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Catholic World News News Feature

Calgary bishop stands firm despite persecution May 03, 2005

Bishop Frederick Henry of Calgary, Alberta, has sent out a second pastoral letter to his diocese, repeating the Church's teaching on homosexuality found in his first letter sent in January that subsequently drew a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

"Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution, and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the State must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good," he wrote in January, resulting in two as of yet unresolved complaints being filed with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Over the weekend Bishop Henry repeated the statement in another pastoral letter and expounded on it.

In the current letter, Bishop Henry talks about "homosexuality, adultery, prostitution, and pornography," and says that "Each, in its own way, undermines the foundations of the family." He notes that the list "was never meant to be exhaustive as the Catechism of the Catholic Church also mentions: divorce, fornication, rape, etc."

"The State obviously responds to each of these threats to family life in different ways as it exercises its coercive power," says Bishop Henry. "The government has a solemn obligation to protect, not re-engineer, an institution that is more fundamental to human life than the State. In a word, it must 'build fences' to protect the institution of marriage."

Bishop Henry clarifies that "The coercive power of the state extends to traffic laws, tax policy, education curriculum, communication regulations, and a whole host of other areas including marriage." He notes that "in the case of marriage, federal legislation prohibits people from marrying if they are related linearly or as brother and sister, whether by whole blood, half blood, or by adoption."

The bishop confronts those who have accused him of human rights violations saying, "This is not a fascist or Hitler-like position, nor even an anti-homosexual stance, but it reflects Christian teaching on the primordial status of marriage and family life."