Letters

Truth about marriage

Name and Address Supplied

Contents - Jun 2013 - Buy a copy now Homily: Benedict XVI's Corpus Christi homily - Pope Benedict XVI Pope begins reform of the Vatican Curia - Peter Westmore News: The Church Around the World Youth: Melbourne to host Australian Catholic Youth Festival - Br Barry Coldrey St Joseph the Worker: Pope Francis: Work is essential to the dignity of the person Farcical history: the 'Gospel of Jesus' wife' - Frank Mobbs Redefining marriage: what of the rights of children? - Denise Hunnell The strange story of Mr Douglas Hyde - Damian Wyld Why we need the Rosary - Cedric Wright The Boston bombings: facing the reality of evil in the world - Bishop Arthur Serratelli The elephant in the sanctuary - Paul MacLeod Letters: Rights of children - Arnold Jago Letters: Truth about marriage - Name and Address Supplied Letters: Year of Faith - Edward P. Evans Letters: Liturgical heritage - 'Temple Policeman' Books: YOUCAT: Youth Prayer Book, by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: SEXUALITY EXPLAINED, by Louise Kirk - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: SAINTS WHO SAW MARY, by Raphael Brown - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: AGE OF MARTYRS: from Diocletian to Constantine, Abbot Joseph Ricciotti - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA: a Personal Portrait, by Msgr Leo Maasburg - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: Marriage: a reflection of Christ's love for us - Fr Paul Chandler

Marriage is both a personal and a public institution for the good of society. It predates religious and state laws as a law of nature.

It requires one man and one woman to live together for mutual support, to have marital relations only with each other and to jointly raise any children of their union.

Even couples unable to have children give witness by their marital acts to the inherent life-giving orientation to procreation which exists in a marriage.

However, some today through misguided sympathies seek to redefine marriage by including same-sex unions, which really work to undermine marriage, because then it would become no longer the institution founded in the natural order for procreation. Rather, it would become something primarily centred on the desires and emotions of adults.

The misguided good intentions of many are based on the philosophical misconception about the nature of equality.

Equality can never be an absolute value, but only a derivative and relative value. After all, a man cannot be a mother nor a woman a father, so they can never be absolutely equal, but only relatively equal because they are biologically different.

So in marriage they are different and not absolutely, but relatively equal. This is why same-sex unions are not being excluded from marriage, they simply cannot be marriage by definition. This is not discrimination.

To succumb to the clamour of a minority for the sake of peace – or because it seems "inevitable" that we equate same-sex unions with marriage – would be appeasement. It would destroy the very nature, meaning and purpose of marriage and would be bitterly regretted.

Marriage, the home, children, and the family life this generates, are the foundation and basic building blocks of society.

Already marriage and family life are under attack by so many pressures today – social, economic, political – that to formally institutionalise the desires of a tiny minority for same-sex unions to be called "marriage" will further destroy the basis of society which is true marriage.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 26 No 5 (June 2013), p. 16