Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., says that the sexual complementarity allowing for the possibility of children is vital to marriage and a reason why the fundamental institution cannot be redefined.
“Marriage is not mere sexual-romantic domestic partnership,” the archbishop said in a Sept. 14 pastoral message. “It is, at its very foundation, a one-flesh union.”
The sexual union of a man and woman renders them truly “one flesh” and allows for the possibility of new life, he said.
While not every instance of such a union results in a new life, it is this type of union alone that leads to children, he noted, adding that same-sex couples “cannot participate in reproductive type acts” because they lack the necessary sexual complementarity.
The life-giving potential of the sexual union between a man and a woman is what leads the state to recognize it, the archbishop said, observing that the state does not have an interest in recognizing and regulating deep friendships.
He noted that that while friends, teammates and colleagues engage in bodily activities together such as eating meals, playing sports and performing manual labor, these activities do not constitute a marriage.
Rather, he explained, “everyone recognizes that marriage involves a sexual component, which these other physical experiences lack.”
“The state does not and should not regulate our ordinary friendships or voluntary associations because, important as they are, they do not affect the political common good in direct and structured ways,” he said.
However, the union that brings new life into the world presents a vital interest to the state, he continued. Healthy families are critical to a strong society, and the state therefore has an interest in promoting “the best possible environment for the healthy development of children.”
Archbishop Myers pointed to a study by Child Trends, a non-partisan research institute, indicating that children do best when raised by their married, biological parents.
He explained that these findings align with Church teaching about marriage, which says it is “the fundamental building block of every society,” which provides the “ideal context” for children to be raised.
These truths about the nature, purpose and meaning of marriage are not only found in Scripture, Tradition and the magisterium, but can also “be known through reason, unaided by revelation,” the archbishop noted.
Marriage is “part of natural law,” rooted in the biological nature of humanity and existing prior to the state, which does not have the authority to redefine it, he explained.
Since its founding, the United States has based its civil law on the universal laws of nature, he said, observing that the nation’s failures “have come when we have ignored the self-evident truths of right reason.”
Therefore, he said, the attempt to radically redefine marriage is not a modern-day civil-rights campaign, since it is based upon denying the natural law.
While the Church calls us to love all people and to treat those with same-sex attraction “with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” it also recognizes marriage’s unique connection to the procreation and upbringing of children, which has been acknowledged “by all the major cultures of the world,” the archbishop said.
He urged those who are not in communion with Church teaching on marriage to sincerely “re-examine their consciences,” adding that, as with other grave matters of faith, those who do not assent to or live out the Church’s teaching should refrain from receiving Communion.
Archbishop Myers explained that a redefinition of marriage would be harmful to society because it would further distort people’s understandings of the definition of marriage, teaching that the redefinition effort is essentially “about adult emotional and physical gratification” and enshrining “in law a non-optimal way to raise children as equivalent to that which is best.”
Redefining marriage would also “seriously undermine religious freedom,” he warned.
He pointed to examples of those who defend marriage being accused of bigotry and forced to leave the adoption business because of their views, as well as legal and civil actions taken against hotel managers, owners of reception halls and photographers who object to affirming same-sex “marriage.”
“How long would the state permit churches, schools or parents to teach their children that homosexual activity is contrary to the natural law if homosexual marriage were a civil right?” he asked, noting that “hate speech” laws in other democracies have already been used to arrest clerics who teach the Bible’s message on marriage.
As both believers and citizens of the United States, he said, bearing the responsibility to help promote the common good, Catholics “must exercise their right to be heard in the public square by defending marriage. ”
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Besides creating a self-perpetuating voting block, the State has an interest in promoting same-sex or any other alternative form of marriage, because in a socialized society the children are merely mini-drones going to the indoctrination center (schools) prior to their big opportunity to achieve full, adult drone status. Marriage, in its sacramental sense, will be underground, at best. Watch how you vote.
As a Catholic, I fully support the Church’s right not to marry same gender couples. What I do not support is the Church’s meddling in civil matters. Civil recognition of relationships is about taxes, inheritance and insurance rights. It has nothing to do with the Church. Anti-gay bias is a strong playing card dealt often by the Roman Catholic Church and I find it both embarassing and sad at the same time.
No one is insisting that the Church change its teachings but I do not want to live in a nation where a church (any church) attempts to codify its beliefs in civil law.
Render on to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
We should be heard in the public square? You have trained us to keep quiet and keep our mouth shut. We can not be heard in the Catholic church less we get hammered down. To parahrase Joan Chittister, when you want all the Catholic thinkers to be parrotts and puppets don’t talk to me about speaking out in the public square.
Can you provide a link to his letter?
I fully support gay marriage and am bored silly with the perpetual bromides pushed by the Catholic Church in condemning it.
Anon pPosted on Wednesday, Sep 26, 2012 2:15 PM (EST):
“We should be heard in the public square? You have trained us to keep quiet and keep our mouth shut.”
Now the bishops want Catholics to amplify their voices by repeating what the bishops tell them to say. Like the crowds at Occupy Wall Street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKh—KomSuA
“Repeat after us . . . .” They CERTAINLY don’t want you saying anything you thought up.
Defending marriage now is like closing the barn door after the horse got away.
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Gay people aren’t redefining anything. There simply aren’t enough of them. Most of those who support gay marriage are heterosexuals.
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Why? Because heterosexuals have already redefined marriage in a way that makes gay marriage seem reasonable.
@Stephen Trost—You say that you “do not support is the Church’s meddling in civil matters. Civil recognition of relationships is about taxes, inheritance and insurance rights. It has nothing to do with the Church.”
Pray tell me, why is it that married couples receive benefits like tax breaks? Is it because the government does it just to be nice? No, it’s because married couples have the high propensity to give something back to society that no same-sex union can ever give—propagation of the species and of society itself. Why on earth should someone in a same sex union which is a sterile union by definition receive that same benefit? What do same sex unions provide back to society that is of anywhere close to comparable value?
The definition of marraige—a definition the Church has taught for 2,000 years—is the union of a man and woman for the mutual benefit of one another oriented toward the raising and education of children. It IS the Church’s business when that definition is being threatened with redefinition which potentially has a huge impact on how the Church operates and is allowed to operate within a secular society.
I will charitably point out this is a dogma of the Church and that the Church is NOT a caffeteria.
Sean Stewart posted on Wednesday, Sep 26, 2012 6:55 PM (EST)
“Pray tell me, why is it that married couples receive benefits like tax breaks? Is it because the government does it just to be nice? No, it’s because married couples have the high propensity to give something back to society that no same-sex union can ever give—propagation of the species and of society itself.”
Same sex couples are forming de facto families, and having or adopting children that they are raising to adulthood. What purpose is served by pretending these families don’t exist, and denying them the protection of marriage laws governing benefits, taxes, inheritance and parental rights? What does the state stand to gain by sticking its fingers in its ears and chanting “I can’t HEAR you!” instead of providing legal protection to the citizens growing up in a family where the parents are in a same sex relationship?
And the Chief Engineer who is pushing Abortion, Live Birth Murder and Same Sex Marriage, Mr. Obama, is invited to the Alfred Smith Dinner by CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP TIMOTHY DOLAN, PRESIDENT of the USCCB! You couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?
Same-sex couples treat children like pets- they choose a breeder or pick out a child to create their “family” and selfishly deny that child a mother or father. Children deserve to be raised by their biological mother and father- or an equal substitute mother and father- in a stable environment. Anything else should not be rewarded by the government. As for “benefits, taxes, inheritance” for the same sex families that exist- those matters can be solved by a competent attorney. There is no need to redefine marriage other than to force the Catholic Church to recognize it. If it is about “benefits”- change the laws to allow those benefits but do not redefine the meaning of “marriage”. What other words have been “redefined”? Right now in France, legislation is pending to remove “mother” and “father” from the lexicon and replace it with “partner”. Mother, father, mom, dad, husband, wife, bride, groom- all those words and others will be eliminated. In addition, religions will be persecuted by allowing the redefining of marriage. Keep marriage between one man- one woman. Change the benefits- but somehow, I do not believe that will appease the radical homosexuals because it really is not about the benefits.
Posted by cowalker on Wednesday, Sep 26, 2012 7:33 PM (EST):
“Same sex couples are forming de facto families, and having or adopting children that they are raising to adulthood. What purpose is served by pretending these families don’t exist, and denying them the protection of marriage laws governing benefits, taxes, inheritance and parental rights? What does the state stand to gain by sticking its fingers in its ears and chanting “I can’t HEAR you!” instead of providing legal protection to the citizens growing up in a family where the parents are in a same sex relationship?”
You touch on so many issues it’s hard to know where to begin. First off, yes, there are many same sex couples that are forming families. No one denies that and no one is pretending that they don’t. These couples, though, are not procreating with one another. By definition, they cannot. They are in sterile relationships. So they are left to either use artificial insemination (which our Church opposes) or adopt.
Let’s focus on adoption. Adoption is not for sake of the parents. Adoption is for the sake of the children being adopted. Every child deserves to have the best environment possible and science is clear on this—children do best when raised in a stable household raised by a married mother and father.
Many people like to believe that we can be gender neutral and that two dads are just as good as a mother and father or that two moms can play both roles. It’s simply not true. Children do best when raised in a stable household by a mother and father. That’s not to say that there aren’t some good same sex parents out there. I’m sure there are. But in general, that environment is not one where children have the best chance to thrive. We should always be striving for the best for these children, not settling for something that sometimes can be okay. You can check out this recent study for more details if you’d like: http://www.lifesite.net/news/gold-standard-studys-striking-findings-children-of-heterosexual-parents-hap.
For 40+ years now, secular society has been striving to separate marriage from the raising of children. It has convinced most couples that the key to “freedom” is contraception. If you don’t want children in your marriage, no problem! Just take the pill. Too many people now believe that marriage is just the union between two people who love one another and they’ve completely forgotten its connection to raising children. And what has that secular definition of marriage delivered? Sky rocketing divorce rates now over 50%; broken families; psychologically damaged children. Contrast that to the teaching of the Church. Couples who are faithful to the teachings of the Church, attend church regularly and follow natural family planning have a divorce rate of about 4% (if memory serves).
We’re presented with two definitions of marriage—the secular one and the traditional one defended by the Church. Of the two, it’s clear that one knows what marriage really is and how to make it successful and that’s the Church. Yet now we want to water down the already failed secular definition of marriage and add more people to it and potentially impact even more children?! Sorry, no.
This is not about the feelings of two people in a same sex relationship. This is about the care and welfare of children, the next generation of our society. The idea of redefining this centuries old institution is poor on every level and the Church and its members have an obligation to speak up and present the better option that the Church has been teaching for 2,000 years.
Obama is currently pushing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) through the Supreme Court to try and make defending traditional marriage unconstitutional. If DOMA is ruled to be unconstitutional, then by inference, gay marriage is a “right” protected by our constitution. All Obama would have to do then is proclaim an Executive Order stating that refusing to marry gay couples is a hate crime. The gay community then walks into Catholic Churches and demands their constiitutional right to be married in the Church. When the priest refuses, the gays then file a discrimination suit and own the Church. Obama then declares CHECKMATE!
same-sex unions and so called marriages are nothing but the perversion of the Holiness and Purity of the Most Holy Family….a perversion authored and endorsed by no one but Satan himself. Satan mocks the Holy Family with his definition of marriage. God is mocked today all over the world by these perverts of hell,raising and adopting innocent children, corrupting the innocence of children. The equality these deviates desire will be given them completely by Satan himself at their death.
Way too many HETEROSEXUALS cohabit (live in sin) with and without children and these couples- who far outnumber same sex couples- have no concern about the “protection of marriage laws governing benefits, taxes, inheritance and parental rights” that the gay marriage advocates scream about. HIPPA laws allow a patient to grant medical access to any individual they designate regardless if they are a spouse or non-relative. It is about time we bring up these facts that dispute the intentions of gay marriage activists. If it were really about the “legal benefits” that marriage imbues, HETEROsexuals would not be choosing to live-together and create families without being married. Redefining the word marriage is all about robbing the constitutional protections of people to practice their religion freely.
AB Myers preaches the Gospel. There are not just two commandments of love (God and Neighbor). These two are based on the “ten”. Churches were built facing the “rising sun” to symbolize the “rising Son of God”. Tabernacles have been removed from the sanctuary and priests now celebrate Mass with their backs to the crucifix. Based on social justice, there is no longer any sin except that generated by an evil society. Therefore, it is very acceptable by liberal elements in the priesthood and hierarchy to support the Jesuit message of Teilhard de Chardin according to the writings of Malachi Martin.
Archbishop Myers is only restating the obvious in a loving way, Catholic positions that are unequivocally supported by the Bible and 2000 years of unwavering Church history. As a Catholic if you want to disagree with the Church that is your right as the Church has always allowed free will and the right to follow one’s conscience. But that does not mean that there are no resulting moral consequences from such personal decisions, including one’s standing as a Catholic. If you can’t see that then your are not being honest with yourself and with your Church. Face it, a Catholic, in defiance of the Church, who believes that CONSUMATED homosexuality is not a grave (mortal) sin is NOT a Catholic in good standing. Likewise a Catholic believing that MARRIAGE is not SOLELY between a man and a woman and can be anything one wants such as - man and a man, woman and a woman, communal etc., is NOT a Catholic in good standing. Archbishop Myers is correct. If you are not a Catholic in good standing then in good conscience you should not be masquerading as one, and you certainly should not be receiving Holy Communion given the moral seriousness of your dissent with the Church. Finally regarding the redefinition of marriage to include same sex unions, one must ask how anyone of good conscience can support these changes given that they run contrary to the overwhelming majority of people and that there are secular alternatives (such as “civil union”) that could be set up with the same civil and legal rights as marriage.
Creating some new legal construct for couples that will confer all the same legal benefits, responsibilities, and constraints as marriage EXCEPT for the label “marriage” is an expensive solution just to avoid allowing same sex couples to call themselves “married.” However I’m sure it would be extremely popular with the lawyers and bureaucrats who would be employed to create, maintain and update this complex and redundant system.
Someone inquired about where to view/print the Archbishop’s letter. Please go to: http://www.rcan.org
Per your request, Michael, here is a link to Archbishop of Newark, John J. Myers’s pastoral letter:
“When Two Become One: A Pastoral Teaching on the Definition, Purpose and Sanctity of Marriage”
http://www.rcan.org/archbish/jjm_letters/wtbo.pdf
Also, a link to a Vatican Radio interview with the Archbishop, “U.S. Archbishop: Why marriage is undermined and under threat”
http://en.radiovaticana.va/articolo.asp?c=624774
I live in the Archdiocese of Newark, and we are indeed fortunate to have Archbishop Myers as our apostolic shepherd. He is smart man, a faithful teacher of the Gospel, and has an impish alter ego that subtly enriches us. Besides his episcopal work, he co-authored a boy’s pulp fiction novel of science fiction. It’s good to see that he is still in touch with his own inner child, and has an outlet for creative fun.
Just as men can be archbishops and science fiction writers, the case for same sex marriage is not easy for a society to separate. Marriage is the only sacrament that is between two people and God. Our teachings are uncompromiseable. Yet, marriage has so many implications in our society. It governs tax, insurance, liability, hospital visitation and family decisions on care decisions, etc. There are so many regulatory and money issues that the argument becomes a tangle.
Right now a U.S. appeals court in New York is considering the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. The issue being decided is whether a lesbian has to pay $363,053 in estate tax to the U.S. Federal government on the estate of her deceased partner. Of course there could have been estate planning techniques to handle this prior to death, but they are lengthy, complex and frankly not well understood, even by most in the legal profession. Estate tax and elder family law is a small specialty. Legal marriage is just a quick way to get the benefits that society bestows to couples.
It’s hard to discern whether the case for estate tax is truly just an economic issue, or just a tactic to forward the agenda of total social and legal acceptance of homosexuality. I suspect it is a blend of both. Yet, we come to a conflict as old as the institution, which changed when Jesus elevated the union of man and woman to a holiness that His church later defined as a sacrament. It’s a tangle of religion, morality, legality and people “wanting their cake and eat it too”.
If I were to suggest remedy, I would recommend that we in religion (not just the Catholic Church, but all religions) totally disentangle sacramental marriage from civil marriage. Even in Catholic Monaco, Princess Grace Kelly and Prince Ranier, and their children had two marriage ceremonies. The first marriage is at the registry where civil marriage, or civil union, was legalized. The next day was the big church wedding where the ongoing sacrament of marriage was initiated. In contrast, the church is “accommodating” towards the legal system in annulment. Step one in the annulment process is to provide civil divorce papers.
It’s a little extra work, but couples in love will do anything. This might help to change social perspectives. If we all have legal civil unions, and the law begins to change its definition for all of us as civil unions for legal and economic purposes, then we can protect marriage as something sacred. All holy peoples, not just Christians, but Jews and other religions can have their own ceremony, and protect the sanctity of their understanding of the holy union of man and woman.
There is a great line from “I Claudius” where Claudius’ wife Aelia, who lives apart from him, visits Claudius and his mother Antonia to meet with his sister Livilla, who is a widow having an affair with Aelia’s brother Sejanus. The Lady Antonia says, “What a world we have. People who are married live apart, and people who are not married live together. It seems that for the good of Rome we should abolish marriage all together.”
Aelia’s response, “Well, I’m not that modern”. So it is. They live the “modern” life, but still desire the traditional trappings.
Amen! The bishops should issue a collective statement that those who do not support church teaching on non negotiable issues such as abortion, euthanasia and the sanctity of marriage, are not in communion with the church. They should publicly excommincate those office holders who take similar positions while claiming to be Catholic.
Archbishop Myers speaks with authority and clarity regarding the blessed nature and social benefit of the institution of marriage being a union of one man and one woman and the potential to provide both a mother and a father to children. How many readers here feel their mother or father supplied them with nothing that they couldn’t have otherwise received from two same sex parents? Are both a mother and/or a father irrelevant to children in today’s culture and was having your mother and father irrelevant to your own lives? Could your father’s influence have been replaced in your life by a lesbian’s or your mother’s influence by a gay male? The relationship between a man and a woman is not equivalent to one between same sex couples, especially in a biological or emotional sense.
The issue of benefits for same sex couples resolves to a proposition of financial self-interest related to costs undertaken by government and private industry to encourage a stable environment for the raising of children. Such costs today amount to upwards of a half million dollars per child. Society helps couples manage those costs through the provision of spousal marriage benefits. Homosexual activists greedily seek to obtain those expenditures for themselves in order to feather their own economic nests. They ultimately expect to require mandatory spousal marriage subsidies on the basis of their ridiculous pretension of being “married.”
Those benefits were already paid to the parents of these homosexuals to facilitate their rearing when they were children themselves. To provide the same benefits to homosexuals simply because they pretend that rearing each other constitutes a “marriage” is an example of outright greed fostered through envy. There is no particular benefit to society in providing a mandated subsidy for gay relationships since basically those relationships are inapt to future life.
We live in a culture where “progressive” extremists propose to mandate that taxes, private industry, and insurance premiums fund the costs for selective abortions and contraceptives/abortifacients. We are supposed to dispense a culture of death to the poor with while paying homosexuals to sodomize each other in opulence; providing gays with social resources that could have gone to raise aborted infants.
Bravo, Bishop Myers. If ALL the bishops were as clear and forthright about this issue, there would not be so many inroads against Church teaching. There can’t be any confusion or digression from this basic premise, ever!
Same sex so-called marriage advocates are trying to sell this country a bridge from nowhere to nowhere, and they’ve been able to get this far by pitting Catholics against one another, as though this was a mere ‘civil rights issue’ like race. What a vicious lie! It is a moral issue, and one that can never be decided in the courts. These people have been able to form civil unions for years. What they want is for their disordered behavior to be considered normal and acceptable. They want us, in other words, to do nothing less that say God lied and the Church must edit those ‘hateful’ verses out of the living word of God that say homosexuality is a sin and an abomination and cries out to Heaven. The best way to rededicate and promote true marriage between a man and a woman is to value it, to keep our promises and to stop getting divorces for trivial and selfish reasons. If we as Catholics begin to stay true to our spouses, we’ll see a major improvement in other areas of society. If the Church will just start re-teaching people with same sex attraction that they are called to chastity and that true joy and fulfillment in God is a viable choice, souls will be saved. Unfortunately, there are too few bishops like Bishop Meyers.
Satan is a liar and a divider .... divide the family, which is the IMAGE of the HOLY TRINITY….and chaos ensues…..
This is so crazy. I am a 69-year-old Catholic that no longer believes in the Catholic Church. These so-called Men of God no longer speaks as Jesus would. People such as this Bishop John Myers should NEVER be allowed to be in the position he is. The Bishop in Denver who would not allow a little girl in the Catholic School because her parents are gay. God must be so upset with the way this Church has turned. I will never attend or support a Church as long as they continue to preach against the love of God. Your going to loose my family - my firends and all young Catholic children if you don’t change your ways.
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