  give His blessing for Priest to marry homosexuals?

I think only an antipope. No true Pope.  

[Ice_nine]

I sure hope not. I think that would be highly imprudent.

meh

[Nihil Obstat]

meh

The Church has a duty to instruct both the common citizens and the state.

[Ice_nine]

well good luck with that. Seems like a failure on instructing either.

[Nihil Obstat]

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/04/i-guess-one-in-three-americans-dont-know-a-good-thing-when-they-see-it/ 

I guess one in three Americans don’t know a good thing when they see it

December 4, 2014

The gist of a recent poll is that one in three Americans do not want religious ministers to “sign marriage licenses as representatives of the state” so as to avoid, I guess, a connection between “civil marriage” and “religious marriage”, as if, you know, those are two fundamentally different things. Let me rephrase the poll findings: one in three Americans don’t understand what clergy signing marriage certificates are doing (and aren’t doing!) and so don’t know a good thing when they see it.

The call for ministers to boycott civil wedding certificates proposed under the wrongly-named “Marriage Pledge” (it is actually a Pledge Not to Acknowledge Real Marriages) probably would have gone nowhere except that it found an ally in the journal First Things. Well, that’s their responsibility. Mine is to make sure that as many people as possible see that the Radner-Seitz “Marriage Pledge” rests on a faulty understanding of what makes marriage and, in turn, of what ministers of religion do in certifying that a given marriage took place before them. I am not going to review all of the problems inherent in Radner-Seitz’s proposal, though they are many. Here I address just two points.

In the West (yes, I know Eastern Christianity thinks differently, but that problem is for another day), it has been settled matter among all Christians (though secular elements of the West do not realize that Christian thought has permeated their consciousness, too), it has been, as I say, settled matter in the West that the consent of the parties establishes marriage. If you think that the State made up marriage and confers it on a couple, or if you think that the Church created and bestows marriage on believers, or that God, or Zeus, or the Big Cosmic Other sends this thing called marriage on two people who want it, or if you hold any other theory of marriage whatsoever, besidesthat the consent of the parties makes marriage—then you need to stop reading this blog post and start studying solid treatises on marriage going back to the ancient Romans in some cases, and virtually everything since the 13th century, secular and religious alike.

I’m serious. If you do not really see that the couple’s consent makes marriage then you don’t understand what’s at stake.

Now, for those who do know that the consent of the parties makes marriage, the fundamental supposition of the Radner-Seitz Pledge—namely, that the State has changed the definition of marriage (which itcan’t do and, even by its own count, has not succeeded in doing yet!) and, as a result, ministers who care about real marriage should not confer or cooperate in conferring marriage (as understood by at least some States), that supposition, I say, collapses: The State does notconfer marriage on couples, couples confer marriage on each other! All the State does, and for that matter all the Church does, (and, for that matter, all that God does between baptized persons, but that discussion is more complex and is not immediately relevant to a discussion of Church-State cooperation in the matter of marriage), is to recognize what the couple did, namely, they married. If, therefore, a given couple has entered what natural law knows as marriage (a life-long, sexually exclusive, union of one man and one woman, etc.), it is right and even necessary that the State recognize their consent as initiating a marriage irrespective of whether that marriage was entered into before government officials or—and here we get closer to the concerns of Radner-Seitz—before the officials of a religious body.

But, here’s the key: the role of a state official and a religious minister is, as far as the couple entering marriage are concerned, identical—both are merely public, reliable witnesses of the couple’s action; neither the State nor the Church is the actor or the agent or the instigator behind marriage. The crisis that Radner-Seitz see in ‘civil marriage’ (I’ll use their term for now, though it can be misleading, for I agree with them that there is a crisis in ‘civil marriage’) is that the State also thinks it can witness a ‘marriage’ between two persons of the same sex. That error needs urgent correction, of course. But the mere fact that the State thinks it can witness “same-sex marriages” does not disqualify it from witnessing the marriages of people eligible for marriage! A witness (whether State or Church) is a witness, not an actor or an agent—a role reserved by natural law to the couple in marriage. That the American State accepts, besides it own officers, religious ministers certifying that two people entered marriage before them is a welcome and, these days, rather uncommon accommodation to religious practice (!), but, I say again, whether before a lowly justice-of-the-peace in the town clerk’s office or the Cardinal Archbishop in his cathedral, it’s the couplewho brought about that marriage, and no one else. The witness(es) from city hall or the cathedral, literally, had nothing to do with it!

Which brings me to point two: as it is the couple who brought about their marriage, the minister’s refusal to confirm for the State that they are married is, first, to deprive the State of information it has a right to have (the just regulation of marriage is a civil responsibility), and second, it is at least to importune the couple with the obligation of a second ceremony if they wish to enjoy the benefits and protection that the State accords married couples. More gravely, though, bifurcating the ‘spiritual marriage’ from the ‘secular marriage’ introduces serious problems in determining which wedding ceremony actually united the couple in marriage—and that’s assuming all couples undergoing one ceremony will undergo two. And for what? A minister’s refusal to certify a couple’s marrying before him does not harm the State, it does not send some bold message of defiance, it does not do much of anything, except deprive a truly married couple of the benefits that would have been accorded—and still are accorded to other couples whose ministers decline Radner-Seitz’s proposal—simply upon the minister’s declaration that what really happened really happened.

Scholion on the phrase: “By the power invested in me by the State of [whatever], I now pronounce you husband and wife.” This line is recently being quoted by some as a sort of ‘gotcha’ to prove that religious ministers are acting as state officials in conferring marriage. Hardly.

First, as would have been apparent had this proposal undergone any serious ecumenical discussion prior to appearing in First Things, Catholic wedding rites feature no such language. This phrasing is, therefore, solely a non-Catholic minister problem.

Second, recalling that the couple’s consent makes marriage, the phrase can (if others insist on using it) easily and rightly be understood to mean that “I, a religious minister, am recognized by the State as being able to verify for it that this man and this women entered marriage, and that they have done exactly that before my eyes” etc. The State does not have the power to marry people, so it cannot confer that power on others; the State does have the power to witness to the marriage of people, and it can confer that power on others. Ministers using this language are simply declaring that they have the power to witness and communicate to others that two people married.

At this point, I don’t think that there’s much to be gained by discussing with Radner-Seitz proponents a list of “what if” and “what then” scenarios regarding where marriage seems headed in America (they have their hunches, I have mine, and our lists likely overlap in many places), not until we get settled about who brings about a marriage between two people eligible for it, and what the role of the witness(es) to that wedding really is. If folks aren’t clear on that, well, … + + +

[MarysLittleFlower]

well good luck with that. Seems like a failure on instructing either.

If people don't respond to evangelisation, does that mean we stop evangelising? The Church needs to do the duties given by Christ. Regardless of results.

 

Edited June 28, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower

[Guest]

I think only an antipope. No true Pope.  

 

So what would happen at the time it happened?  Would a new Pope be voted in?

[MarysLittleFlower]

So what would happen at the time it happened?  Would a new Pope be voted in?

 

In history there have been 2 or more people who were claiming to be Pope at once... One was  

[Guest]

That's my question. Say a valid Pope says He's speaking infallibly that Sacramental same sex marriage isn't a sin. What happens? Or would the Holy Spirit never allow this to happen?

[NadaTeTurbe]

Trust the Holy Spirit. 

[Credo in Deum]

That's my question. Say a valid Pope says He's speaking infallibly that Sacramental same sex marriage isn't a sin. What happens? Or would the Holy Spirit never allow this to happen?

Josh Popes can't just go around claiming things are infallible.  If a Pope tried to enforce heresy he would first be approached by other Bishops and told to stop.  If he persisted past that he would either lose his authority or probably be struck dead by God, which I believe did happen to one Pope?  Anyway  @Nihil Obstat or @truthfinder  I think could clarify it better on what would happen regarding a Pope who holds and tries to enforce heretical teachings.  

[Nihil Obstat]

Speaking very briefly, the doubtful statements would be investigated by a council. If found to be heretical the council would declare it as such, thus giving the pope a chance to recant. If he were to remain obstinate then it would seem clear that he is truly an heretic and therefore unable to exercise office. Christ Himself deprives the heretic of his office, and the council then exercises its ministry in recognizing the See as vacated, then calling a conclave.