US Catholic leaders vowed to hold firm to biblical marriage teaching after the Supreme Court approved gay marriage on Friday.
The NC Register reported:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex “marriage” is a constitutional right, in a long-awaited decision that will have sweeping and unpredictable consequences for U.S. jurisprudence, cultural norms and religious freedom.
Catholic leaders, legal scholars and marriage experts reacted with dismay to the landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and three related cases.
But they also expressed resolve that the decision would not discourage their efforts to preach and teach the truth about marriage and to advance respect for the institution as a union of one man and one woman committed to the care and education of children.
“The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision on marriage is not a surprise. The surprise will come as ordinary people begin to experience, firsthand and painfully, the impact of today’s action on everything they thought they knew about marriage, family life, our laws and our social institutions,” said Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, in a statement marking the decision.
“The mistakes of the court change nothing about the nature of men and women and the truth of God’s word. The task now for believers is to form our own families even more deeply in the love of God and to rebuild a healthy marriage culture, one marriage at a time, from the debris of today’s decision.”
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, equated today’s decision with the court’s controversial Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion on demand. And he vowed that Church leaders would not abandon the truth about marriage.
“Jesus Christ, with great love, taught unambiguously that, from the beginning, marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman,” said Archbishop Kurtz, in a statement.
“As Catholic bishops, we follow Our Lord and will continue to teach and to act according to this truth.”
He said it was “profoundly immoral and unjust for the government to declare that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage.”
Statements issued by Catholic leaders underscored a deepening anxiety that changes in the civil code will sow confusion about the meaning and purpose of marriage, the gift of masculinity and femininity and the rights of natural parents and their children.
