This week the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) of the Roman Catholic Curia released the answer to a question about blessing same-sex marriage. This subject incites heated opinions and some in the Catholic world have a less than Catholic take on it.
Journalists do not seem to understand what these documents actually say and focus on the most ratings-intensive sections presented in the most dramatic way. So it is important to look at what the document actually said.
The document responds to a simple question called a dubium. There is no indication of who asked the question. I surmise it is from Germany because the German bishops are working on a pastoral plan for the homosexual community.
The question is: Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?
The Answer is: Negative.
Actually, what follows the answer is an explanatory giving amplification to help us understand the one-word answer. This is also where the secular media does not become a good source of instruction.
Sacrament vs Sacramental
The document begins by defining the term blessing calling it rightly a sacramental. This is to delineate it from a sacrament. When two people get married in the Catholic Church, they are receiving a sacrament which is an outward sign instituted by Christ that gives grace. A sacramental, in this case a blessing, is a calling in a sense for the best for a person or situation through the Church’s intercession — according to the document. Sacramentals are not sacraments. Sacraments are more powerful.
For example: What many call confession or the Rite of Reconciliation is a sacrament. The Catholic practice of exorcism is a sacramental. Regardless of what you may see in the movies, the more powerful of those two tools is the Rite of Reconciliation. Any exorcist will tell you that one sincere confession is more powerful than a hundred exorcisms. Good confessions, however, do not make good movies.
When two people marry, they bestow the sacrament of matrimony upon each other. What about people who can not marry sacramentally, including in a same-sex relationship, can they receive a blessing, which is a sacramental? The answer is negative. However, there is also a caveat.
Marriage is rooted in two things: procreation and unity of the spouses in that order. A marriage cannot happen if those two items are not intended.
For example: if I had a heterosexual couple in my office who wanted to marry and they never had any intention of bringing forth children, they could not marry in the Catholic Church. If they had the desire but one or both were infertile, the marriage could happen because the intention or desire is there. However, if they lied to me and said they wanted to bring children into the world but really had no such plan that is grounds for annulment in the Catholic Church. That marriage would not be valid despite the ceremony.
At the same time, if they had no biological ability to complete the procreative sex act they could not marry in the Catholic Church either.
Any form of sexual activity that is not open to life is a sin in the Catholic Church even if the participants are heterosexual and even if they are sacramentally married. This is why the Church is against artificial contraception.
A homosexual marriage, by default, is not procreative because of the biological reality, even though the second reason for marriage — unity of the spouses, is the intention. So a sacramental marriage requires a man and a woman open to life.
So it is for this reason that there can be no homosexual marriage in a Catholic Church.
Even though this relationship cannot be recognized as a sacrament the dubium asks if it can be blessed through a sacramental? This is where the answer is negative but you can also see a caveat.
The mission of the baptized Catholic
The mission of the Catholic is not to live without sin. It is rather to grow in uniting our will to God’s will. You can follow every one of the ten commandments and never once do the will of God. (cf Matt 25) So our vocation is greater than simply trying not to sin. Some Catholics may never once violate a single commandment or even rule of the Church and can be the angriest, nastiest people on the planet. (Catch me on a bad day, for example.) That is not the will of God.
St. Maximillian Kolbe explained our mission simply in a mathematical formula: W+w=S. “W” is God’s will, “w” is our will; when we combine them we grow in holiness “S”.
In the Catholic Church, any kind of sexual activity in or outside of a sacramental marriage that is not open to life is not God’s will which means it is a sin. For this reason, homosexual activity as with some other heterosexual activity is a sin because it is not in accordance with God’s will.
Other aspects of that same relationship are positive and are not sinful, the explanatory teaches. The only part of that relationship we consider sinful is the sexual aspect.
If two people of the same sex built a relationship through which they intended to grow in holiness which would not be of a sexual nature, that relationship could be blessed at least in the individual members and as a friendship. That is because the sexual element would not be a factor but the desire to the higher form of love found in the mutual pursuit of holiness would be present.
The issue is not a same-sex relationship but a same-sex relationship that is also sexual because it is not by default open to life rooted in the pursuit of holiness.
In an interview on the News with Rick Sanchez on RT America Robin Biro, an openly gay man, Democratic party strategist and the first openly gay US Army Ranger acknowledged his concerns about the Vatican not accepting gay relationships but did call the invitation to bless homosexuals as individuals a step forward.
Strong theological language to describe a sin
This is important. The Catholic church uses strong theological language to describe something against God’s will — intrinsically evil. It makes something that is a sin sound like Doctor Frankenstein created it in a laboratory while he was worshipping the devil and calling Dracula on his smartphone — interrupting his lunch with Freddy Krueger. It is a strong theological term that in popular parlance sounds horrible.
In reality, homosexual activity and stealing a piece of bubble gum from a candy store are both intrinsically evil, they are against God’s will.
However, the explanatory also teaches that the persons themselves are not intrinsically evil, the action is a sin which is what intrinsically evil means. This is important because many believe the Church considers homosexuals to be intrinsically evil. Not only is that not true, but such a statement would also require a change in our theology. We would have to embrace the heresy of double pre-destination meaning that some people were by default going to Heaven and others were by default going to Hell. This is not what we believe as Catholics.
So the dubium actually teaches same-sex sexual activity is a sin but same-sex relationships which enter into the vocation all Catholics have — to pursue holiness — are positive. Such relationships exist throughout the history of Christianity and even Judaism and I am sure they precede the story of David and Jonathan. They will exist long after the lives of St. John Henry Newman and Ambrose St. John.