Yes, words have meaning. Words like bigotry, hatred, discrimination. The Catholic church has never distinguished itself in areas of civil rights;  not after the Emancipation Proclamation when American Bishops opposed it; not when they opposed women’s suffrage, and not today when clouds of linguistic puffery are used to enshrine an age old bigotry against gays. When Paul, in Ephesians, said that slaves should obey their master, or when he, in Philemon, sent an escaped slave back to his master, his view of slavery dominated Christianity for 19 centuries. Is there NO capacity for Church leaders to seriously examine deeply held beliefs that offend the dignity of the human person? These failures happen again and again, as I’ve cited. And the only thing the Bishops seem to learn is that they can’t learn.

Thank you Cardinal Wuerl for this article and for your advocacy of marriage and family.

Though Cardinal Wuerl claims the word “marriage” has been used “throughout human history”, the truth is that the English word “marriage” did not exist until but a few centuries ago.  Moses, St. Paul and the men of long ago never spoke or even heard the English word “marriage”.  What’s more, the English word “marriage” in fact has a more than one meaning in the English language, and so did Hebrew and Greek words of the Bible which were later translated to the English word “marriage”, having such multiple meanings as “to take, get, fetch, lay hold of, seize, receive, acquire, buy, bring, marry, take a wife, snatch, take away”.  And as the English language is not a dead language, so too the English word “marriage” in fact has whatever meanings anyone gives it today or tomorrow, whether one is talking about a marriage of peanut butter and jelly, a marriage in the game of pinochle, a marriage between two men, a marriage between words and meaning, the marriage of words and music in a hit song, a marriage between Wallstreet and greed, the marriage of the sun and moon, or whatever else one means it to mean.  We speak of the lamb of God and the butcher speaks of lamb chops, and though we use the same word, the butcher isn’t “redefining” Jesus.  Likewise, there is an American bird called a cardinal, but they do not flock together to select the pope or warble about the meaning of “marriage”.  Moreover, when I fill the bird feeder by the window, I do not imagine that Cardinal Wuerl will be coming to fetch his dinner in the trees.  And though Cardinal Wuerl insists we can’t possibly “mean and mean what we say… if the meanings of words are altered and redefined”, the fact is that everyone including Cardinal Wuerl uses any number of words with multiple meanings, meanings that differ from conversation to conversation, from person to person, as they always have.  Indeed, the bishops are even coming out with a new translation of the Bible for that very reason, because words and their meanings change over time.  The English language is not written on stone tablets, nor did Moses bring forth any tablet bearing the English word “marriage” or “abortion” or any English words at all.  Of note, Cardinal Wuerl mentions “abortion”, but here again, the meaning of the English word “abortion” has also changed over time. Today, we now also commonly use the word “abort” in reference to things other than fetuses, such as the premature termination or failure of a space flight, military operation, etc.  In summary, no pope, no bishop, no church, no government, no majority and no minority can dictate the meaning of the English word “marriage” to others any more than one can dictate the weather.  Instead, Cardinal Wuerl expresses his opinion on the word “marriage”.  He may teach about faith and morals but he is not the dictator of the English language.  If the legislature uses a meaning of the word “marriage” that Cardinal Wuerl prefers not to use, that does not erase the other meanings, nor does it mean that Catholics in good faith should not speak the language of the legislature.  Indeed, as Pope John Paul II reminded, quoting from the Vatican Council’s decree: the “Church… speaks all tongues, understands and accepts all tongues in her love, and so supersedes the divisiveness of Babel.”

Thank you, Cardinal Wuerl, for taking an unpopular but logical—and true—approach.  Yes, it is true that the English language continues to change, but the good Cardinal’s piece—note the reference to Plato—speaks of the objective meanings applied to the word.  We can speak, to quote Shakespeare, of a “marriage of true minds” or of taking my idea and yours and “wedding them together,” but in both cases, we are speaking in metaphor, applying the universally understood relationship described in English with with word “marriage.” There is no fiat here; there is the plan truth that if I say “table” but mean “chair,” I have failed to articulate myself. When my son misidentifies something, I do not tell him, “If that’s what you want to call it, it is so.” Rather, I gently correct him. To construe the Cardinal’s argument as a Church attempt to “control” the language is absurd and a willful misreading; indeed, it is sophistry. I might add that we have already seen what the Cardinal predicts in action: In the past ten years or so, “conception” and “pregnancy” have become divorced, so that in some works, a conception can occur and the woman not be pregnant; despite the existence of a conceptus, pregnancy, they say, occurs only after implantation. Words are important. May God be praised, now and forever.

There’s obviously “no fiat here” because that would require that someone has authority over the language.  But like everyone else, the Cardinal simply expresses his opinion and demonstrates that that sophistry by any amount of words, whether colored with red robes or whatever, is still sophistry.

@ECDODGE, given that “conception” can occur even in a test tube, “a conception can occur and the woman not be pregnant”.  Indeed, rather than pregnant, she could have died ten years ago and have been cremated.  “Conception” and “pregnancy” are thus not the same thing.  A woman can be a virgin and have an implanted pregnancy, and a conception can occur with no woman being pregnant.  Thus, though there may be a “conception”, the issue of when or if there’s a “pregnancy” is legitimate.

Ecdodge, it is quite common for people to use a chair as a table or a table as a chair.  Whatever distinction some people might assert between them is rather arbitrary, a matter of personal or cult convention.  Both “chair” and “table” may be names for things upon which other things may be seated, or used for decoration or argument, or refer to people or positions of authority, or parts of human anatomy, etc.  Indeed, “chair” and “table” can also be names for your children, or pet goldfish, or anything under the sun.  Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple, and my neighbor may name her dog Pope Benedict. You can insist it isn’t so, but it is so. You talk of saying “table” but meaning “chair” as if it were a “failure to articulate” yourself, but God knows what you mean, and it’s always doubtful whether anyone else really does no matter what we say.

@Deborah Cottace Do you even know what “sophistry” is? The column here argues that WORDS HAVE MEANING AND WE SHOULD NOT ALLOW OTHERS TO REDEFINE THEM FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES. If anything, that’s the OPPOSITE of sophistry which is often characterized by word games - y’know, like changing the meanings of words. No, it is clear that you and yours are the sophists, here.