Baltimore priest preaches on his support for same-sex marriage

October 30, 2012

A priest who has served as pastor the same Baltimore parish since 1973 has preached in favor of same-sex marriage, gaining a standing ovation from his parishioners.

“I will continue to stand in genuine awe of all those couples--straight, gay and lesbian--whose day-to-day, year-to-year, and decade-to-decade faithfulness to each other is to me a sacrament, a believable embodied sign, of the absolute faithfulness of God to us all,” said Father Richard T. Lawrence, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church, after reading a letter by Archbishop William Lori urging Catholics to vote against an amendment that would permit same-sex marriage in Maryland.

“We could come to recognize the total, exclusive and permanent union of gay and lesbian couples as part of the sacrament of matrimony,” he continued. “Even if we do not believe that gay marriage ever could or should be allowed in the Church, we could live with a provision that allows civil marriage of gay and lesbian couples.”

“Personally, however, I would go farther than that,” he said. “I personally believe that this is a possible line of future development in theology and perhaps eventually even in Church teaching. And if this is even a possibility, could we not judge that civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples ought to be allowed by the state at this time?”

“Could not civil law be allowed to progress where Church law cannot go, at least not yet?” Father Lawrence added. “Personally, I believe that it can and that it should.”

“So there you have it: the official teaching of the Church and my personal reflections.”

 

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Further information:

• Baltimore pastor speaks his mind in homily on same-sex marriage (National Catholic Reporter)
• A Parish and Its Pastor: A Perfect Fit (2008) (Catholic Review)