Don’t mess with marriage

June 3, 2015 


By Paul Dobbyn




CHURCH leaders and lobby groups continue to sound notes of caution as the push to legalise same-sex marriage persists.
Brisbane’s John Paul II Centre for Family and Life director Dr Ray Campbell said “talk of marriage equality is just rhetoric which avoids the real question”.
“So far we are not addressing the real issue which is the redefinition of marriage,” he said.
“The key impact of this legislation would be to negate the special significance of the husband-and-wife parental relationship.”
  

Empty house: National Liberal MP Mal Brough (left) listens as Labor Opposition Leader Bill Shorten in the House of Representatives introduces the Marriage Amendment (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015 at Parliament House in Canberra on June 1. Photo: AAP

Dr Campbell said he agreed with Canberra-Goulburn Archbishop Christopher Prowse’s comments that media debate on the issue had been “one-sided and shallow”.

Speaking out: Archbishop Christopher Prowse.

Australia’s Catholic bishops also recently issued a pastoral letter, Don’t Mess With Marriage, to parishes around the nation as the push for same-sex marriage legislation continued.
“We now face a struggle for the very soul of marriage,” the letter said.
“Redefining marriage in the way now proposed would see marriage reduced to a committed, affectionate sexual relationship between any two people.”
The Australian Christian Lobby’s managing director Lyle Shelton renewed the call to the Liberal Party to stand by its principled policy on marriage by continuing to vote as one on the issue.
“Redefining marriage weakens family by separating children from their natural mothers and fathers through demand for ethically dubious assisted reproductive technologies such as anonymous sperm donation and surrogacy,” Mr Shelton said.
“By definition, same-sex parenting means intentionally removing a child from their mum or dad and this has serious consequences.”
The comments came the day after Labor leader Bill Shorten introduced a private member’s bill to legislate same-sex marriage. The June 1 bill was introduced to near-empty Government benches.
The Opposition Leader’s bill proposed replacing the words “man and woman” with the term “two people” to define who can be legally married.
Mr Shorten said Ireland’s recent “yes” vote in a referendum on same-sex marriage had stirred him to action.
“Let this law reflect the nation we all want to see in the mirror,” he said.
“Generous, smart, modern, diverse and, above all, equal.”
But the Coalition does not support such legislation and the House of Representatives voted on June 1 to adjourn debate.
Same-sex marriage supporters in the Coalition said they were working to bring same-sex marriage before the Parliament in the second half of the year.

Under attack: Dr David van Gend.

Australian Marriage Forum president Dr David van Gend described Mr Shorten’s proposed redefinition of marriage as “breathtaking hypocrisy”.
“This act of Parliament would abolish a mother or a father from the life of future children, by a deliberate act of parliament,” he said.
“His Labor predecessors have wrung their hands and apologised for past policies that broke the primal bond between the generations, but Bill Shorten is ready to do it to children all over again.”
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he accepted same-sex marriage was a “significant issue”.
“But frankly, this Government’s absolute fundamental priority in the budget session of Parliament is to get the most urgent budget measures through,” he said.
“And by far the most urgent budget measure is the small-business budget boost.”
A Coalition party room debate on a free vote on the issue of same-sex marriage was expected on June 2, but failed to occur.
Meanwhile, in Toowoomba on June 1, Dr van Gend returned from an interstate visit to find his medical centre sprayed with graffiti.
“My name was painted in black along the northern wall of my surgery, with the word ‘bigot’ painted in red capital letters,” he said.
The matter has been reported to police.
“This sort of abuse is experienced by anybody who stands against the gay marriage juggernaut,” Dr van Gend said.
“However, it’s usually from trolls online, not vandals on the wall of a medical centre.
“It is time for leaders of the homosexual marriage lobby in the Parliament, the community and the media, to condemn this demonising of their opponents.”
Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome said such abuse of property had no place in the marriage-equality debate.
“But I also ask Dr van Gend not to jump to conclusions about the perpetrator, as this only inflames the situation,” Mr Croome said in a statement.


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Taken from: http://catholicleader.com.au/news/dont-mess-with-marriage

Pope Francis: Gender theory is the problem, not the solution

Carol Glatz Catholic News Service  |  Apr. 15, 2015




Vatican City
   

Eradicating male and female identities does nothing to solve the problem of unfair or disrespectful treatment based on people's gender, Pope Francis said.
"Getting rid of the difference is the problem, not the solution," he said Wednesday during his general audience in St. Peter's Square.
The right way to solve the problems and conflicts in male-female relations is to have men and women "talk to each other more, listen to each other more, know each other better, care more for each other," he said.
The pope continued a series of general audience talks about the family by beginning the first of two talks on "the difference and complementarity between men and women." He said the two talks would serve as the foundation for two later talks dedicated to the sacrament of marriage.
At the end of the audience, Pope Francis personally greeted the husband and a daughter of Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death in 2010 under Pakistan's controversial laws against blaspheming Islam. Bibi's family came to Rome as part of a campaign to rally international support for her release.

In his main audience talk, Pope Francis said when God created humanity in his image, he did so for man and woman together, "as a couple," in a state of sharing and harmony.
Sexual differentiation, therefore, exists not for creating conflict or a situation of subordination, but for reciprocity and fruitfulness -- "for communion and generation, always in the image and likeness of God," the pope said.
"We are made to listen to each other and help each other," he said. "We can say that without mutual enrichment in this relationship -- in thinking and action, in feelings and work, even in faith -- the two can't even understand fully what it means to be a man and woman."
Modern culture has done much to open up a new and deeper understanding of men and women, "but it also has introduced many doubts and much skepticism," he said.
"For example, I wonder if so-called gender theory may not also be an expression of frustration and resignation that aims to erase sexual differentiation because it no longer knows how to come to terms with it," the pope said.
With gender theory, which argues that male and female characteristics are largely malleable social constructs, he said, "we risk going backward."
"God entrusted the earth to the covenant between man and woman: its failure drains the world of affection and obscures the heavens of hope," he said.
There are many "worrying" signs of the failure to live out God's original plan of reciprocity and harmony, he said, as he pointed out two things that "I think we have to commit ourselves to with greater urgency."
"The first: It is beyond question that we have to do much more in favor of women," such as making sure "that women not only are listened to more, but that their voice carries real weight, [is] an acknowledge authority in society and the church," he said to applause.
A powerful guiding light, the pope said, is "the way in which Jesus considered women," especially in a social and historical context that was much "less favorable than ours" and in which women "were really in second place."
Humanity has gone only "a tiny way" along the path God wants everyone to take, he said.
"We still have not grasped fully the things that the feminine genius can give us, what society and we can be given by women who know how to see things with another pair of eyes that complement men's ideas. It is a path to take with more creativity and audacity," he said to more applause.
The second thing that needs urgent attention, the pope said, is to see "if the collective crisis of faith in God, which is very harmful to us -- afflicting us with resignation, skepticism and cynicism -- may not be linked to this crisis of the covenant between men and women."
In fact, it is said that "communion with God is reflected in the communion of the human couple and that the loss of faith in the heavenly Father generates division and conflict between men and women."
Pope Francis said the church and all Catholics carry a great responsibility in "rediscovering the beauty of the Creator's plan."
Men and women "must treat each other with respect and friendly cooperation," and once this proper basis is created with God's grace, solid marriages and families can be built, he said.
"I would like to urge intellectuals to not abandon this subject, as if it had become secondary to the task of promoting a freer and more just society," he said.

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Taken from: http://ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-francis-gender-theory-problem-not-solution

“Family an anthropological fact”. Pope Francis.

 

Pope Francis declares union between man and woman 'at root of marriage' in blow to gay rights

 

Adam Withnall

 

Tuesday 18 November 2014

 

Pope Francis has apparently spoken out in defence of marriage as an institution between a man and a woman, hurting the hopes of those who see him as a liberal driving force in the Catholic Church.

Last month the Pope warned Catholics not to fear change following an angry synod backlash against a softening of the Church’s stance towards homosexuality.
But in his address at the opening of a three-day conference on traditional marriage hosted at the Vatican yesterday, Francis called family “an anthropological fact… that cannot be qualified based on ideological notions or concepts important only at one time in history”.
The Humanum conference invites people of different religions to come together and celebrate “complementarity between man and woman in marriage” – the idea that men and women have different but complementary roles that they say are essential to building a strong family.
And though he did not refer to gay unions directly, the Pope said: “It is fitting that you have gathered here to explore the complementarity of man and woman. This complementarity is at the root of marriage and family.”

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In just a year, Pope Francis has managed to change the public perception of the Catholic Church, and the stance it takes on civil issues, like gay rights. Despite originally protesting the legalisation of gay marriage in his native Argentina some years ago, he told reporters this year: “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?”

Francis said: “Children have the right to grow up in a family with a father and mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child's development and emotional maturity.
“Today marriage and the family are in crisis,” he continued. “We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment.
“The revolution in mores and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings, especially the poorest and most vulnerable.”
Pope Francis's comments were interpreted by those in the audience as a declaration in support of traditional marriage. Russell Moore of the US's Southern Baptist Convention said: “Pope Francis made clear that male/female complementarity is essential to marriage and cannot be revised by contemporary ideologies.”

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Pope says he 'believes in guardian angels'
Francis makes exorcisms official Catholic practice
One in 50 Anglican priests 'doesn't believe in God'

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Taken from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-union-between-man-and-woman-at-root-of-marriage-in-blow-to-gay-rights-9867561.html