Opening up marriage to same-sex couples is not made right by the majority thinking that it is (“Suitable case for mercy”, 16 April 2015).
Majorities can be fatally wrong – witness overwhelming public opinion in Pakistan about blasphemy laws. So if Western public opinion about marriage has turned entirely secular, it is not as obvious (as your editorial suggests) that the Catholic Church has to accommodate its teaching on marriage to it, even on pain of otherwise sounding doctrinaire.
Only if it is untrue that, or uncertain whether, marriage is created by God integrally to human nature as the lifelong union of a man and a woman, should the Church entertain even the thought of marriage as a union also between people of the same sex.
The extension of Pope Francis’ call for mercy by the Church, therefore, to recognising same-sex marriage, would only benefit, and not seriously mislead anybody, including homosexual partners, if the Church’s doctrine of the natural heterosexuality of marriage were actually or even possibly false.
Your own appeal for such an extension of the Pope’s call for mercy, therefore, implies that you yourself doubt or even reject that doctrine – an implication which is borne out by your suggestion that heterosexuality is a largely unrealisable ideal, as opposed to a minimum requirement for authenticity, of marriage.
If, however, you say you are not calling into question the Church’s teaching on marriage, then what you are asking for is not mercy but appeasement of secular opinion, which could bring the Church credibility only at the expense of reliability.
Daniel Wade, London NW9
Loading ...
