Cardinal Virtue

Dear children,

We are lucky to live in Chicago, home of a feisty cardinal.

Cardinal Francis George displayed the virtues of faith, loyalty and courage when he criticized the Chicago Sun-Timesfor an inaccurate headline its editors recently ran: “Pope Launches Global Campaign vs. Gays.” As the cardinal accurately put it, the Pope “did no such thing.”

A few weeks ago, the Vatican issued a document titled “Consideration Regarding Propo sals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons.” As you can imagine, something with such a title is likely to arouse controversy, even though it makes no new statements regarding Church doctrine or the interpretation of natural moral law.

The Church is deeply concerned about legislation recognizing marriage between homosexuals. You see, the Church expects Catholic politicians to respect moral law.

I expect that many news reporters reporting on the new document either didn't read it or didn't understand it. In what should be normal procedure for all commentators, I went to the Vatican Web site and read the document. What I found was a clear, concise and sensible statement by the Church to date on the issue of homosexual marriage. It includes some extremely direct statements:

“Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings … marriage exists solely between a man and a woman …”

“There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family.”

“Legal recognition of homosexual unions would obscure certain basic moral values and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage.”

Letters to my Children

What I didn't find were any statements that suggested a campaign against men who have feelings of romantic attraction for other men, or against women who have feelings of romantic attraction for other women. In fact, the document quotes from the Catechism. Men and women with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

In other words, there is a clear difference between compassion for the individual and the acceptance of sins. The Church clearly states that homosexual marriage and adoption are wrong — but asks for compassion for homosexuals.

I suppose if newspaper reporters suddenly stumbled across the Ten Commandments, they would jump to the conclusion that the Church has an ongoing campaign against pagans, idol-worshippers, people who swear, Sunday laborers, disrespectful children, killers, adulterers, thieves, liars and those who covet the nice things their neighbors have. Seems to me that would put the Church at odds with virtually the entire human race.

The Church has a long track record of calling people to give up their sinful ways. This involves pointing out the error and evil of the sin, offering forgiveness and reconciliation and living a better life.

Christ started this a couple thousand years ago. Mary Magdalene had led a sinful life. Christ offered love and forgiveness. What he did not offer was a free pass for her to continue her sinful ways.

So, it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Church is not going to give a free pass to those who promote homosexual behavior, including politicians who pass laws that the Church believes will damage the sacrament of marriage.

We're fortunate that it is fairly easy to get to confession in most Chicago parishes, including ours. Homosexuals, politicians and all other forms of sinner are welcome.

I'll be there. I'm still struggling with some of the Ten Comm-