Mr. Moto, I have no idea what question you thought quoting that section of the catechism answered, but it wasn’t the question you quoted immediately before it.
The catechism is saying that, as long as the remarried couple practice abstinence (with each other) and repent for the sin of adultery, they should be treated as any other couple in the Church, eligible for full fellowship for themselves and their family. This is non-responsive to the question of how the Church treats the employees of its charitable organizations. Employees will not always be Catholic. We’re talking about employee benefits, not congregational fellowship.
Out of curiousity, does that section of the catechism also apply to same-sex couples who abstain but live together and sleep in the same bed as it does the couples it explicitly mentions? Seriously, this is just curiousity…it occurred to me while reading that section that the wording could appear to apply to same-sex couples as much as it applies to opposite-sex couples, given that the Church doesn’t explicitly condemn homosexual orientation, only the acting upon that attraction.
Moto, I think you’re clearly wrong that that’s a First Amendment violation as we currently understand the Amendment. Nobody seriously thinks that a church should be permitted to discriminate in providing spousal benefits to a mixed-race couple, but there are indubitably churches that consider interracial marriage sinful. Catholic Charities doesn’t have an obligation to provide spousal benefits at all, but if it does, it can’t discriminate on which spouses to cover.
This is to me, key. Right now, as I understand it, the catholic church can’t discriminate when providing spousal benefits to employees who are validly married under civil law to jewish husbands or wives, remarried husbands or wives, or husbands who were, at the time of marriage, catholic priests.
All of those are examples of civil marriages not recognized by the Catholic Church. The third category is, I would argue, at least as significant a violation of Catholic doctrine as same-sex marriage. However, I haven’t seen any examples of a Catholic organization (like Catholic Charities) objecting that it has to provide spousal benefits to employee spouses in the three categories I’ve listed.
The only kind of doctrinally invalid marriage the Catholic Church is making a stand about having to recognize is same-sex marriage. To me, this justification just doesn’t pass the smell test–because if Catholic Charities really had trouble with giving spousal benefits to those in doctrinally invalid marriages, they wouldn’t limit the objection to same-sex marriage.
We had a debate not too long ago about a church that was being prohibited from giving away food due to zoning laws. I think I started off the debate with one view, changed to another side, and switched back again…
Anyway, I was never quite clear how laws and regulations are read with respect to religious freedom. I seem to recall that so long as the law doesn’t single out churches for a different set of rules than businesses, then a law of general application would apply to churches as well – whether it is parking laws, the minimum wage, or spousal benefits. Am I in the ballpark here?
Absolutely wrong understanding of Catholic doctrine.
There’s a difference between a marriage that is simply not recognized by the Church as sacramentally valid, and a same-sex sexual liason that isn’t a marriage at all.
And there’s nothing that prevents a Catholic from marrying a Jew and having it be considered a valid, if not sacramentally valid, marriage.
Nor is there anything that makes a priest that marries automatically invalid. It’s true that Holy Orders is a impediment to matrimony, but that doesn’t make the marriage void.
Of course they can, as there is a specific employment exemption in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that permits this:
Now, I know that this has no applicability directly to hiring of gays and lesbians (as Title VII does not apply to them), but ISTM that a court would have to consider an organization’s First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion and free association - that is why this exemption was included in Title VII in the first place.
But in Massachusetts, where Catholic Charities pitched a bitch and cut off it’s nose to spite it’s face, “same-sex sexual liasons” *are *marriages. The church just don’t like it. Tough shit, I say.
Then I’d rather they be out of the picture. If they can’t comply with employment law (or anti-discrimination law which covers private entities using public monies for public uses), then they shouldn’t have the contract in the first place. Religious bigotry shouldn’t be condoned by government at any level. Good riddance, if they would choose to pull out of the arrangement they have. They can use their now 1/4 budget to do what they want.
First of all, we’re not talking about same-sex “Sexual liason[s].” We’re talking about same-sex marriage. Those are marriages. The Catholic Church may not think they are–but the District of Columbia, the State of Iowa, the State of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and (soon) New Hampshire all disagree.
So it’s just not clear what you’re trying to say. They are marriages–perhaps not in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but fully valid marriages under civil law. If what you mean by “valid” is sacramentally valid–there are plenty of examples of legal marriages that are not sacramentally valid. If you mean something else, please explain–since same sex marriages are, as I and Jack Batty point out, fully valid under state law.
Now let’s move on to the rest of your response.
To be clear: what we’re talking about here is a marriage that is legally valid, but not sacramentally valid. You seem to concede that.
The point is: how do you justify distinguishing one kind of legally valid but not sacramentally valid marriage from another kind of legally valid but sacramentally invalid marriage?
I note that your response doesn’t mention prior marriage. Is that because that is a diriment impairment–one that makes the marriage invalid, not valid but illicit as a matter of Catholic doctrine?
Or let me ask you more directly: Does the Catholic Church consider two people to be married if one was previously married, divorced under secular law, and the Church has taken no action to either annul the prior marriage or otherwise give a dispensation?
It’s absolutely true that nothing prevents a Jew and a Catholic entering into a valid marriage. On the other hand, in Iowa, there is nothing that prevents a Catholic man and another Catholic man entering into a valid marriage.
“Invalidly attempt” seems pretty clear to me on its face. “invalid” speaks for itself–and “attempt” suggests the Catholic Church doesn’t in fact find the marriage to be valid–you don’t “attempt” to marry if the Church considers the marriage valid.
If you want to be precise about doctrine, let’s go ahead. It’s easy to find examples of things that just aren’t marriages under canon law, but are valid civil marriages. A good example of this is what Catholic doctrine deems to be failures of consent. As I’m sure you know, under Catholic doctrine, a failure of consent means that there is no marriage at all. Correct? I don’t believe there are two or more levels of “not a marriage at all”–so I assume this is the same kind of “not a marriage” that you’re talking about with regard to same-sex marriage.
Now, as you and I think of consent, this isn’t a shocking statement. You can’t get married if you don’t agree. However, under catholic doctrine, failures of consent are far broader than “I didn’t say yes”-such that you can have a perfectly legal and consensual civil marriage where, in the eyes of the Church, there is no consent and no marriage.
Canon law offers a definition of consent:
Here is how the Archdiocese of Atlanta describes the second and third items on this list:
So according to the Archdiocese, a couple hasn’t “consented” to marriage in the eyes of the catholic church if they weren’t thinking about it too carefully, or if one of them was homosexual at the time of marriage, correct?
Now, I have to break it to you, but people can get legally married without thinking about it too carefully. Vegas. People can get legally married even if gay. See the former governor of New Jersey. They can do so such that there is no doubt about those problems. Those marriages are still perfectly legal under state law.
So your argument just doesn’t hold water: there are still plenty of civil marriages that Catholic doctrine doesn’t consider a marriage at all, but there is still no evidence that Catholic Charities, for example, opposes giving spousal benefits to those “legal civil marriages that are non-marriages according to Catholic doctrine”
And the state should set its own rules about what its paid agents can do. And when those rules conflict, just when my employer tells me that I’m going to have to start working nights and weekends, it’s up to me to decide if I want to change/compromise my personal rules, or get out of that job. It is not my employer’s job to change the job requirements in a predjudicial/first-amendment-breaking manner so that my personal rules can prevail.
Still waiting to hear how this is compelling the Catholic Church to offer benefits to same sex couples. Also waiting to hear what other laws there should be religious exemptions to, such as the ADA or ADEA? If no, what makes gays special to the extent that an organization in DC should be allowed to discriminate against gays because of religious reasons, but not the disabled or the elderly?
You seem to be suggesting that there are (at least) three kinds of marriage in the eyes of the Catholic Church ‘sacramentally valid’, ‘valid but not sacramental’ and ‘civil’.
What are the properties of a ‘valid but not sacramental’ marriage that would include all the marriages they are (presumably) currently paying employee spousal benefits for but does not include ‘civil’ marriages. And is there any reason a religiously-neutral government should care about anything except ‘civil’ marriages? Why should your government care enough about what church thinks of it’s marriages to write in exceptions for church charities?
Under DC law, organizations that have contracts with the city have to comply with DC’s anti-discrimination laws. So, because DC now allows gay marriage, if a gay employee of one of the charities associated with the Catholic Church that has a contract with the city gets married, the charity would have to give his or her partner the same benefits it would give the partner of a straight married employee. So it’s compelling the Catholic Church to offer benefits to same sex couples that way.
True. On the other hand, the “solicitude” you quote seems designed for those who
It seems to recognize that full repentance is not possible–that it is unrealistic to demand that a loving couple split–and that the priesthood must try to limit the harm caused by having to choose between their life and their faith.
The quote seems to endorse the value of encouraging people to participate in the church to the extent they can–not to drive away couples who believe, and who want to bring their children up in a Christian manner. Now you may argue for limits–but it seems to me that this justification applies on its own terms to a gay couple who believe, and who want to raise their children in the Catholic faith.
And insofar as this is about how to approach Catholics who violate some element of Catholic doctrine, you’re quite right.
On the other hand, it’s a bit of a strawman. No same-sex marriage advocate I’ve heard of is demanding that catholic doctrine recognize their marriage as sacramentally valid. They are demanding recognition that the marriage is legally valid to the extent the Church treats employees differently if they are legally married–for example, by giving benefits to employees’ spouses only if they are legally married as a matter of secular, civil law.
Whether or not the Catholic Church should, as a matter of doctrine, repudiate or endorse same-sex marriage is just not something I care about–I respect the right of the Catholic church to define its doctrine however it wants. On the other hand, employment benefits do not seem to me to be a question of doctrine. The Catholic Church isn’t offering “solicitude” to a Jewish man working at Catholic Charities–it’s offering him a job. It’s engaging in a business transaction–not a religious act.
That employee and his wife don’t accept Catholic doctrine. They don’t think their lifestyle is anything other than consistent with God’s law. Their marriage is, according to their faith, entirely valid. They don’t want to raise their children as Christian. They are, in other words, not at all who your quoted catechism is talking about–and yet Catholic Charities has no problem offering the wife spousal benefits. Solicitude" doesn’t seem to me to have anything to do with Catholic Charities giving our hypothetical jewish spouse benefits–Especially given Catholic Charities’ position that the Jewish couple I describe are entitled to benefits if they are heterosexual, but not if they are homosexual.
The fact that as a matter of religious doctrine, there may be limits on this “solicitude” just doesn’t affect whether, as a matter of civil law, a couple is married or not. Nor does it affect whether any organization chooses whether to give benefits to those couples who are legally married under secular law–or whether they should be compelled not to discriminate among valid civil marriages in the context of a commercial and secular employment relationship.
But it isn’t. It is saying if you give straight married couples benefits, you must offer the same benefits to gay married couples. Because, you know, they are both married. The Catholic Church retains the option to not offer spousal benefits. No one is compelling them to insure the homos.
Exactly. This would be a very different debate if the Catholic Church was saying “we will only give benefits to those who are in sacramentally valid marriages.” That’s not what’s going on here.
Historically, Catholic Charities has said “we will give benefits to those in legally valid marriages.” The determination of whether Catholic Charities gave a spouse benefits simply didn’t involve Catholic doctrine before same-sex marriage–it was just a matter of whether the marriage was legal. That gave benefits to a lot of couples in marriages that were not valid as a matter of Catholic doctrine.
So in fact, not giving benefits to those in legally valid same-sex marriages is a change of policy for Catholic Charities. It’s putting doctrine into a decision where it wasn’t before. And, as many have pointed out, it’s putting in doctrine in a hypocritical way–wanting doctrine to matter for legally married couples who are both the same sex, but continuing not to condition benefits on doctrine for legally married couples that consist of a man and a woman.
It would be a formal change in policy for Catholic Charities, but it would be one that would maintain the status quo ante. Because the policy of Catholic Charities was, even before this law passed, that they’d give benefits to those in legally valid opposite-sex marriages. It’s not like Catholic Charities used to think that discriminating against gay couples in terms of benefits was wrong and then changed their mind. They supported discriminating against gay couples in terms of benefits before the law was passed…it just wasn’t an issue that came up very often.
Now you can say that the Catholic church shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation, and I’d agree with you, but their long term position has been that they should be allowed to do so.