From a Letter to the Editor by Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Diocese of Providence.
I write about the highly publicized attempt of two Rhode Island women to enter into a "same-sex marriage" in Massachusetts.
I’d like to stress that my remarks aren’t aimed personally at the individuals in question. I wish them no harm and I sincerely pray that God will bless them and the children with them with much health and happiness. Nonetheless, their attempt to have the state ratify their homosexual relationship is disturbing and morally objectionable.
God’s plan for the human race is obvious and immutable: "God created man in his image, in the divine image he created them, male and female he created them. . . . For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." This clear testimony of the Bible is supported by the constant teaching of the church, the law of nature, the reality of biology and common sense. Males and females are complementary; they are designed for union with one another. The traditional concept of marriage, based on that relationship, is normative, fundamental to the human person and essential for the common good of society.
Contrary to some current ideologies, this teaching does not discriminate against homosexual persons. The Catholic Church has consistently taught that homosexual persons are children of God, our brothers and sisters, and must be respected. Nonetheless we have to recognize the possibility, sometimes even the necessity, of respecting individuals even while opposing their immoral behavior. Likewise, it’s not a question of civil rights as some have claimed. There’s never a right to do something wrong. Human freedom is not unbridled license; it must be grounded in truth.
The facts are these: Homosexual acts are contrary to the law of nature and gravely immoral; The notion of gay marriage or civil unions is spiritually harmful to individuals and families and erodes the foundation of society; The state has no business encouraging immoral behavior or ratifying illicit unions.
I hope and pray that the State of Rhode Island will not follow Massachusetts in traveling down this dangerous and dead-end highway.
THOMAS J. TOBIN
6 comments
I could accept homosexual marraige if they had to deal with the crisies hetereos face, you know: You forgot to pick up the dry cleaning/pay the electric bill/worm the dog/go to Junior’s play/ballgame/PTA meeting. Gays should have to suffer the same miseries of Did you drink all the OJ again and spill it all over my shirt which I told you not to borrow and why did you put the carton back empty and stop drinking it out of the carton why can’t you ever use a glass would it kill you to wash them! as the rest of us.
Its always so heart-warming and encouraging to hear a Bishop speak with such clarity and charity.
However, I think this same exercise in journalism bears a fatal flaw: the opponents to Truth (biological science, Natural Law and Divine Revelation) don’t ever appear to take the time to answer a reasonable objection with reason. You know that the good Bishop will be lambasted for being “homophobic” and “discriminitory” and all sorts of ad hominim attacks. Not once will the actual content and argumetns of his letter be addressed.
How do you argue with reason to a world of lunacy?
“How do you argue with reason to a world of lunacy?”
Dear Matthew-John, you don’t even try. The only thing we can do is pray for them. And try to keep their loony pronouncements and attacks from affecting our own reason!
Hey, that’s my bishop! We have been blessed lavishly by God in His gift of our fearless, just, kind and accessible Bishop Tobin who writes to us via The Providence Visitor faithfully every other week, answers our letters, advocates for our poor, our immigrants and especially our unborn babies and the sacredness of holy matrimony. No doubt he is called many names for his efforts but without a doubt, we, in my liberal Catholic state, NEED this bishop’s guidance and witness to Christ. All prayers are welcome and appreciated!
Well, praise God for this courageous man!
May the world be blessed with more bishops like him.
Nothing that exists is unnatural. Contrary to nature? If that were true then how do you explain male Humback Whales that sing and attract each other during mating season? Computers, Guns, all that stuff are just products of nature. Just because it dosen’t grow on a tree dosen’t mean it isn’t produced by nature. You can’t justify disapproving of something simply for being what it is. I can hate spiders for being pests but that dosen’t mean they’re gonna change. Y’know 30 or so years ago interacial marriage was also seen as an abomination and an immoral act against God. But how does society view it now?
You know what? It dosen’t even matter how much you try to fight it. Dosen’t matter how much you despise it. Blacks were oppressed for being what they were too but they got their rights and even today there are people who don’t approve. What i’m trying to say is that the world is gonna change wether you want it to or not. It’s not like gays just suddently appeared in a puff of smoke! Let me try to make you see it another way. Lets see, before we had phycologist people with schizophrenia were viewed as possesed sinners by the mass majority because they didn’t understand it. So what do narrow minded people do when faced with something they don’t understand? They hate it, fear it, and act as though they understand. *sigh* Why am I trying to convince religous people they’re wrong? I’m better off trying to convince a chimpanzee it’s a chimpanzee.
If you don’t remember anything I type just remember this, you can bitch and moan all you want but the sun is still gonna set in the west and rise in the east.
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