This program is from RealCatholicTV.com
Oh boy! This is seriously bad.
Archbishop Peter Smith has issued a statement on the Government's equality legislation that seeks to make civil partnerships available in religious premises.
'The Government statement on 17 February makes it clear that they are now considering a fundamental change to the status of marriage. That is something which was never envisaged by the Equality Act or any other legislation passed by Parliament. Marriage does not belong to the State any more than it belongs to the Church. It is a fundamental human institution rooted in human nature itself. It is a lifelong commitment of a man and a woman to each other, publicly entered into, for their mutual well-being and for the procreation and upbringing of children. No authority - civil or religious - has the power to modify the fundamental nature of marriage. We will be opposing such a change in the strongest terms.
The Equality Act was amended to permit Civil Partnerships on religious premises, which unhelpfully blurs the distinction previously upheld by Parliament and the Courts between marriage and civil partnerships. A consenting Minister is perfectly free to hold a religious ceremony either before or after a Civil Partnership. That is a matter of religious freedom, but it requires no legislation by the State. We do not believe it is either necessary or desirable to allow the registration of civil partnerships on religious premises. These will not take place in Catholic churches.'
Well done, Archbishop...and no, I do not believe that when he is describing a 'consenting Minister' who is 'perfectly free to hold a religious ceremony either before or after a Civil Partnership' which is a 'matter of religious freedom', that he is describing a Catholic 'Minister'. I assume that he is describing a 'Minister' of a more liberal denomination that is not associated in any way with the Catholic Church. I certainly hope so anyway, since even a 'consenting Minister' of the Catholic Church is not 'free' to hold a religious ceremony either before or after a Civil Partnership.' I hope, pray and indeed trust that the Archbishop is not condoning the 'blessing' of same-sex unions by Catholic Priests. It would certainly seem out of sync with the rest of the statement for his words to be interpreted that way. Sadly, however, we are living in an age in which we are given ample opportunity to be pessimistic about the orthodoxy of many Bishops, more evidence of which is supplied by Michael Voris in the video above.
1 comment:
Laurence, great blog, but this is incorrect. Marriage is not "a lifelong commitment of a man and a woman to each other" - we know the early Christians did not see marriage as a life-long contract. 'Marriage' was a contract obliging a female to produce a child within three years for a bonded male. After this time the contract was annulled. This is
why the early Church fathers explicitly advised Christians not to marry. Marriage was never a part of the Christian faith - our duty is to God as individuals, it is not to marry into sex as beings of the world. I think the modern (post-V2) Church has made grave concessions to the world here - the early Church did not tell us this. The homosexual paedophile agenda that has corrupted our church is to blame- once the evil is smoked out of the vatican and we have the pious back in power Christ will rise again
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