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| Archbishop John Myers of Newark |
Archbishop John Myers of Newark came out (pardon
the pun) against the legalization of same-sex marriage in a “pastoral letter”
issued this weekend and said that Catholics who disagree with Church teaching
on this issue should refrain from Holy Communion. To be fair to His Excellency, let me first reprint
an account from the Associated Press that was carried by newspapers this past
Tuesday, Sept 25.
More than 1 million Roman Catholics in
northern New Jersey are being urged to vote "in defense of marriage and
life."
Newark Archbishop John Myers released a
pastoral statement today that calls on Catholics to examine how political
candidates stand on abortion and "a proper backing of marriage."
Myers also says Catholics who disagree with the
church's teaching on marriage should refrain from receiving Holy Communion.
Myers says his statement is not intended as
an endorsement for either political party. The archbishop says he's been
thinking about issuing a statement on the subject for about a year because he
believes there's been a lack of clarity.
The diocese includes churches in Bergen,
Hudson, Essex and Union counties.
Garden State Equality, the state's largest
gay rights organization, notes recent polls have shown the majority of Catholics
favor "marriage equality."
Now, first let us distinguish what is legitimately
meant by “disagree with the Church’s teaching on marriage.” The Church’s competency for definitive
teaching is faith (doctrine) and morals.
It certainly may have opinions on other matters—history, law, education,
sociology, anthropology, etc. but its area of competency to bind the faithful is
faith and morals. The Church has the
right (and obligation) to instruct the faithful on matters of doctrine and of
morals. That the sacrament of Matrimony
is contracted between one Christian man and one Christian woman each of whom is
free in the eyes of the Church from previous marriages, who intend fidelity in
their marriage, and who is open to the creation of new life through their marital
love, is well within the Church’s competency.
Furthermore, to teach that sexual relations are gravely wrong outside
the context of a marriage that conforms to the Church’s ideals of marriage (not
only sacramental matrimony, but of what
the Church teaches that marriage itself is—namely the freely-entered committed-until-death relationship of one man to one woman, neither
of whom are bound by previous marriages and both of whom are committed to
fidelity and open to the transmission of life) is also in the Church’s
competency, though no one should be surprised when non-Catholics take a different
understanding, especially when it concerns their marriages. But it is not in the competency of the Church
to declare that Catholics must hold that the civil law should enshrine its
doctrines or its moral stances in the civil law. It is not the role of the civil law to
incorporate into its code the doctrinal or moral teachings of any particular
religious body. That is not to say that
members of a particular religion should not be free to evangelize within their
society to win a consensus of the citizenry to their point of view but few
people want the opinions of any particular religious group to be imposed on a
disagreeing citizenry. In other words,
my read on this issue is that while we Catholics are bound to a particular
doctrine on Matrimony, we have no
obligation to support laws that impose that understanding on the larger
segments of our society. A Catholic cannot be compelled to vote against a
candidate or a party that supports a different understanding of marriage than
that which the Church teaches. In fact,
the Catholic Church in the United States has always accommodated itself to
civil marriages that do not meet its doctrinal norms and Catholics have not
been punished in any way for upholding such laws. Catholic judges not only issue decrees of
divorce but often preside at marriages in which one or both parties have been
previously married. Catholic judges and
other Catholic civil officials sometimes preside at marriages of Catholics who
are choosing not to marry in the Church.
Why is this only a problem when the marriage is between two parties of
the same sex? Why do we want to hold
Catholics to a different standard of behavior in this question? Is it bias?
It could be. Is it pandering to
certain pressure groups? It could
be. Is it—like the “Fortnight for Romney”—a
less than subtle political endorsement?
It could be. The one thing it is
not is influening the Catholic-in-the-Pew whom the polls show are in
disagreement with the Bishops on this and many other issues. I am not saying that the bishops are wrong, I
am only observing that the sheep aren’t following. There is a need to rebuild Episcopal
leadership in the Catholic Church from the ground up.
But there is still the question of whether those
who disagree with the Church’s teaching itself—not only with the matter of
enshrining the Church teaching in civil law—should refrain from Holy Communion. That is for next time.
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