May 10, 2012
Catholic Hierarchy Jumps From Bashing Nuns To Bashing Gays
Bishops forget Theology 101
By Daniel C. Maguire
"Cardinal Dolan: President Obama's remarks on marriage are 'deeply
saddening'."
According to the Catholic teaching on conscience called Probabilism, in a debated
moral issue where there are good authorities and good reasons on both sides,
a Catholic’s conscience is free to choose either the liberal or the conservative
view and may not be held to the more rigorous position.
On the issue of same sex marriage, there are multiple authorities, Catholic,
Protestant, Jewish, and other world religions who approve of same sex marriage.
(Catholic defenses of same sex marriage are found in CHALLENGE TO LOVE: CATHOLIC
VIEWS OF HOMOSEXUALITIY, edited by Robert Nugent, Crosssroads, 1983, with a
foreword by Bishop Walter Sullivan. To see these positive views of Catholic
theologians and other religious authorities, cf Marvin M Ellison and Judith
Plaskow, Editors, HETEROSEXISM IN CONTEMPORARY WORLD RELIGION: Problem and Prospect
, The Pilgrim Press, 2007.)
Therefore
Archbishop Dolan (left) and the United States Catholic Conference are misrepresenting
“Catholic teaching” on this issue; they are violating the religious
liberty of those who approve of same sex marriage and do so with sound religious
warranty, and they are wading into politics bashing Obama with their idiosyncratic
minority viewpoint. This violates Catholic teaching on the freedom and integrity
of conscience.
Silence now from the rest of the Catholic Church would be worse than “deeply
saddening.”