Bishops' Schedules: Bishop Robert C. Morlino November 29 - December 1, 2005 National Catholic Bioethics Center Board Meeting, Philadelphia, Pa. December 1-3, 2005 Annual Board of Visitors Meeting, Fort Benning, Ga. Bishop William H. Bullock Tuesday, November 29, 2005 10:30 a.m. -- Preside and Preach at the Celebration of the Eucharist, Meriter Nursing Home, Madison Bishop George O. Wirz Wednesday, November 30, 2005 6:00 p.m. -- Celebration of Communal Reconciliation, Holy Mother of Consolation Parish, Oregon

Marriage: 'Concepts of meaning profoundly problematic'

		Under the Gospel Book + Bishop Robert C. Morlino

Dear Friends,

One of my November obligations was to attend a meeting at Princeton University about the meaning of marriage as that meaning should be embodied in the civil law.

The meeting was, perhaps, the finest continuing education opportunity which has ever been available to me in my life and I am very grateful for it. I wish to offer two points that made a profound impact on me at the meeting so that we can all reflect on them as we form our consciences to vote responsibly as Catholics in the future, when legislation to defend authentic marriage is proposed for our consideration.

Concepts of marriage

The expansion of the meaning of marriage to include approaches other than one-husband, one-wife, one-lifetime with openness to children is really profoundly problematic. The situation presented us is one of choosing between two concepts of marriage.

The one concept of marriage, the so-called traditional one, is based on a deep interpersonal covenant which is at the same time undertaken in a procreative ecology. The love-making aspect of marriage is also its potentially procreative aspect - the two purposes of marriage, intimacy and procreation, simply cannot be separated. The bond of traditional marriage could be called "thick and complex." It involves the family experience of grandparents, oftentimes great-grandparents, and of future generations carrying on the family name. Marriage and family in this traditional sense are synonymous really with our humanity.

The second concept of marriage offered us by our society and culture is not a thick and complex bond but a stripped down and thin bond. This second concept of marriage offered is reduced to a close bond, however temporary or long-standing, between consenting adults. According to this second concept, traditional marriage in fact needs to be denounced as essentially discriminatory because of its denotation of an exclusive relationship between one man and one woman.

There are thus two competing conceptions of the authoritive norm of marriage: marriage as a good in itself according to the traditional formulation, or marriage as means to other ends, possibly a temporary arrangement that can be easily be dissolved in accord with the consent or withdrawal of consent of adults, whoever they may be.

What we will be asked to address possibly in the voting booth in the days ahead, is a choice between these two competing concepts of marriage. We need to reflect, in this context, on the consequences of the second concept, both for the authority of the state and for children. The second concept of marriage allows for multiple parents, a diversity of multiple moms or dads or both.

I have indicated before that it is very difficult for a child to grow up in a setting where it is not clear what the word "Mom" means or the word "Dad" means. No child should be brought into the complexity of reasonings that are generated by pseudo-marriages so as to discern what the meaning of "Mom" is or the meaning of the word "Dad" is. Leaving a child in this situation is in fact leaving a child without the most human of family roots and is an injustice to the child.

Must follow law of nature God created

Secondly, with regard to marriage we must follow the law of nature that God has imprinted on our hearts, that the human being was created male and female. The differentiation among human beings should not be transferred from that of male-female to that of homosexual-heterosexual. Gender is foundational to our humanness and cannot be replaced as such by orientation.

I have written previously about the dangers of the mind-body split, and the difference among human beings is to be lived out both in the mind and in the body as the difference between male and female. To indicate that the foundational differentiation among human beings resides in sexual orientation is to deny the mind-body unity and to push to its farthest limits the mind-body split, that is human beings are different in accord to what they think or intend rather than in accord with who they are as minded-bodied unities in community. Recognizing this foundational differentiating factor as gender in no wise justifies any unjust discrimination against anyone.

Serious proposals for Catholic voters

The proposals that may well be presented to us as Catholic voters in the coming days are utterly serious. If the thin, stripped down concept of marriage wins the day, the only real parent of child in our society and culture will be the state, since children will be fewer in number, and it will be the state which has an interest in and the authority to determine who parents really are. In determining custody, it will be the state which gets to determine who the proper educators of the children are and therefore according to what principles they should be educated.

A society in which the state is the only true parent could hardly call itself a democracy. A state which has the sole and final right to determine what appropriate education for children is could hardly call itself a democracy. Please be aware that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has already determined that parents have no fundamental right to educate their children. So the stakes are very high in terms of how we should live out the marriage bond and in terms of how we should vote in days ahead.

May God the Holy Spirit give us the wisdom to follow the laws of nature and of nature's God which, as the Scripture says, are not too far from us or too deep for us to understand; they are in our mouth and in our heart, we have only to carry them out.

Let me close by paraphrasing the words of the late theologian and Christian hero Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The traditional concept of marriage, lived as union of husband and wife "in one flesh," has proven itself throughout history as capable of sustaining love. In our culture, where divorce is commonplace, love has hardly proven itself capable of sustaining marriage.

Thank you for reading this. God bless each one of you. Praised be Jesus Christ!