Posted on 06/08/2006 5:11:41 PM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 8, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "And it's 5:00 p.m. here in Washington. Does a Catholic cardinal agree with the Catholic Church, certainly against gay marriage? You might be surprised to see how he feels about same-sex civil unions." That was the teaser CNN's Wolf Blitzer used prior to airing his interview with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the outgoing Archbishop of Washington D.C.
Cardinal McCarrick appeared last night on Blitzer's Situation Room in support of homosexual civil unions, while insisting that the definition of marriage itself be left alone. However, as the CNN host indicated before the interview, the Cardinal's support for the possible recognition of same-sex civil unions does indeed step out of line with the Church's often-reiterated position that there can be no public recognition of homosexual civil unions in society.
In the June 7th CNN interview, the Archbishop of Washington said, "we really have to continue to define marriage as we've defined marriage for thousands of years as a union between a man and a woman", and supported the Constitutional Amendment protecting marriage as between a man and a woman, which was recently defeated in the Senate. However, the Cardinal followed up his statement by saying, " I think the legislation as it is proposed would not throw out the possibility of a civil union. And I think we can -- we can live with that if this is what -- if this is what the Constitution will provide for."
Blitzer followed up the Cardinal's statement by asking him to clarify whether the Cardinal would indeed support recognized civil unions between homosexual couples.
According to the CNN transcript Blitzer asked, "So just explain. You think that you could live with -- you could support civil unions between gays and lesbians, but you wouldn't like them to get formally married, is that right?"
Cardinal McCarrick replied, "Yes."
He added, "I think basically the ideal would be that everybody was -- was able to enter a union with a man and a woman and bring children into the world and have the wonderful relationship of man and wife that is so mutually supportive and is really so much part of our society and what keeps our society together. That's the ideal.
"If you can't meet that ideal, if there are people who for one reason or another just cannot do that or feel they cannot do that, then in order to protect their right to take care of each other, in order to take care of their right to have visitation in a hospital or something like that, I think that you could allow, not the ideal, but you could allow for that for a civil union."
In a June 8th interview with LifeSiteNews.com, the Cardinal's spokeswoman Susan Gibbs denied that the Cardinal supported homosexual civil unions. When asked "wouldn't support for homosexual unions run the risk of actually trivializing marriage?" She responded by saying, "He [McCarrick] didn't say that he supported homosexual unions. He has not said that."
When asked whether McCarrick said it was acceptable for government to allow civil unions of gay and lesbian couples, Gibbs responded saying, "The Cardinal said he supports marriage, and we cannot change the definition of marriage."
The Cardinal's statements as transcribed by CNN are at odds with the official Catholic teaching on the matter. In his famous November 4, 2000 address to the world's politicians, then-Pope John Paul II counseled them, "with regard to all laws which would do harm to the family, striking at its unity and its indissolubility, or which would give legal validity to a union between persons, including those of the same sex, who demand the same rights as the family founded upon marriage between a man and a woman...Christian legislators may neither contribute to the formulation of such a law nor approve it in parliamentary assembly."
The same point was made in the 2003 Vatican document put out by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) which was, at the time, headed up by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the current Pope. That document, "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons", stated that "under no circumstances can they [homosexual civil unions] be approved."
When Gibbs was presented with pertinent quotes from the CDF document, she responded: "The Cardinal is very committed, the Cardinal is Catholic all the way through"
Gibbs defended the Cardinal saying that the context of the Cardinal's statement was with the Government addressing legal issues not related to the Sacrament of marriage that even single persons face, citing medical and other legal concerns.
The full CNN transcript is available online here:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/07/sitroom.02.ht...
Cardinal McCarrick replied, "Yes."
This is a huge problem.
Ping.
HA Ping.
Gibbs seems as confused as the illegitimate position failingly defended...
II. Applications10. "Sexual orientation" does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc. in respect to non-discrimination. Unlike these, homosexual orientation is an objective disorder (cf. "Letter," No. 3) and evokes moral concern.
11. There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account, for example, in the placement of children for adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or athletic coaches, and in military recruitment.
13. Including "homosexual orientation" among the considerations on the basis of which it is illegal to discriminate can easily lead to regarding homosexuality as a positive source of human rights, for example, in respect to so-called affirmative action or preferential treatment in hiring practices. This is all the more deleterious since there is no right to homosexuality (cf. No. 10) which therefore should not form the basis for judicial claims. The passage from the recognition of homosexuality as a factor on which basis it is illegal to discriminate can easily lead, if not automatically, to the legislative protection and promotion of homosexuality. A person's homosexuality would be invoked in opposition to alleged discrimination, and thus the exercise of rights would be defended precisely via the affirmation of the homosexual condition instead of in terms of a violation of basic human rights.
Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons
4. There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved”.7. Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological and anthropological elements of marriage and family which would be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them legal recognition. Such unions are not able to contribute in a proper way to the procreation and survival of the human race. The possibility of using recently discovered methods of artificial reproduction, beyond involving a grave lack of respect for human dignity, does nothing to alter this inadequacy.
Homosexual unions are also totally lacking in the conjugal dimension, which represents the human and ordered form of sexuality. Sexual relations are human when and insofar as they express and promote the mutual assistance of the sexes in marriage and are open to the transmission of new life.
As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.
The bottom line is that the Catholic Church's position is that homosexuality is a sin regardless of the legal status of the sinners.
You guys got a problem here. If he is speaking even for a considerable minority of the Roman hierarchy, I think you'll find that Orthodoxy will begin to react to the Latin Church the way its reacting to ECUSA, and that's not good, I can tell you.
The Pope has supreme authority and can silence a cardinal any time. I agree that if more cardinals were to begin to express similar thoughts it could become a problem, but I don't see that happening. The Anglican Communion is basically a democracy from what I can see, and the ECUSA has placed them in a virtual schism.
And that's what wrong with the Catholic Church... the Pope is the Supreme Commander rather the Bible itself.
Yes. However, it can be more precisely put, since there are some who argue without proof that homosexuality is an innate sexual orientation rather than simply an exhibited disorder. To more legitimately premise arguments it is always best to separate the disorder from the activity. As such, it becomes evident that the disorder cause unknown sometimes not chosen is a burden --while engaging in homosexual activity, always a choice, is sinful...
Very good on point posting.
The Magisterium position trumps even a considerable majority position...
However, his authority and infallibility is Biblical as it was explicitly bestowed upon Peter by our Lord.
" The Magisterium position trumps even a considerable majority position..."
I'll take your word for it, but here's a guarantee, the Orthodox hierarchs don't care about the Magisterium. When it comes to dialog, they'll throw over Rome as fast as they dumped many of the Anglicans and all of the Episcopalians if they think that, as a said, even a considerable minority of the hierarchy of the Roman Church has placed an imprimatur on active homosexuality in any context.
Was Peter a Pope? I don't seem to remember that JC said that Peter was a Pope. BTW, wasn't Peter married w/children?
The Bible teaches that the truth is in the Church. That's why when Paul had big-time questions, he travelled back to Jerusalem to have them answered by those in authority.
Yes.
I don't seem to remember that JC said that Peter was a Pope.
I find it extremely insulting to refer to our Savior as "JC," but yes he gave Peter full authority.
BTW, wasn't Peter married w/children?
Yes, he was married, I'm not sure if he had children or not. But neither is relevant to his authority.
What Church was that? I don't remember JC saying that the Church was the Catholic Church. I do remember reading Romans 16:16 though.
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