Washington Cardinal McCarrick Says He Supports Same-Sex Civil Unions o

[OLAM Dad]

[quote]WASHINGTON, D.C., June 8, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "And it's 5:00 p.m. here in Washington. Does a Catholic cardinal agree with the Catholic Church, certainly against gay marriage? You might be surprised to see how he feels about same-sex civil unions." That was the teaser CNN's Wolf Blitzer used prior to airing his interview with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the outgoing Archbishop of Washington D.C.

Cardinal McCarrick appeared last night on Blitzer's Situation Room in support of homosexual civil unions, while insisting that the definition of marriage itself be left alone. However, as the CNN host indicated before the interview, the Cardinal's support for the possible recognition of same-sex civil unions does indeed step out of line with the Church's often-reiterated position that there can be no public recognition of homosexual civil unions in society.

In the June 7th CNN interview, the Archbishop of Washington said, "we really have to continue to define marriage as we've defined marriage for thousands of years as a union between a man and a woman", and supported the Constitutional Amendment protecting marriage as between a man and a woman, which was recently defeated in the Senate. However, the Cardinal followed up his statement by saying, " I think the legislation as it is proposed would not throw out the possibility of a civil union. And I think we can -- we can live with that if this is what -- if this is what the Constitution will provide for."

Blitzer followed up the Cardinal's statement by asking him to clarify whether the Cardinal would indeed support recognized civil unions between homosexual couples.

According to the CNN transcript Blitzer asked, "So just explain. You think that you could live with -- you could support civil unions between gays and lesbians, but you wouldn't like them to get formally married, is that right?"

Cardinal McCarrick replied, "Yes."

He added, "I think basically the ideal would be that everybody was -- was able to enter a union with a man and a woman and bring children into the world and have the wonderful relationship of man and wife that is so mutually supportive and is really so much part of our society and what keeps our society together. That's the ideal.

"If you can't meet that ideal, if there are people who for one reason or another just cannot do that or feel they cannot do that, then in order to protect their right to take care of each other, in order to take care of their right to have visitation in a hospital or something like that, I think that you could allow, not the ideal, but you could allow for that for a civil union."

In a June 8th interview with LifeSiteNews.com, the Cardinal's spokeswoman Susan Gibbs denied that the Cardinal supported homosexual civil unions. When asked "wouldn't support for homosexual unions run the risk of actually trivializing marriage?" She responded by saying, "He [McCarrick] didn't say that he supported homosexual unions. He has not said that."

When asked whether McCarrick said it was acceptable for government to allow civil unions of gay and lesbian couples, Gibbs responded saying, "The Cardinal said he supports marriage, and we cannot change the definition of marriage."

The Cardinal's statements as transcribed by CNN are at odds with the official Catholic teaching on the matter. In his famous November 4, 2000 address to the world's politicians, then-Pope John Paul II counseled them, "with regard to all laws which would do harm to the family, striking at its unity and its indissolubility, or which would give legal validity to a union between persons, including those of the same sex, who demand the same rights as the family founded upon marriage between a man and a woman...Christian legislators may neither contribute to the formulation of such a law nor approve it in parliamentary assembly."

The same point was made in the 2003 Vatican document put out by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) which was, at the time, headed up by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the current Pope. That document, "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons", stated that "under no circumstances can they [homosexual civil unions] be approved."

When Gibbs was presented with pertinent quotes from the CDF document, she responded: "The Cardinal is very committed, the Cardinal is Catholic all the way through"

Gibbs defended the Cardinal saying that the context of the Cardinal's statement was with the Government addressing legal issues not related to the Sacrament of marriage that even single persons face, citing medical and other legal concerns.

The full CNN transcript is available online here:
[url="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/07/sitroom.02.html"]http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/060...sitroom.02.html[/url][/quote]

Phatmass rules prevent me from posting my thoughts on this matter.

[thessalonian]

GASP! SCANDAL! WHAT A CROCK! I better stop. LET'S SET UP A SYSTEM SO THEY CAN LIVE IN FORNICATION FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES IN PEACE! DOES HE CARE THAT THEY ARE IN GRAVE DANGER OF HELL AND NOONE IN THE CHURCH SHOULD SUPPORT ANY SYSTEM SET UP FOR THEM TO CONTINUE TO LIVE THAT WAY! WHAT A CROCK! I'LL STOP. I HOPE BENEDICT DOES SOMETHING HERE BECAUSE THIS IS TRULY A BAD THING!

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Not sure I believe this is legit...

[thessalonian]

I hope ur right.

[OLAM Dad]

[quote name='Raphael' post='1001170' date='Jun 9 2006, 10:23 AM']
Not sure I believe this is legit...
[/quote]
Click on the link at the bottom of the story; It takes you to the CNN site. [url="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/07/sitroom.02.html"]In fact, here it is...[/url]

[quote]BLITZER: So just explain. You think that you could live with -- you could support civil unions between gays and lesbians, but you wouldn't like them to get formally married, is that right?

MCCARRICK: Yes. I think -- I think basically the ideal would be that everybody was -- was able to enter a union with a man and a woman and bring children into the world and have the wonderful relationship of man and wife that is so mutually supportive and is really so much part of our society and what keeps our society together. That's the ideal.

If you can't meet that ideal, if there are people who for one reason or another just cannot do that or feel they cannot do that, then in order to protect their right to take care of each other, in order to take care of their right to have visitation in a hospital or something like that, I think that you could allow, not the ideal, but you could allow for that for a civil union.
[/quote]

Edited June 9, 2006 by OLAM Dad

[KnightofChrist]

Oh dear God....

[kateri05]

[thessalonian]

Well at least he's retiring.

[jezic]

i was going to say, he will not be the Cardinal of Washington D.C. for a whole lot longer.

[Kristen]

He thinks it is his swan song. He is saying it and can say it [i]because[/i] he is retiring.

[XIX]

I remember him saying he wouldn't deny communion to openly pro-abortion politicians. Which honestly kinda made sense to me, except...


I think he was contradicting Canon Law (I think). oops...very bad move.

Has the Vatican actually put out any formal documents which mean we are supposed to support same sex unions? Because I would definitely like to see those, mostly so I can dailogue with other Catholics about it.

[Ash Wednesday]

*sighs*


Well if he wouldn't deny communion to a pro-abort politician then I guess I'm not going to be terribly shocked about this.

I pray that we as a Church may all be as one. I'm tired of the muddy confusions going on out there.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

I cannot describe my disgust.

[Fides_et_Ratio]

We don't have to be afraid to "step on people's toes" by telling them the truth. Homosexual "unions" are immoral. Period. End of story.

[Era Might]

This saddens me. Cardinal McCarrick is a good man and a good Bishop.

That said, even a good man errs. I doubt this will be the last we hear of this. Hopefully Cardinal McCarrick will clarify himself.

By the way, someone asked if the Church has addressed this. Pope Benedict XVI issued a document not to long ago, when he was still a Cardinal:

[quote]The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.

[url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html"]http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congrega...-unions_en.html[/url][/quote]

Edited June 9, 2006 by Era Might