By Bishop Julian Porteous
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
It was reported that Sunshine Coast priest Fr Stan Griffiths expressed support for the Queensland Government’s surrogacy bill passed on 11 February this year. He is reported in the local paper as saying: "The most important thing is that a child is loved and treasured and I can see no reason that this would not be the case if both parents were the same sex”. He adds, "Our families are different now. They’re not just straight mums and dads”.
Is Fr Stan right? Should the Church accept the inevitable and allow same sex families? The Catholic Church has consistently opposed same sex couples adopting children. The Church is opposed to same sex marriage.
As Catholics, we turn to the Scriptures as a foundational source for our faith. The account of Creation in the Book of Genesis states that God created human beings “male and female”. Immediately after this statement, marriage is mentioned. Marriage is a union of a man and woman: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). In other words, God created human beings in such a way that they were to be united in marriage. We are designed – as man and woman – for marriage.
Marriage is ordained for the procreation of children. Again, in the account of Creation, God commissions the man and woman in these words, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth” (Gen 2:28). Human beings are designed for marriage, and the marriage union is ordained for the generation of children. The biological make-up – physically and emotionally – of man and woman is clearly oriented to this task.
Marriage is the first and foundational institution of human society. It is God’s plan for human life – for the good of the spouses and the necessary environment for nurturing of children. This truth has been self evident in Christian history and has been universally understood in human society. It is only now that this understanding is being challenged and tested in law.
The overwhelming evidence of human experience is that marriage is the most important institution for sustaining the health, education and welfare of all persons in a society. Where married life is healthy, society is healthy. Marriage and family life has been weakened in recent decades. Rising divorce rates, pregnancies out of marriage, co-habitation before marriage have had an effect on the strength and stability of marriage and family life.
There has been a tendency to accept these trends as somehow inevitable. The challenge for Catholics is to respond with a determined and clear voice about what is in the best interests of adults, children and families. Society needs to be able to witness and come to appreciate the profound beauty, mystery and holiness of faithful marital love. Indeed, there is a need to challenge civil policies that are contributing to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the idea of unilateral divorce.
There is a need to explain, particularly to young people, a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.â¨â¨The current attempt to redefine marriage in order to recognise same-sex unions is a further erosion of marriage culture. If accepted, it will mean a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as it has been traditionally embodied in civil and religious law. Marriage is much more than feelings and a seeking of personal fulfilment. It is about procreation and the creation of a stable and loving environment intended for the generation, promotion and protection of life.
In particular, the marriage of a man and a woman means that children will receive the contribution from both masculinity and femininity in their formation. Studies clearly show that both boys and girls need and benefit from the significant contributions of both sexes in the development of their identity and character. Even single parents who struggle courageously to raise their children, often in very difficult circumstances, wish they had the complementary contributions of a loving spouse. Society, in order to maximise the potential for healthy human growth, needs to positively promote a stable marriage relationship of a man and a woman as the means by which children will be able to mature into healthy human beings.
The Church respects the human dignity of those persons who are disposed towards homosexual conduct and relationships. We have compassion for their struggles and deep interpersonal needs. We deeply admire those men and women who seek to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they regard as inappropriate. While professing what we know to be right and true, we refrain from any condemnation of those who yield to homosexual temptation. We reject sin, but not the sinner. â¨â¨
The Church is aware that many who desire to enter into same-sex relationships may consider their unions to be truly marital. But their personal conviction cannot eliminate the truth about the nature of marriage and family. Marriage is essentially linked to the sexual complementarity of man and woman. This complementarity is not only physical but is emotional and spiritual. Human beings are bodily beings and the body needs to be one with the consciousness. The commitment that a couple make to one another is sealed, completed and actualised by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh in the act of expressing love and openness to procreation. This latter dimension is integral to the meaning of sexual intercourse.
It is not true to say that the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. Marriage – as a union of a man and a woman – has an accepted understanding not only within the Christian tradition but generally across cultures. It is not something open to redefinition. There is no civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Such perceptions of rights reflect a rejection of the truth about human persons and how we are called to live. Marriage is an objective reality – a covenantal union of husband and wife.
It is the job of the law to support marriage and the natural family for the good of society. The social institution of marriage should not be made subject to the vagaries of lobby groups since marriage law is based on a timeless understanding of the human person. A person cannot claim that they have a right to change the law because of their own experiences. Law has had the role of being a pedagogical tool – to express and protect marriage and family from alternative notions that would threaten the common good.
These current challenges to the understanding of marriage and family should be a stimulus to all of us in the Church to devote ourselves more to the further encouragement of a marriage culture in our society. All Catholics should seek to promote the good of marriage and work to promote the truth of the dignity and beauty of marriage and family life.