The Catholic response to New York’s legislators: In defense of Bishop DiMarzio

New York state’s Catholic leaders have condemned that state’s recent passage of a bill legalizing gay marriage. Nicholas DiMarzio, bishop of Brooklyn, called on members of his diocese to “not to bestow or accept honors, nor to extend a platform of any kind to any state elected officials, in all our parishes and churches for the foreseeable future.”Is the Catholic Church going too far? Should politicians be ostracized for promoting public policy that violates church teaching? Where is the line between church and state?

Following New York state’s recent passage of a bill legalizing gay marriage, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn wrote an editorial in the Daily News in which he explained that the Catholic position had been defeated, perhaps because the church did not speak forcefully and clearly. In an effort to now speak more forcefully and clearly, Bishop DiMarzio has now asked the priests of his diocese “not to bestow or accept honors, nor to extend a platform of any kind to any state elected official, in all our parishes and churches for the foreseeable future.” That has raised some eyebrows, but it shouldn’t.

Bishop DiMarzio is trying to be a good shepherd. Religions and churches are built upon shared beliefs. Agree with it or not, the Catholic Church has always opposed pre-marital and extra-marital sexual relations. Marriage is a sacrament in the Catholic Church, one of only seven, and it is reserved to a man and a woman.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued a document that called the church’s opposition to gay marriage “non-negotiable.” Just last year, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra founder of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Rome, said: “It’s impossible to consider oneself a Catholic if that person in one way or another recognizes same-sex marriage as a right.” In 1996, the U.S. Catholic bishops explained: “No same-sex union can realize the unique and full potential which the marital relationship expresses. For this reason, our opposition to ‘same-sex marriage’ is not an instance of unjust discrimination or animosity toward homosexual persons.” Of course, there is also about 2000 years of consistent Catholic teaching on top of these more recent statements. The politicians can’t complain that they were surprised.

Usually when a Catholic does something wrong or falls into sin, the priest or bishop will keep it confidential. Private sin is just that. A priest may provide some private guidance, but rare are the occasions when someone else’s sin is highlighted to others. The most notable exception is when someone – like a priest or a Catholic politician – does something that is already public and leaving it unaddressed would send the wrong message to the Catholic faithful. That’s what happened in New York.

As the National Catholic Reporter explained (in an article rather gleefully entitled: Catholic hierarchs lose marriage battle to Catholic laity), many of the lawmakers behind the New York legislation are or were at one time practicing Catholics. Taking just the most obvious representative, Governor Andrew Cuomo, who not only signed the bill but also was a strong force in seeing it get passed, is a “pro-choice, cohabitating divorcee,who receives communion when he attends Mass and reportedly takes his Catholicism seriously.” Lay Catholics who look at the governor may become confused about what it means to be a Catholic.

This past October, Archbishop Raymond Burke, head of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church apart from the pope himself, explained that Catholics in public life who “persistently violate the moral law” on abortion and homosexual marriage “lead many into confusion and or even error,” which does the “gravest harm to our brothers and sisters.” That is the risk in New York. To ignore this fact would be to suggest that the pro-gay marriage position is consistent with the Catholic Church’s position, and that could lead Catholics into confusion about their faith.

Archbishop Burke said: “When a person has publicly espoused and cooperated in gravely sinful acts, leading many into confusion and error about fundamental questions of respect for human life and the integrity of marriage and the family, his repentance of such actions must also be public.” Bishop DiMarzio is trying to do that – to correct the scandal publically and restore the authentic Catholic teaching. That is exactly what a good shepherd should do.

Ronald Rychlak  | Jun 30, 2011 7:17 AM