No.
The document contains arguments from reason intended to support a rejection of such a law. It does not purport to be a definitive teaching applicable to each and every instance where such a law is being considered. Ultimately, and especially where a document invokes an examination of conscience, it remains for the individual to examine his conscience.
Sure, but it also says that “the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.” and "In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. "
So it seems to be saying, "It’s the duty of the individual to examine his conscience and do what it tells him, providing it tells him to oppose gay marriage. It doesn’t seem to admit of any situation where your conscience could tell you to support gay marriage.
It seems like it’s using the same language that the Doctrinal Note on Catholics in Political Life is using.
I’ve bolded the word I think is important. Bricker is an individual expressing his opinion, not a law-maker. Bricker the congressperson couldn’t vote for it, but Bricker the citizen can still stay it’s a good idea. (And this is why it’s a good idea for the courts to make the decision instead of lawmakers.)
And I still don’t understand this separation between secular and sacred. If Christianity is correct, all is sacred. The reason why homosexual marriage is okay even if you think homosexuality is a mortal sin is because homosexual marriage is NOT a mortal sin. The sin has already occurred. Allowing homosexual marriage does not in any way encourage people to become homosexuals.
(Not that I believe that homosexuality is a mortal sin nor that people can “become” homosexuals except through extraordinary means [like that guy who had a stroke].)
Sorry to go a big GD on you guys, but I feel like the comments I am responding to have already went that direction. The OP is answered: the Catechism is the closest to what he is looking for.
I will be quoting from " CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS
TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION
TO UNIONS
BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS"
I do not represent that I agree with any of what I am quoting. I am however trying to correct the misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the Church’s teachings.
But the Church teaches that Bricker, the Christian, cannot.
Note that this directive is not limited to lawmakers.
The Church does not believe that even a completely chaste marriage between two people of the same sex is permissible. And further, they do not believe that this is a case of “render unto Cesar.” Marriage is an institution created by God before any civil authority existed and (again, in their view) no civil authority has the right to marry anyone but one man and one woman.
You can disagree with the Church’s teachings, but you cannot pretend that the Church has not given explicit instruction to all Catholics, lawmakers or not, that they are to do all in their power to oppose laws that would allow same-sex marriage.
And there’s another important term; “to vote in favour of the law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral”.
In addressing the role of the state, the Catholic moral tradition had never held that it is the business of the state to prohibit or penalise a particular behaviour merely because it is considered to be immoral. Which is why the Catholic tradition is fine with, say, adultery or prostitution not being criminalised.
It’s not, in the Catholic view, the business of the state to enforce general morality; it’s the business of the state to uphold the common good. There’s a large overlap there, obviously; acts of violence, fraud, etc are both immoral and contrary to the common good. Nevertheless the two concepts are distinct.
So, in relation to lawmakers, the document doesn’t say that they must oppose gay marriage because gay relationships are immoral and endorsing or recognising them supports immorality; the claim is that endorsing or recognising them as marriage is contrary to the common good; it injures the community in some way.
But discerning the common good is clearly a matter of judgment; of the application of principles and values to real facts and situations. For example, is the common good served by prohibiting alcohol, or by licensing it, or by allowing a free-for-all? Is the common good served by having a low driving age and a high drinking age, or the other way around? Is the common good served by prohibiting gambling, or by regulating it? By free education, or student loans? These are weighty moral issues, but there can legitimately be different opinions on them, and you can arrive at different answers in different circumstances. Laws concerning alcohol, say, that might work quite well in the US might work very badly elsewhere, or vice versa.
Answering questions like these is the vocation of the legislator, not the bishop. Bishops may have opinions on them - strong opinions, possibly even well-argued and well-reasoned opinions - but, still, questions like this are not within the range of matters of “faith or morals” on which the church claims to offer definitive teaching.
Everything you quoted is in a document which is introduced by the words I quoted in post 41.
Which means that everything you quoted is arguments drawn from reason which could be used by Bishops in preparing more specific interventions, *appropriate to the different situations throughout the world, * aimed at protecting and promoting the dignity of marriage, the foundation of the family, and the stability of society, of which this institution is a constitutive element, your attempt to transform it into binding commands notwithstanding.
Correct, and an outstanding post to boot.