by Hilary White
OTTAWA, March 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com/CatholicCulture.org) – A US-based website that assesses other Catholic, pro-life and family sites has rated the website of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) with a “Caution” on fidelity to the teaching of the Church on marriage and homosexuality.
CatholicCulture.org lists the CCCB’s website strengths: its “usability” is “excellent” and “Resources” are “good”. However, the CCCB’s fidelity to the Church gets a “Caution.”“The CCCB’s document on the Church’s teaching on homosexuality misstates what the actual teachings are.”
A link on CatholicCulture.org compares a 1997 CCCB document that purported to give the Church’s teaching on homosexuality with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The CCCB document says that the Church does not concern itself with the disorder itself but only with the nature of the acts. The CCCB statement says, “To have a tendency or inclination does not involve the moral order. It is neither morally good nor morally wrong… Therefore when the Church speaks about homosexuality as an ‘objective disorder’, it is speaking not of the tendency but of genital acts between people of the same sex.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, section 2358, however, reads, “This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of (those who experience it) a trial.”
The second citation on CatholicCulture.org shows the CCCB misrepresents the Church’s teaching on marriage. It says, “The CCCB, while working to protect marriage itself, has condoned other forms of same-sex ‘unions’.”
The site gives three examples; all appear to show the CCCB endorses giving some kind of legal or social legitimacy to homosexual unions while carefully skirting an unequivocal commitment to the Church’s teaching.
One 2003 letter reads, “Since the very beginnings of this debate, we have acknowledged there is a desire to give formal protection to other forms of adult personal relationships which also involve commitment, mutual care, and emotional and financial interdependence. We remain convinced solutions can be found without proceeding to a radical redefinition of marriage.”
The site quotes a letter from March 2005, titled, “Does marriage have to be redefined in Canada?” that says, “The issue here is not preventing same-sex partners from being together…It is important to recognize and protect the rights of same-sex partners.”
Whereas the Catholic Church, through the office of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), teaches, “Moral conscience requires that, in every occasion, Christians give witness to the whole moral truth.”
The CDF gives several suggestions to accomplish this including, “unmasking the way in which such tolerance might be exploited or used in the service of ideology; stating clearly the immoral nature of these unions; reminding the government of the need to contain the phenomenon.”
Read the documents cited:
MARRIAGE IN THE PRESENT DAY
https://www.cccb.ca/Files/marriagemessage.html
Does Marriage Have to be Redefined in Canada?
https://ocvf.cccb.ca/Files/Flashes-Marriage.html
Brief on Bill C-38,
https://www.cccb.ca/Files/CCCBBrief_BillC-38.html
CatholicCulture.org:
https://catholiculture.org/sites/site_view.cfm?recnum=2554
To express your concerns
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
2500 Don Reid Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1H 2J2
Canada
(613) 241-9461
(613) 241-9048 (fax)
[email protected]