Given the shift in marriage’s civil legal definition to include same-sex couples, it is time that Catholic conversations about the issue recognize that we are talking about two different realities when we use the word “marriage”—a legal contract on the civil side, and a sacramental covenant between two baptized people on the other—and adjust our practice accordingly.
Doing so would allow Catholics to have a fruitful intramural conversation about our theological understanding of the sacrament of marriage without at the same time being entangled in the question of whether families and couples that don’t fit that vision should have access to the legal benefits and duties that go with its civil parallel.It would also acknowledge what should be obvious to everyone: Even if civil and religious marriage were once a single entity, the ties uniting those two dimensions have now almost completely unraveled. [boldface added]
I get this. Of course, it solves one problem, assuaging a sort of theological discomfort, without addressing the societal issue. This is odd for a liberal publication like U.S. Catholic, for which societal issues are rarely ignored.
But there’s another thing. It’s “vision” in the midst of this paragraph that gets to the sensibilities involved, the sort of romanticized concept of religious belief. This romanticizing pervades liberal Catholics’ discussion and masks, rather embodies, what lies at the heart of their worldview. Is this clear to anyone but me?
Blithe Spirit 
Reblogged this on Not for Attribution.
LikeLike