BABIES, SEX, AND SSM: Fr. Jim Tucker replies to Donald Sensing

[I'm going to reply later today--Eve.]

When I prepare couples for the sacrament of matrimony, I ask them why they think marriage exists. With a bit of pushing and prodding, we usually end up with the double purpose of loving support of each other through life and of bringing children into the world and rearing them. I ask them what characterizes marriage and makes it different from other kinds of relationships, and (with a bit more pushing and prodding) we end up with the three traits: a one-to-one fidelity, a lifelong permanence, and an openness to children. It's important for us to go over this, I think, because society at large no longer shares this vision in its entirety. What a Catholic means by marriage cannot simply be a reflection of what society today means by that same word. ...

The traditional Catholic system of sexual morality comes from natural law reasoning. Although it includes some elements of biblical citation and custom, these are typically mere reinforcements of a line of thinking that is already complete without them. We could state the basic idea in this way: the sexual act has as its fundamental (though not exclusive) purpose the procreation of children; any use of the sexual faculty that deliberately precludes the possibility of children is to some degree contrary to the natural law and, therefore, sinful. There are more modern ways to express that same idea or to frame it in personalist terms (as in the Wojtylan theology of the body), but the traditional argument is a philosophical one from natural law. Because sex between members of the same sex is always ipso facto going to be closed to procreation, Catholic morality prohibits it. And, because procreation is inherently impossible in such cases, the Church does not marry people of the same sex. Again, the argument is from natural law. In fact, the prohibition of same-sex marriages comes from the same principle that prohibits contraception.

So, this brings us to a point that is very problematic for the bulk of people opposing SSM in the United States. On what grounds can one effectively oppose it? ...

It is, I think, legitimate to debate whether same-sex marriage might not further the degeneration and to work against it for that reason. But, at the same time that everyone's pointing fingers, it would be good for us to ask ourselves to what degree we've contributed to the mess in which marriage finds itself. There's more than enough blame to go around.

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posted by Eve at 11:06 AM VOTE

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