Per Christum

Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles Jon Bruno is overjoyed that gay marriage is now legal in California. He writes:

Today’s Supreme Court decision on same-gender relationships is important because it reflects our baptismal vow to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being” and our commitment to justice and mercy for all people…

I celebrate and give thanks for this decision of the court and look forward with joy and excitement to a future of justice and mercy for all people in the State of California and the Episcopal Church.

To paraphrase St. Paul, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, gay nor straight in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Before I begin, I want to state that I am not really weighing in on the California court decision per se, but instead addressing the connection that some Christians have drawn between justice and dignity for gays and permitting same-sex marriage. This is the sort of reasoning I frequently encountered in graduate school. Basically, the liberals in the Episcopal church have taken a legitimate goal (justice), found throughout Scripture and Tradition, and turned it into a Trojan horse in which to introduce their modern, secular, causes. Apparently a person cannot have dignity, and true justice not be served, unless his or her sexual desires are blessed and affirmed. From a Catholic perspective, this is not true dignity, nor true justice. Yes, the Catholic Church affirms the dignity of all people, and this guides how we should treat fellow humans. However, unlike in the Episcopal church, honoring someone’s dignity does not mean legitimizing or blessing sinful behavior, but rather, while recognizing human weakness, the Church calls us to greater holiness. Of course, I recognize this argument is likely to only convince the convinced, because many in the mainlines do not consider same-sex sexual activity to be sinful.

I think the difference between the Catholic position, and Bruno’s, is that love is defined so differently in modern Western culture than it is in classical Christianity. Catholics define love as willing the best for another person, which is something more substantial than defining love as “whatever makes you feel good inside,” or some other modern, pop-songish, way of defining it. Christian love may involve being challenged and corrected, in a loving way of course (sadly, not something Christians always do too well). It is never easy to accept correction or critique, especially in a society which emphasizes “self-esteem” so much. Christian love also requires sacrifice, not always doing what we desire at a particular moment. Unlike in our society, where we are all considered “ok” as we are, Christians recognize that we are not “ok” and are to be conformed to the image of Christ. This means that the Church calls all of us to the highest level of dignity and holiness, and cannot simply affirm us in our present states.

With this, we are at least consistent. Thus, before you think we are picking on those with same-sex attraction, realize that the Catholic Church challenges all of its members to sexual purity, and does not bless or sanction heterosexual unchastity either. The Church is not willing to sanction or bless co-habitation, divorce, adultery, polygamy, masturbation, etc. Some of these sins, like divorce and co-habitation, are pretty popular these days, so it would be very easy for the Church to cave on these issues. For example, many heterosexual men struggle with fidelity in marriage, yet the Church could never sanction adultery just because a person may seem disposed to that behavior. I have actually known people who have justified adultery because they had a strong desire to do it. The Church calls these individuals, and all of us, to repentance and chastity, no matter how strongly we may be inclined to commit a certain sin.

Nonetheless, while Christ and the Church call us to “be perfect” as the Father is perfect, Christ is also the Great Physician, rich in mercy, and the Church welcomes sinners of all sorts into its fold. So those who struggle with sexual sins, or who have been through a divorce, etc, can find healing and grace from our Lord, but there is no guarantee that the path to healing and repentance will be easy. At least we can know that all of us are struggling with some sort of sin; nobody is perfectly holy, and all need to continually cooperate with God’s grace. This is why I can actually see merit to Bruno’s paraphrase of St. Paul, because, in a sense, in Christ there is no sexual orientation: transformed by our Lord in baptism, all of us are called to holiness, no matter what our sexual orientation may be. I suspect Bp. Bruno does not have this reading in mind.

For some official Teaching on the issue of dignity and same-sex marriage, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church outlines the Catholic position, a position that is not likely to be popular in some places, and one that is much different than that of Bishop Bruno:

Homosexual persons are to be fully respected in their human dignity and encouraged to follow God’s plan with particular attention in the exercise of chastity. This duty calling for respect does not justify the legitimization of behaviour that is not consistent with moral law, even less does it justify the recognition of a right to marriage between persons of the same sex and its being considered equivalent to the family.

“If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to be considered just one possible form of marriage, the concept of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common good. By putting homosexual unions on a legal plane analogous to that of marriage and the family, the State acts arbitrarily and in contradiction with its duties” (228).