Marini on Same-Sex Unions: Currying Favor with Pope Francis?

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 24, 2013

Archbishop Piero Marini’s support for legal recognition of same-sex unions is interesting for several reasons. Marini is the president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses, and he made his statements in an interview in connection with the current National Eucharistic Congress in Costa Rica.

The first point of interest is the Eucharistic context itself. While promoting the deepest mystery of Christ’s Presence in His Church, it is certainly striking to imply that there is a right for gay persons to have their unions recognized in law. It is also very dangerous to mix dubious opinions willy-nilly with articles of Faith.

The second point of interest is the Archbishop’s strange logic when he portrays recognition of same-sex unions as necessary since “there are many couples that suffer because their civil rights aren’t recognized.” This would appear to be a kind of tautology—namely, the elementary logical error of assuming what one wishes to prove.

It is important to note Archbishop Marini’s statement that Catholics must oppose the effort to define same-sex unions as marriage. I will also grant that government could conceivably have an interest in recognizing same-sex unions in some other way, and that Catholics could legitimately prefer the recognition of same-sex civil unions to the recognition of same-sex marriage. It is, I think, just barely short of immoral under all circumstances for a Catholic to support such recognition.

But it is at least very difficult to see how, on any sound understanding of the human social order, the recognition of same-sex unions can serve the common good. It is also difficult to see why government should have an interest in protecting this sort of union, which can only further weaken the very foundation of the social order, namely the family. The presumption, then, must be this: A Catholic may, under some circumstances, morally tolerate such recognition, but never desire it for its own sake.

The final point of interest is that Marini used the interview as an opportunity to take thinly veiled shots at Pope Emeritus Benedict while praising Pope Francis. Yet the problems he pointed to under Pope Benedict do not appear to have been caused by Benedict, and they have certainly not disappeared (at least, not yet) under Pope Francis. The whole interview would seem to be both logically flawed and, to put it mildly, unseemly.

In fact, based on what appears to be a conventional liberal mythology of the new pontificate, Archbishop Marini actually seems to be currying favor. Personally, I would not take the bet that Pope Francis will be pleased. In any case, it remains true that Eucharistic Congresses are great occasions of grace. And that the willingness to cooperate with grace remains a separate question.