Catholic Church Condemns Same Sex Marriage

by Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference

The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference reiterates the Church’s teaching as laid out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2357

‘Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex.

It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. 

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law.  They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.  Under no circumstances can they be approved’.

To summarize: All homosexual acts are declared to be intrinsically disordered. Therefore they cannot under any circumstance be approved.

The reasons why they are said to be intrinsically disordered are:

They are contrary to the natural law,

They close the sexual act to the gift of life and

They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.

Scripture passages that the Church uses for its teaching include this passage from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

For this reason, God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (Rom 1: 26)

Relevant Questions

Among the questions being asked about the Church’s reaction to the Constitutional Court’s ruling are the following:

Can the Church impose its values on society?

The answer depends on a number of considerations:

If human beings do not have a Creator, in other words, if human beings have total knowledge, wisdom and power to create themselves, then the answer is No. The Church cannot impose its values on anyone, because the Church takes its authority from the infinite God.

If the Church and Society believe and accept as a given that there is an all holy, all knowing and all powerful God who created everything including human beings, and created them to exist and live according to his Will and Laws, then the Church not only can but also must proclaim and work for the acceptance and submission to the values that God has revealed to us.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, so how can the Catholic Church take issue with it?

It is true that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but in order to be binding on the consciences of its citizens it must conform to the Law of God. And in this case it clearly does not.

Indeed if the S.A. Constitution is being made to supersede the revealed will of God then South Africa is morally doomed. For no one can go against God’s Will and come away unscathed.

The fact that same sex marriages are approved by the Constitutional Court, that does not make them morally right.

The Church has the prophetic duty to point out where the Constitution runs counter to the Commandments of God, our Maker’s Instructions which determine how human beings are to live good and moral lives.

What is the Church going to do about this situation?

Taking our lead from the Scriptures our first action is Prayer, prayer for a change of heart on the part of all who are responsible for flaunting God’s Law;

Second we will continue teaching and preaching the truth revealed by God’s Word about human sexuality and its proper use in marriage.

Thirdly we will mobilize the Faithful and all people of goodwill to work together to save our nation and country from the disasters that befall any people that turns its back on its God.

The legalizing of same sex marriages is doomed to have a morally deleterious effect on the institution of the family, traditionally defined as the permanent union between husband and wife.

+ Wilfrid Cardinal Napier, OFM

President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference

This item 7522 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org