Bishop Paprocki Weighs In On The Fraudulent Religious Freedom And Marriage Fairness Act.
Please read Bishop Paprocki’s letter addressing the legalization of so-called “gay marriage.” It will be read at all masses in his Springfield, Illinois diocese this coming Sunday.
Please “share” with your friends and family as this message must be heard!
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Our state’s elected lawmakers will soon consider a bill called “The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.” A more fraudulent title for this dangerous measure could not be imagined. The proposed law is, in truth, a grave assault upon both religious liberty and marriage. All people of goodwill, and especially Christ’s faithful committed to my pastoral care in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, should resolutely oppose this bill and make their opinions known to their representatives.
The pending bill would, for the first time in our state’s history, redefine marriage to legally recognize same-sex “marriages.” But neither two men nor two women – nor, for that matter, three or more people – can possibly form a marriage. Our law would be lying if it said they could.
The basic structure of marriage as the exclusive and lasting relationship of a man and a woman, committed to a life which is fulfilled by having children, is given to us in human nature, and thus by nature’s God. Notwithstanding the vanity of human wishes, every society in human history – including every society untouched by Jewish or Christian revelation – has managed to grasp this profound truth about human relationships and happiness: marriage is the union of man and woman.
The bill’s sponsors maintain it would simply extend marriage to some people who have long been arbitrarily excluded from it. They are wrong. The pending bill would not expand the eligibility-roster for marriage. It would radically redefine what marriage is – for everybody.
It would enshrine in our law – and thus in public opinion and practice – three harmful ideas:
1) What essentially makes a marriage is romantic-emotional union.
2) Children don’t need both a mother and father.
3) The main purpose of marriage is adult satisfactions.
These ideas would deepen the sexual revolution’s harms on all society. After all, if marriage is an emotional union meant for adult satisfactions, why should it be sexually exclusive? Or limited to two? Or pledged to permanence? If children don’t need both their mother and father, why should fathers stick around when romance fades? As marriage is redefined, it becomes harder for people to see the point of these profoundly important marital norms, to live by them, and to encourage others to do the same. The resulting instability hurts spouses, but also – and especially – children, who do best when reared by their committed mother and father.
Indeed, children’s need – and right – to be reared by the mother and father whose union brought them into being explains why our law has recognized marriage as a conjugal partnership – the union of husband and wife – at all. Our lawmakers have understood that marriage is naturally oriented to procreation, to family. Of course, marriage also includes a committed, intimate relationship of a sort which some same-sex couples (or multiple lovers in groups of three or more) could imitate. But our law never recognized and supported marriage in order to regulate intimacy for its own sake. The reason marriage is recognized in civil law at all (as ordinary friendships, or other sacraments, are not) is specific to the committed, intimate relationships of people of opposite-sex couples: they are by nature oriented to having children. Their love-making acts are life-giving acts.
Same-sex relationships lack this unique predicate of state recognition and support. Even the most ideologically blinded legislator cannot change this natural fact: the sexual acts of a same-sex couple (regardless of how one views them morally) are simply not of the type that yield the gift of new life. So they cannot extend a union of hearts by a true bodily union. They cannot turn a friendship into the one-flesh union of marriage. They are not marital. This is not just a Christian idea, but one common to every major religious tradition and our civilization’s great philosophical traditions, beginning with ancient Greece and Rome.
The pending bill is not only a dangerous social experiment about marriage. It is also a lethal attack upon religious liberty. This so-called “religious freedom” would not stop the state from obligating the Knights of Columbus to make their halls available for same-sex “weddings.” It would not stop the state from requiring Catholic grade schools to hire teachers who are legally “married” to someone of the same sex. This bill would not protect Catholic hospitals, charities, or colleges, which exclude those so “married” from senior leadership positions. Nor would it protect me, the Bishop of Springfield, if I refused to employ someone in a same-sex “marriage” who applied to the Diocese for a position meant to serve my ministry as your bishop. This “religious freedom” law does nothing at all to protect the consciences of people in business, or who work for the government. We saw the harmful consequences of deceptive titles all too painfully last year when the so-called “Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act” forced Catholic Charities out of foster care and adoption services in Illinois.
These threats do not raise a question about drafting a better law, one with more extensive conscience protections. There is no possible way – none whatsoever – for those who believe that marriage is exclusively the union of husband and wife to avoid legal penalties and harsh discriminatory treatment if the bill becomes law. Why should we expect it be otherwise? After all, we would be people who, according to the thinking behind the bill, hold onto an “unfair” view of marriage. The state would have equated our view with bigotry – which it uses the law to marginalize in every way short of criminal punishment.
The only way to protect religious liberty, and to preserve marriage, is to defeat this perilous proposal. Please make sure our elected representatives understand that and know that they will be held to account.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki
Bishop of Springfield in Illinois
[...] Of Children, Emotional Fulfillment, Marriage, And Bigotry…Oh Boy! [...]
[...] Of Children, Emotional Fulfillment, Marriage, Freedom, And Bigotry…Oh Boy! [...]
Your Excellency Bishop Paprocki,
Thank you for your letter and your stand on this Marriage Act Law and where you state that the whole world, whether Chritian/Judiac or not have understood the marriage to be between male/female since beginning of time……… I might note that even in the world of the lower species of life, animals, birds, even plants understand the natural course of their existance. I may not have said it as profound you as you can, but it is just a fact from the beginning of time when God created this wonderful universe and all existing creatures in it….
Thank you Bishop Paprocki for speaking up on this issue and I pray that all will follow your lead to have our government leaders do the right things while representing us, “we the people”!
Respectfully,
Regina
Thank your Your Excellency for defending marriage. I pray you will become courageous enough to defend it against what our Catechism calls an “offense against the dignity of marriage,” namely, divorce. Our Catechism calls it a “grave offense.” I pray for courage in our shepherds to also call it a grave offense and speak clearly of where it leads souls.
Bryan
Your Excellency Bishop Paprocki,
“Close. No cigar.”
You did the usual shuffle; nothing more:
> It would enshrine in our law–and thus in public opinion and practice–three harmful ideas:
> 1) What essentially makes a marriage is romantic-emotional union.
> 2) Children don’t need both a mother and father.
> 3) The main purpose of marriage is adult satisfactions.
If marriage (1) is the Sacrament the Church teaches that it is: Then uphold God’s Marital Commandment[1 Cor. 7:10-11!] Stop easy annulments and promote lifelong faithfulness and reconciliation; or living selfishly-singly. No remarriage. Tough love.
If children need both parents (2), then stop supporting adulterous cohabitation a.k.a. “brother/sister” consorts. Always. If children need both parents, support dual custody–or even better yet: First-spouses living as brother/sister for the sake of their children! No divorce (Mal. 2).
If the beauty of marriage is the Theology of the Body: Then support conjugal cohabitation of first spouses. After all: This is why these people sought marriage in the first place! Reconcile. Reconcile. Work to reconcile. When the prospect of living singly is compared with marriage difficulties–and second spouses are off-limits–resolve to reconcile will be found, sooner-or-later, for most spouses.
Too bad the failure of the Lanza spouses: Nancy and Peter–with Adam’s desparate acts resulting–wasn’t cited as evidence that marital abortion/family abortion hurts children. It would have taken backbone to publicly accept responsibility for our Church having failed this Catholic spouse and her Catholic child–not to mention the victims of Adam’s rampage. Easier to “forget”. Easier to sideline. Easier to avoid the obvious.
Good points all, Bishop Paprocki. Too bad you didn’t “finish” the message.
In response to Gregory Lynne,
Your view of how people see annulment is rather simplistic. It is true that couples should always work to reconcile, however, “working to reconcile” is not the answer when the other spouse in his heart doesn’t understand (and doesn’t want to understand) what Godly marriage is about. Telling the wife she should reconcile doesn’t help when after talking with her she is then sent home to be the husband’s punching bag. How many “doors” does she have to “run into?” Telling them to reconcile doesn’t help when the other spouse thinks that having extra-marrital affairs is perfectly acceptable and even flaunts it in front of the spouse. No one should ever live like that. The Church teaches (and rightly so) that, objectively, no marriage ever existed when these situations are the norm in a household.
Every person man and woman who wants to live in a loving and supportive relationship should be able to find such a relationship. Annulments should not be seen as a “no-fault opt out.” Relationships are hard work. However, a person should not be denied the ability to marry after leaving a truly abusive and dangerous situation. Lastly, the original article was speaking about the dangers of the State recognizing homosexuality in civil law and not how easy it is to get an ecclesial annulment.
In response to Bishop Paprocki,
God bless you and thanks for the informative article. I am always looking to learn how to defend the Church’s stand on these issues. Again, God be with you.
In response to Paul Sulkowski,
You wrote “Every person man and woman who wants to live in a loving and supportive relationship should be able to find such a relationship. Annulments should not be seen as a “no-fault opt out.” Relationships are hard work. However, a person should not be denied the ability to marry after leaving a truly abusive and dangerous situation.”
This is not Catholic teaching, nor it is the model Christ gives. The Church teaches that every person has the right to ENTER into marriage of which an END GOAL is a loving and supportive relationship. The absence of such an emotionally satisfying relationship is no more evidence of invalidity of marriage than the absence of conceiving children is proof of invalidity.
Christ’s Church in her wisdom has all Catholic spouses promise to be true in good times and bad. Christ remains faithful to his abusive people who send him to the civil forum for crucifixion. A half-decent Catholic spouse will remain faithful to an abuser, abandoner, or adulterer, always praying for conversion of the lost soul trapped in sin these grave sins, and always open to reconciliation.
You appear to be mixing up legitimate reasons for separation of spouses with legitimate reasons for annulment. I believe the Church leadership in this country could better uphold marriage if they were to follow our canon law on separation of spouses and divorce (c. 1151-12155, 1692). We need provide public education and personal discipline instruction showing the parameters and reasons for separation decrees that are not contrary to divine law.
http://www.marysadvocates.org/syllabus/1692Annot.html#violatedivinelaw
Where do you get off, Mr. Sulkowski, making such an inference, as if every marriage involved a woman being a punching bag or the victim of serial adultery? That, is a, clearly, biased implication.
I suggest you issue an apology or the good priest here should openly admonish you!
It is THAT PRESUMPTUOUSNESS that has infected the minds of people in this country, including canonists and clergy.
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Telling the wife she should reconcile doesn’t help when after talking with her she is then sent home to be the husband’s punching bag. How many “doors” does she have to “run into?” Telling them to reconcile doesn’t help when the other spouse thinks that having extra-marrital affairs is perfectly acceptable and even flaunts it in front of the spouse. No one should ever live like that. The Church teaches (and rightly so) that, objectively, no marriage ever existed when these situations are the norm in a household.
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Mr. Sulkowski, the Catholic Church teaches no such thing as you ascribe to it in the copied section of your comment!
Neither of this things have anything to do, necessarily, with the validity of a particular marriage.
Your knowledge on this subject is serious lacking or it is biased by secular lies or other misguided Christians who are ignorant of truth.
Mr. Sulkowski, if you read much regarding some of the underpinnings of the attacks against traditional marriage, one of their frequent threads is that marriage means nothing to heterosexuals who have made a “revolving door” of their wedding vows, Catholics having no great difference in their use of that ‘revolving door”. If marriage is so “sacred”, the logic goes, why are Christians not opposed to no fault divorce or otherwise easy divorce? Why then, do Catholics REQUIRE divorce to process annulments?
Consequently, the idea of annulments are, justly, mentioned in every discussion of divorce, from a Catholic perspective, as they are THE GATEWAY, to annulments.
It is the disintigration of the concept of an intact family and its defense, which is a driving force in issues
related to marriage being reflective of involving only between individuals of different gender, male and female.
Paul,
You note that you are “always looking for ways to defend the Church’s stand.” We need more of this! I pray you will consider the difference between being open to reconciliation upon true repentance and “telling a woman she must go be a punching bag.” Christ is always open to reconciliation with us upon our true repentance. We do not reconcile with Him, however, until we have repented of the grave sin we are persisting in. We are to forgive our spouse this same way. We are to always be open to reconciliation upon true repentance. We should not therefore slam the door on them and say, “I give up on you! God cannot soften your heart! I deserve to be loved better and therefore will divorce you, annul you and marry someone else. You may never reconcile with me!!” We should never do this to our earthly spouse without realizing we are doing this to our Heavenly Spouse. And that separation… is eternal.
Bryan
Paul is absolutely correct on this one. Don’t some of you folks realize that it is relatively easy for priests, brothers, and nuns to “get out” of their vows and marry? Married people, after taking steps to save save said marriage, should be allowed to remarry. Finally, even if one accepts some of the goofy arguments on this issue, we should trust God to deal with them one day and not be so judgmental and sanctimonious.
Much of current clergy rebuttal to civil initiatives to redefine marriage centers around the fecundity of bigender couples in traditional marriage. Yet: No one seems to acknowledge publicly that the “other two goods” of the marital act (the unitive function and the remedy for concupiscence)–if absent–PREVENT (any) marriage! Yet, the Church allows sterile, bigender partners to marry! Surely Bishop Paprocki and others can delve DEEPER into explaining to us WHY traditional marriage ONLY deserves the support of civil law? Otherwise, I’m inclined to agree with those who label the Church’s views as “mere prejudice”–though I wouldn’t go so far as to label them “hate”.
I agree totally with this article.
“The Church teaches (and rightly so) that, objectively, no marriage ever existed when these situations are the norm in a household.” – this statement is not true. What the Church counts as a valid marriage is the state of mind of the 2 people on the day they were married not the day or days after. You can find the details on marriage in any canon law website. I know many old school Catholic women who separated from their husbands due to abuse or infidelity but never divorced. That’s back when people were less selfish – not it’s all about me, me.
Times are changing.
“Life, liberty and the prusuit of pursuit of happiness”
No where is the state telling you how to worship so freedom of religion doesn’t cut it here.
It is more you are forcing your ideas and religion on others.