Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Catholic News

Home

Home
Catholic
Religion News
Theologian: Same-sex civil unions discriminate against married couples

Theologian: Same-sex civil unions discriminate against married couples

Last updated on: April 24, 2013 at 10:31 am by CNA Daily News

Theologian: Same-sex civil unions discriminate against married couples 2013-04-24T10:31:00+00:00 CNA Daily News

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Rome, Italy, Apr 24, 2013 / 04:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After a Vatican official stated that the Church could support same-sex civil unions, a Swiss theologian is saying that if they are equated with marriage these unions discriminate against married heterosexual couples.

“Besides containing an erroneous moral message, it actually means to objectively discriminate against married people, who intentionally have engaged in a union ordered towards the task of the transmission of human life, accepting all the burdens and responsibilities of this task,” said Swiss theologian Father Martin Rhonheimer.

“Conferring legal equality to same-sex unions signifies to publicly establish, in the law system, the principle of dissociation of sexuality and procreation,” he explained in an April 22 telephone interview with CNA.

His comments come after Archbishop Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses, expressed his openness to same-sex civil unions.

“In these discussions, it is necessary, for example, to recognize the union of people of the same sex, because there are many couples who suffer because their civil rights are not recognized," he said on April 20 in an interview with Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion.

“What cannot be recognized is that that couple be a marriage,” said Archbishop Marini.

A second Vatican official, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who spoke on the subject in a March 27 news conference, was misquoted by the press to make it seem he favored it.

Archbishop Paglia, the head of the Pontifical Council of the Family, said that the Church is opposed to anything that treats other unions as equivalent to marriage between a man and a woman, but that it could accept “private law solutions” for protecting people’s rights.

In a Vatican press conference on Feb. 4, he said that there are “several kinds of cohabitation forms that do not constitute a family” and that their number is increasing.

The archbishop suggested that countries could find “private law solutions” to help people living in non-matrimonial relations, to “prevent injustice and make their life easier.”

But Archbishop Paglia persisted in reaffirming that it is society’s responsibility to preserve the unique value of marriage.

Fr. Rhonheimer, who teaches political philosophy and ethics at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, said accepting same-sex civil unions is equating them with marriage, which “by its very nature is a union between a man and a woman.”

But he does not exclude private law solutions as mentioned by Archbishop Paglia, protecting same-sex couples’ civil rights and facilitating, for example, mutual care in case of illness and old age, or adaptations in the field of inheritance law.

“When equating homosexual unions to marriage, however, the legal system starts including a principle which in fact transforms the nature of marriage as a social and legal institution,” Fr. Rhonheimer stated.

“Besides being discriminating against those who bear considerable sacrifices in raising children and contribute in a most essential and irreplaceable way to the common good of society over time, it also has non-predictable long term consequences for the entire legal and social system,” he added.

He explained that approving same-sex unions could only be consistently argued for by assuming there is no moral relevant link between sexuality and procreation, an idea which is the legacy of the “sexual revolution” of the second half of the 20th century having disastrous effects on the societies of Western countries.

“Any attempt of proving the equality, in social and political terms, of heterosexual and homosexual unions is vain, simply because homosexual unions are by their very nature non-procreative,” Fr. Rhonheimer said.

According to the Swiss professor, the Church teaches that homosexual orientation is a disorder, but people who experience that disorder should not be blamed or somehow seen as guilty for having it.

“On the other hand, the Church teaches that homosexual acts are gravely and intrinsically sinful and that therefore persons with homosexual orientation should abstain from sexual acts, being continent (equal to unmarried people),” he said.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a document in June 2003 which stated that “respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

The document, titled “Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons,” says the common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family.

“Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behavior, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity,” the document says.

Vatican

Previous Post

April 24, 2013

Cardinal Dolan honored by evangelicals for leadership

Next Post

April 24, 2013 Pope urges Christians to remember final judgment

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Americas Asia - Pacific Europe Middle East - Africa Uncategorized US Vatican

Select a Month November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was Paul's native language?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Greek Latin Aramaic Hebrew