Obfuscation Versus Truth

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus compares 'Catholic' responses to California's recent 'same-sex' decision:

"...Father Reese concludes: “The issue of gay marriage is not going to go away quickly. It is a highly emotional issue that continues to divide our country. Everyone needs to step back, take a deep breath and count to ten before saying anything.” (Now that I’ve had my say, Father Reese says in effect, you should shut up.) Presumably Father Reese took his own advice. If only he had, in addition to taking a deep breath and counting to ten, considered how embarrassingly transparent his support for same-sex marriage and opposition to the Church’s teaching would appear to any thoughtful reader.

Very different is the response to the court’s ruling by Bishop Allen Vigneron of Oakland, California. Writing in the diocesan paper, he says, “We appear to be heading—at least for a time—toward a social order in which same-sex couples will be able to contract marriage. This is a profoundly significant matter. . . . Marriage is a reality authored by God in his very act of creating the human race. According to his irrevocable plan, the marriage relationship is only possible between one man and one woman. The purposes of this relationship are (1) the mutual loving support of husband and wife and (2) their loving service of life by bringing children into the world and raising them to be virtuous and productive. The experience of history—both ancient and in our own time—has taught us that no government has the power to change the order which God has inscribed in our nature..."