The number of couples who choose to live together without marriage has risen dramatically in the past fifty years, from near zero to 60%. For Catholics the percentage is almost 50%. One subject regarding this which has received little attention is that of the religious dilemma for a couple who claim Catholicism (or any Christian religion) as their faith.
Why Cohabit?
Why do couples choose to cohabit? Two out of three do so to test their compatibility with each other.1 They assume that if they live together for a time they will better prepared for a marriage and will thereby avoid divorce. It is easy to see why that conclusion might be intuitively assumed.
Alas, it just isn’t so. A large number of studies in the latter part of the twentieth century showed that living together before marriage increased the chances of divorce once married. However, a number of studies between 2010 and 2014 concluded that living together before marriage had no effect on divorce rates.2 Then, in 2018, Rosenfeld and Roesler carried out a new study that showed pre-marital cohabitation does indeed increase the chances of divorce down the line.3
In an article about divorce rates for cohabitors which didn’t consider Rosenfeld and Roesler, Brett and Kate McKay wrote:
What’s important to note here, however, is that while there may be emerging evidence that cohabitation isn’t harmful to marriage stability, there isn’t any evidence that it is helpful. It may not increase your chances of getting a divorce, but it doesn’t at all decrease them, either.4
Moral Issue
The first issue is that of pre-marital sex. Sacred Scripture has some things to say about fornication, that is any sexual intercourse between unmarrieds:
…[Jesus said] From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy . . . All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.5 (emphasis added)
St. Paul had something similar to say:
Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.6 (emphasis added)
It should be clear from this that fornication is a serious matter, the matter of mortal sin.7 The Church makes this explicit: “According to Christian tradition and the Church’s teaching, and as right reason also recognizes, the moral order of sexuality involves such high values of human life that every direct violation of this order is objectively serious.”8
St. Pope John Paul II taught this in different words in 1987:
It is sometimes reported that a large number Catholics today do not adhere to the teachings of the Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage. Some are reported as not accepting the Church’s clear position on abortion. It has also been noted that there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in their adherence to the Church’s moral teachings. It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a “good Catholic” and poses no obstacle to the reception of the sacraments. This is a grave error . . . (Address in Los Angeles, 9/16/87)
Being unable to receive the sacraments means one is not in the state of grace, but is in the state of mortal sin. This has serious implications regarding a person’s candidacy for salvation.
Fatima visionary St. Jacinta Marto reported before she died that the Blessed Mother told her, “More souls go to hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.”9 She received that message in 1920. If one watches TV, reads the news, or uses the Internet, it should be clear that sins of the flesh have multiplied manifold since 1920.
Public Sin
It is not unreasonable to presume that a romantically involved couple that live together are fornicating. But there is more than the sin of fornication here. It’s living in sin publicly. A cohabiting couple doesn’t hide the fact that they are living in sin. That is far more serious than fornicating. They’ve gone public with it.
They are, whether they intend it or not, setting an example for others by their behavior. Although setting an example is usually far from their intention, it is de facto an example, one which they are willing to tolerate to achieve their goal.
In other words, the influence their actions have on their siblings, their nieces and nephews, their friends, etc. is something for which they are responsible.
How serious is that? Here is what Jesus had to say about it:
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come! (Mt. 18:6-7)
That’s pretty strong, no?
Now some may say, “Well, in this day and age, living together is hardly scandalous.” It’s true that due to the prevalence of this behavior, the number of those who might be scandalized is much lower than it was thirty or forty years ago. Nonetheless, it would be naïve to think that no young person would be negatively influenced by a sibling or relative cohabiting. Our goal as followers of Christ is to set a different example than that of the world. Even if we prevented one child from pursuing cohabitation when she entered adulthood, it would be worth it to refrain from it ourselves.
The Dilemma
So here is the dilemma: a Catholic unmarried couple living together must either admit to themselves that they are publicly living in mortal sin, or they have to reject the Biblical teaching that fornication is wrong. Option two would be unthinkable for a follower of Christ. Of course, a third option would be to try not to deal with the issue. But, in order to marry in the Church, they have to deal with it.
If they marry in the Church, and they marry another Christian, they participate in the sacrament of Matrimony. But to participate in this sacrament in the state of mortal sin is a sacrilege. So, it is important for the couple, or at least the Catholic party, to learn the Church’s teaching on sexual morality and its Biblical origins and, as a minimum, to embrace it as truth. If they do that, and confess their sins before the wedding, a sacrilege is avoided.
That doesn’t solve the scandal issue, but it is a step in the right direction. What would be better is if the couple chose to live separately before the wedding to manifest their acceptance that pre-marital cohabitation is contrary to the Biblically based teaching of the Church. A good number of couples have done that in the past. Some have said they are very happy they did live separately for that time.
At the very least they should live in separate rooms and attempt to live chastely before the wedding. I have seen many couples do that as well. One such couple told their priest that doing so improved their relationship a good deal.
There have been a number of saints who cohabited for several years before their conversion. The most notable were St. Augustine (14 years) and St. Margaret of Cortona (9 years). After their conversions they prayed and did penance for many years for their former sinful life, which they deeply regretted. They should give us all hope.
If a couple really wants to avoid divorce, they should commit to praying together daily. A 1997 Gallup Poll done by the National Association of Marriage Enhancement (nameonline.net) showed the divorce rate among couples who pray together regularly is 1 out of 1,152.10 That’s less than 0.1%. The national divorce rate is 40% (and perhaps more for cohabitors). There is no law against couples starting to pray before they marry.
How much better to do something to prevent divorce that helps their relationship with God, rather than do what harms that relationship. The need for grace in marriage is far more important than testing compatibility so as to avoid greater odds of divorce. And, as we saw above, living together doesn’t reduce those odds anyway.
Couples who are seeking to marry in the Catholic Church should use this time of matrimonial preparation to take stock of their relation to Christ and their level of commitment to live the Catholic faith. The Lord promised us a cross if we would follow him. Do we really want to follow him?
Jesus expects a great deal. But he gives a great deal more.
“Should You Live Together Before Marriage?” by Brett and Kate McKay • June 7, 2017 • Last updated: September 5, 2020. At www.artofmanliness.com/articles/live-together-marriage/. ↩
These studies included: Copen, Daniels, Vespa, and Mosher in 2012; Reinhold in 2010; Manning and Cohen 2012. (from https://ifstudies.org/blog/premarital-cohabitation-is-still-associated-with-greater-odds-of-divorce). ↩
They agreed that chances of divorce were lower in the first year of marriage, but for every year thereafter the chances are higher. See “Premarital Cohabitation Is Still Associated With Greater Odds of Divorce,” OCTOBER 17, 2018 by Scott Stanley, @DECIDEORSLIDE, and Galena Rhoades, https://ifstudies.org/blog/premarital-cohabitation-is-still-associated-with-greater-odds-of-divorce. ↩
“Should You Live Together Before Marriage?” by Brett and Kate McKay, op. cit. They added, “While more recent research showed that, even when controlling for selection factors, married couples who had lived together before getting married (or engaged) ‘had more negative interactions, lower interpersonal commitment, lower relationship quality, and lower relationship confidence,’ and were almost twice as likely to have at some point suggested divorce.” ↩
1 Cor 6:9, New American Bible (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1991). See also Gal 5:19-21. ↩
For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 1857). ↩
Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, Congregation for The Doctrine of the Faith, 1975, n. 10. ↩
Reverend Thomas G. Morrow has a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. Fr. Morrow is a priest of the Washington (DC) Archdiocese. He is the author of several books, including Be Holy: A Catholic's Guide to the Spiritual Life. His website is: www.cfalive.org.
Catholics have never been more confused than now about what they are supposed to believe. The causes of the confusion are not difficult to find: widespread immorality among priests and bishops and even more widespread coverup of same; a pope who affirms traditional teaching one moment, and tears it down the next; Church leaders who seem more concerned about climate change than Christian persecution; and the introduction of pagan elements into Catholic liturgy.
To add to the confusion, a highly contagious virus swept across the world in 2020. Although the virus had a low fatality rate, reporters and politicians alike treated it as though it were the second coming of the Black Death. Schools and shops were shut down, and so were churches. Catholics got used to “attending” Sunday Mass in front of computer screens. The fact that the vast majority of bishops readily complied with the shutdown gave the impression to many that worship of God was not, after all, a very important activity.
For American Catholics, the confusion has now been compounded by the election of a Catholic president who rejects essential Catholic teaching, yet is warmly welcomed by the pope along with many American bishops.
Of course, several past American presidents have pursued policies that contradict Catholic teaching and they, nevertheless, received good wishes from the Catholic hierarchy. The difference is that they were not Catholics, and there was no danger that their policy positions would be mistaken for Catholic positions.
But that’s not the case with President Biden. Not only is he a Catholic, but he also makes a show of his Catholicism. He attends Mass weekly, wears rosary beads around his wrist, blesses himself in public, refers to scripture and Catholic hymns during political speeches, and speaks often of how his Catholic faith has helped him through difficult times. To top it off, he has installed a photo of Pope Francis in the Oval Office.
In many respects, Joe Biden appears to be a traditional pious Catholic. Yet Biden is strongly pro-abortion and favors policies that would spread abortion throughout the developing world. In addition, he seems to be on board with the whole LGBT agenda. He officiated at a wedding of two gay men, wants to reverse the transgender military ban, favors the Equality Act which allows men to compete in women’s sports, and believes that 10-year-olds should be able to choose whatever gender they please. And, in what seems a deliberate slap at the Catholic concept of gender, he has appointed Dr. Rachel Levine (nee Richard Levine) as Assistant Secretary of Health despite his/her minimal qualifications for the job.
Attempts to present Biden’s brand of Catholicism as the real thing is bound to have a confusing effect on both Catholics and non-Catholics. Stephen P. White, Director of The Catholic Project, observed that “Biden’s words and actions will shape how the Catholic faith is perceived and understood.” Some bishops understand this, and they realize that simply extending good wishes to the new president is not a sufficient response to the new situation—namely a President who proudly proclaims his Catholic identity while trampling on central Catholic beliefs about marriage and sexuality.
It was refreshing, then, that a statement issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) tempered the congratulations with sharp criticism. Archbishop Jose Gomez, the president of the USCCB, wrote:
I must point out that our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender. Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.
At a time of great moral confusion, this is exactly the kind of clarity that Catholics need to see and hear. But this is not only a time of confusion. It’s also a time of great danger—a time when Catholics and other Christians stand in danger of being stripped of their right to free speech and freedom of religion. Hence, Archbishop Gomez adds: “Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.”
As some of the bishops are beginning to realize rather late in the day, the party that is coming to power in Washington has a totalitarian streak a mile wide. How much longer will priests and bishops be able to tell their congregations that abortion and same-sex “marriage” are contrary to God’s laws without being fined—or worse?
In his statement, Archbishop Gomez, says “Rather than impose further expansion of abortion and contraception, as he has promised, I am hopeful that the new President and his administration will work with the Church and others of good will. My hope is that we can begin a dialogue…”
But what if the dialogue never gets off the ground? What then? If Biden goes ahead with his pro-abortion policies, and the bishops do nothing, except to ask for more dialogue, it will only serve to confuse Catholics even more.Unfortunately, many will conclude that abortion can’t really be that serious. If it was, the bishops would surely have taken stronger action.
And so, they must. Moreover, the action they should take is no mystery. The bishops already understand full well that after dialogue fails, the next option is denial of Communion, and after that, excommunication. These are options, not requirements. And in the case of ordinary Catholics, these two remedies are rarely used. However, Joe Biden is no ordinary Catholic. He is, as Stephen White puts it, “the most powerful and influential Catholic layman in the world.” Moreover, Biden presents himself as one who is in full communion with the Catholic Church. But someone who persists in promoting such a grave sin as abortion has already broken communion with the Church. And denial of Communion is just an acknowledgment of that fact.
Because of his position and influence, the bishops have a duty to make clear that Biden’s brand of “progressive” Catholicism is in opposition to Catholic teaching. But there is a difficulty involved in refusing Communion to Biden. The difficulty lies in getting all the bishops to agree to this approach. We already know that Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., will not deny Communion to Biden, and undoubtedly there are many other progressive bishops who will follow suit. Since Biden will, for the most part, be attending Mass in Washington, D.C., he will continue to receive Communion.
Of course, Biden will have to travel from time-to-time, and individual priests and bishops in different states may refuse him Communion. But this will only serve to strengthen the impression that Catholicism is a pick-and-choose religion. Many will conclude that, if the bishops are divided on the issue, it can’t be that important after all. Many will further conclude that, as the pro-choice forces would have us believe, it’s up to each individual to decide whether abortion is right or wrong.
Moreover, don’t expect that refusal of Communion by a single cleric will be a big news event which will put Biden in an awkward position, and force progressive Catholics to search their souls. Father Robert Morey of St. Anthony Church in Florence, South Carolina did refuse Communion to Biden in November, 2019 and the news was largely ignored by the mainstream media. It seems that a scattershot approach to challenging Biden’s anti-Catholic version of Catholicism will simply not work. If the American bishops wish to make a sufficient impact, a unified plan of action will be required.
There is another, more serious option to consider: excommunication. While denial of Communion is similar in some ways, it is not the same as a formal excommunication. There is a strong possibility that a denial policy won’t have the intended effect because many bishops and priests will simply ignore it, with the result that more Catholics will be left wondering why they too can’t ignore Church rules they disagree with.
Given the current situation, it seems that the strongest possible penalty is required. Biden advertises his Catholicism at every opportunity, and his acolytes in the media are now portraying him as if he were a new Saint Francis. If the bishops do nothing, Biden and his backers will get to define what it means to be a good Catholic. It is even possible to imagine the eventual creation of a state-run church along the lines of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association—a church where elements of Catholicism and party doctrine are skillfully blended. Don’t dismiss the possibility. If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that strange and unexpected developments have become the order of the day.
Undoubtedly, many in the media and in the Church itself will dismiss excommunication as a relic of medieval times. But there is a relatively recent precedent for excommunicating Catholic politicians, and it’s one which liberals would find it difficult to criticize. On April 16, 1962, Joseph Francis Rummel, the Archbishop of New Orleans, publicly excommunicated three local political figures for their flagrant opposition to the desegregation of New Orleans Catholic Schools.
One wonders what Cardinal-Archbishop Wilton Gregory thinks of Rummel’s action, and why he thinks the current case of a Catholic politician who flagrantly promotes abortion should be treated any differently.
Not coincidentally, the mention of Archbishop Gregory’s name brings up one of the chief difficulties with pursuing the path of excommunication. Normally, the jurisdiction to pronounce an excommunication belongs to the local bishop. In Biden’s case that would be Wilton Gregory, and, barring a miracle, Gregory would refuse to excommunicate.
However—at least to a layman’s eyes—the issue of jurisdiction is a very fuzzy one. In the case of the President of the United States, it would seem that jurisdiction should not belong to the local bishop (Gregory) because the President is not just the President of the District of Columbia, but of the whole nation. His decisions affect the lives of millions of Catholics outside D.C. Arguably, the bishop who should have jurisdiction should be an American bishop in a position comparable to the one held by the President. And that would be Archbishop Jose Gomez, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Unlike Cardinal Gregory, he was elected to his position by a vote of his fellow bishops. Moreover, unlike Gregory, he understands that this is not a time for business as usual. Gomez has already indicated that certain of Biden’s policies “advance moral evils.” Consequently, the claim that Biden is a Catholic in good standing cannot be left unchallenged.
More than many in the hierarchy, Archbishop Gomez seems to realize that the election of Biden has brought the Church to a major turning point. Let’s hope and pray that he has the courage to move it in the right direction.
William Kilpatrick is the author of What Catholics Need to Know about Islam and other books about culture and religion. His work is supported in part by the Shillman Foundation.
Pictured above: President-elect Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden attend services at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle
God does not wish to see us in affliction, but it is we who draw down sufferings upon ourselves, and by our sins enkindle the flames in which we are to burn. God punishes us, because we oblige Him to do so. St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
Because your family, friends and neighbors are crooked as hell.
The specter of an impending Joe Biden presidency is haunting America's Christian faithful, leaving many wondering why providence would grant the forces of evil such a pivotal political victory. The simple answer is this: America has gotten exactly the type of government that she deserves. She's reaped the poisonous chaff that she's spent decades and decades sowing. America will be governed by a wicked, Culture of Death, homosexualist, socialist shill because the majority of Americans are wicked, Culture of Death, homosexualist socialists (whether expressly or not). After all, the beauty — and horror — of self-governance is that nations always get the government they deserve.
President Reagan
In order to be free, a people must be virtuous and God-fearing. On this, the Founding Fathers were unanimous, with, perhaps, Samuel Adams putting it best: "Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." Since most men this side of Eden live vile, bestial lives, the norm for mankind has been to live as serfs underneath brutal, vicious regimes.
America is no exception to this infallible political calculus. A nation is always just one generation from tyranny: All that stands in the way of the degeneration from republic to dystopia, from free people to cattle, is the orientation and vitality of the aggregate conscience of the populace. As Ronald Reagan famously warned:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
The universe naturally inclines from order to disorder. The firewall against political entropy is virtue built upon grace. When virtue degenerates, so does freedom.
Our Founding Fathers — men of honor, nobility and high ideals — gifted us a constitutional republic built from the ground up as a hedge against tyranny, the default condition for the fallen human race. Ours was the unmerited privilege of taking the blank slate of a free nation and making of it what we willed. And we chose our path and chose it clearly. In her collective recklessness spurred on by hedonistic excess, intoxicant-fueled indifference and practical atheism, America has frittered away her freedom posthaste for gold-plated dung. We have assembled our own chains of political bondage "link by link and yard by yard" (as Dickens' Jacob Marley would say), girding them on by our own free will.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We have, since the dawn of the republic, allowed judicial tyrants (beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall) to legislate from the bench, rewriting the Constitution under the guise of interpreting it. So we've been left with an untrammeled Supreme Court drunk on its own power — a judiciary that's blighted us with, inter alia, universal access to contraceptives, a "right" to possess pornography, a "right" to slaughter our own children in utero, and sodomitical faux marriage. We didn't do a thing about it, save offer a token, lip-service resistance so characteristic of the indolent, impotent Right.
We've sat idly by and allowed Congress to become a den of thieves, one that has rapaciously appropriated to itself legislative powers reserved to the states alone under the Constitution. We allowed this wake of vultures — under the pretexts of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Commerce Clause and the Tax and Spend Clause — to invade with onerous regulations and profligate spending every facet of our daily lives. They've destroyed health care; unduly restricted the right to bear arms; financed child-assassination mills like Planned Parenthood with generous gifts from the public coffers; warped our education system with No Child Left Behind; tanked manufacturing; driven up the price of energy; gutted college sports with Title IX and attacked the nuclear family with insidious, feminist legislation like the Violence Against Women Act
And the few duties that actually wereconstitutionally delegated to the congressional circus are carried out with haphazard incompetence by vainglorious career-politician legislative pimps. The postal service is slow, expensive, disgruntled and flighty; the military, while being overextended to the four corners of the world contra the solemn admonition of George Washington in his Farewell Address, is lowering its fitness standards at the expense of public safety so that women can play soldier and treat it like a job-advancement program; the tax code is a fear-inducing labyrinth of asinine complexities where somehow, despite our communist-inspired graduated income tax, the most opulent corporations pay nothing but average citizens fear debtors' prison; and the borders are porous inlets for drug cartels and unvetted undesirables from all of Latin America.
Depiction of President Washington's Farewell Address
We have an imperial presidency where cult-of-personality strongmen rule by executive fiat, unlawfully bypassing the legislative branch to make policy from on high while at the same time often refusing to enforce the laws that the chief executive is, by definition, charged with enforcing (e.g., President Obama's creation of the "DACA" program to avoid deporting illegal aliens in contravention of extant federal law). And we've done nothing to restore order and justice, because the Center is vulgar and illiterate, the Right is apathetic and the Left is affirmatively evil.
How did American civics devolve to this point? Make no mistake about it: We got here because of the unconstrained moral degeneracy of our good-time-Charlie family members, friends and neighbors. To care about justice in government, you first have to care about truth and goodness. And don't give me the reflexive, warmed-over, regurgitated talking points endemic among gutless conservatives: "I believe in the fundamental decency of the American people"; "I remain hopeful for America's future," yadda yadda. No. I don’t. And you shouldn't either.
Confronted with the bleak prospects of a Marxist doom pock-marked by mob violence and overt anti-Christianity, there's no more room for optimism, not by a long shot. The "aww shucks" whistle-past-the-graveyard contrived cheerfulness that was dishonestly passed off as charity by cowardly preceding generations has to be declared anathema to men of goodwill. I hold my many ignoble countrymen in contempt, and so should you.
Why has God allowed us to escape the natural (and preternatural) consequences of our moral decay for as long as He has?
A brief survey of Americans' moral outlook should suffice to sober up the delirious glass-is-half-full automatons of the nominal Right. So drink in deeply this alarming bevy of statistics:
83% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances
73% believe divorce is morally acceptable
65% believe having a baby outside of marriage is morally acceptable
65% believe that smoking marijuana recreationally is morally acceptable
91% believe birth control is morally acceptable
69% believe fornication is morally acceptable
67% percent believe homosexual relations are morally acceptable
54% believe euthanasia is morally acceptable.
To put this in perspective, a higher percentage of Americans believe it's immoral to wear fur clothing (37%) than believe embryonic stem cell research is unethical (29%).
Looking at the various bellwethers of America's moral integrity, it's hard to believe that the nation has been as resilient to outright socialistic tyranny as she actually has. By all indicia, we're a nation of acedia-ridden, playboy savages. So the question is not, "Why has God allowed a corrupt Biden-Harris ticket to win (or steal) this election?" The real question is, "Why has God allowed us to escape the natural (and preternatural) consequences of our moral decay for as long as He has?" That we've made it this far without a catastrophic national meltdown is a minor miracle. It's delusional to think that our countrymen are so perverse and backwards that they view almost every major vice as a virtue but that such ignominy will not translate to the polls. Of course it will, and it has. And barring a national religious awakening, things are only going to get worse.
So never again scratch your head and wonder aloud why it is that evil has been allowed to prevail politically in 2020. The answer is as close as your nearest neighbor.
“Noel is a beautiful and unusual take on the Christmas story, set in a wintry landscape. The focus is on Mary, which may be why Tolkien wrote the poem for the school magazine, given that we are dedicated to Our Lady.”
Read the beautiful Christmas prayer to Virgin Mary, Noel, by J. R. R. Tolkien below:
Grim was the world and grey last night: The moon and stars were fled, The hall was dark without song or light, The fires were fallen dead. The wind in the trees was like to the sea, And over the mountains’ teeth It whistled bitter-cold and free, As a sword leapt from its sheath.
The lord of snows upreared his head; His mantle long and pale Upon the bitter blast was spread And hung o’er hill and dale. The world was blind, the boughs were bent, All ways and paths were wild: Then the veil of cloud apart was rent, And here was born a Child.
The ancient dome of heaven sheer Was pricked with distant light; A star came shining white and clear Alone above the night. In the dale of dark in that hour of birth One voice on a sudden sang: Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth Together at midnight rang.
Mary sang in this world below: They heard her song arise O’er mist and over mountain snow To the walls of Paradise, And the tongue of many bells was stirred in Heaven’s towers to ring When the voice of mortal maid was heard, That was mother of Heaven’s King.
Glad is the world and fair this night With stars about its head, And the hall is filled with laughter and light, And fires are burning red. The bells of Paradise now ring With bells of Christendom, And Gloria, Gloria we will sing That God on earth is come.
In the documentary “Francesco,” which premiered on October 21, 2020, Pope Francis is recorded in an interview as arguing for the legal recognition of homosexual civil unions:
“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable because of it.”
“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”
The following day there were news reports that these remarks were originally made in an interview recorded on May 19, 2019, and then edited out by the Vatican. The director of the documentary denied that report and claimed that the comments were made directly to him. But the footage is clearly from 2019, and the remarks are taken out of context and pieced together in an artificial order for greater effect to suit a personal agenda.
In 2010, before being elected to the papal office, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio did in fact propose a limited form of legal recognition of homosexual civil unions as an alternative to the political movement in Argentina to approve homosexual marriage and conduct, to which he firmly and publicly objected. Legal recognition of homosexual couples may be made in two essentially different forms.One form simply grants legal rights to any given couple, regardless of sex, to make a contract in which one party designates the other party as his or her “significant other,” allowing them to share their earnings, to file their taxes jointly, to have access to each other’s personal records, to be covered under each other’s insurance, to inherit a preferential portion of the other’s estate, and the like.The other form of recognition is more radical and specifically permits homosexual couples to make a contract which is legally equivalent to marriage and grants legal rights which are proper only to marriage, such as the right for couples to practice sexual intimacy legally as spouses, or the right to adopt children. The latter form of legal recognition treats homosexual civil unions as equivalent to marriage and is clearly immoral and harmful to society, and Cardinal Bergoglio always opposed it.
Cardinal Bergoglio in Argentina explicitly and publicly taught that homosexual practices are intrinsically evil, and that as a matter of moral necessity homosexual friendships and all other friendships outside of true heterosexual marriage must remain chaste. He recognized that the Catholic Church’s position that homosexual conduct is intrinsically evil is not revisable or changeable. Any proposal or endorsement of a limited legal recognition of homosexual civil unions can be controversial for Catholics because it appears to contradict the authentic teaching of the Church. The Church has consistently opposed all proposals of nations to grant legal recognition to homosexual civil unions, but without making any distinction between the two forms of legal recognition. The bishops of Argentina, invoking the authentic teaching of the Church and John Paul II, understandably rejected Cardinal Bergoglio’s suggestion in 2010 to endorse the more limited form of legal recognition in the attempt to avoid the legal approval of same-sex marriage.
In 2003 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and with the express approval of Pope St. John Paul II, had published the document “Considerations regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons.” The language used against all such proposals is very strong. The bishops of Argentina carefully considered the papal guidance given this document. It is important to be aware of what the document actually says, so we should take time to review some of its relevant guidelines:
“[A]ccording to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies ‘must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.’ They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is, however, ‘objectively disordered,’ and homosexual practices are ‘sins gravely contrary to chastity’.” (4)
“[R]espect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behavior, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.” (11)
“As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.” (7)
“Not even in a remote analogous sense do homosexual unions fulfill the purpose for which marriage and family deserve specific categorical recognition. On the contrary, there are good reasons for holding that such unions are harmful to the proper development of human society, especially if their impact on society were to increase.” (4)
“When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.” (10)
“When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is already in force, the Catholic politician must oppose it in the ways that are possible for him and make his opposition known; it is his duty to witness to the truth. If it is not possible to repeal such a law completely, the Catholic politician, recalling the indications contained in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, ‘could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality,’ on condition that his ‘absolute personal opposition’ to such laws was clear and well known and that the danger of scandal was avoided. This does not mean that a more restrictive law in this area could be considered just or even acceptable; rather, it is a question of the legitimate and dutiful attempt to obtain at least the partial repeal of an unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the moment.” (10)
“Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil. In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.” (5)1
It is apparent from this document that St. John Paul II in his authentic papal Magisterium (his authority to teach and interpret the deposit of divine revelation as a successor of St Peter) taught that the legal recognition of homosexual unions is not morally justifiable as material cooperation in evil. And he reaffirmed that we have a moral duty to practice conscientious objection with regard to all unjust laws. Whenever a CDF document carries the express approval of the pope, as this one does, it participates in the ordinary Magisterium of the pope and is therefore authentic teaching.
It is also apparent from this document that St. John Paul II believed that whenever material cooperation in evil cannot be justified by the principle of double-effect and a reasonable estimation of the proportion of the good intended to the evil tolerated, the act of cooperation is morally wrong and must not be committed. Unjustified material cooperation in evil, like formal cooperation in evil, must always be opposed on the grounds that it is morally evil, not merely imprudent. A morally unjustified act of cooperation in evil is objectively evil in virtue of its circumstances, even though its species and motive may be good. This is a basic principle of natural moral law. We therefore ought not to excuse such cooperation as merely imprudent. If we deliberate carefully but make an honest mistake in thinking an act is permissible when it is actually evil, and we go ahead and do it, then subjectively we are not culpable since no evil was intended, but objectively we have nevertheless committed an evil act.
In the 2003 CDF document it appears that St John Paul II believed and intended to teach that no legal recognition of homosexual unions is ever morally justified, and therefore that no nation state is ever morally permitted to grant any legal recognition to homosexual unions whatsoever. Discerning the specific intention of St John Paul II in the document, however, is complicated by its puzzling terminology. It is clear that the practice of same-sex marriage is intrinsically evil. The legal rights proper to marriage (e.g. sexual intimacy, adoption of children) must be granted only to heterosexual couples. The principle of double-effect and the proportion of the intended good to the tolerated evil cannot morally justify the kind of legal recognition of same-sex marriage as material cooperation in evil. Such unjustified cooperation in evil is morally wrong.
But did St John Paul II intend to require conscientious objection not just to same-sex marriage but also to allowing same-sex couples to enter into non-marital contracts in which one citizen designates another citizen as his or her “significant other”? Canonists who are faithful to the Magisterium think not. Dr. Edward Peters, for example, has cogently argued that the terminology in the 2003 CDF document is problematic.2 Indeed, if a state has civil laws which permit non-marital contracts to designate a “significant other,” then it would seem to be a form of unjust discrimination to prohibit same-sex couples from entering into such non-marital contracts. Every citizen has the moral right to form legal contracts with other people for various purposes other than sexual intimacy and the procreation and nurturing of children. There are moral grounds to restrict marital contracts to adult heterosexual couples, but it was not the intent of the 2003 CDF document to require conscientious objection to same-sex couples forming any contracts whatsoever. The intent was only to require conscientious objection to same-sex marriage, where the legal rights proper to marriage are extended to couples naturally incapable of being married, and thus legal approval is given to immoral conduct. The use of the term “homosexual unions” in an unqualified manner is confusing.
The teaching of the Church in general that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage is gravely immoral is authentic interpretation of natural law. So is the teaching of the Church that all people of good will have a moral duty to oppose unjust civil laws. The authentic (third-level) teaching of the Church, however, is somewhat reformable by the Magisterium itself. It is admittedly not infallible. Only first-and-second-level doctrines (the deposit of faith and morals and all Catholic truths which follow from that divinely revealed deposit by logical and historical necessity) have been infallibly taught. But even though authentic (third-level) interpretations of the deposit of faith and morals could contain errors, every legitimate exercise of the authentic papal Magisterium must be interpreted with a hermeneutic of continuity and a principle of charity. Even though it is possible for a legitimate exercise of the authentic papal Magisterium to be in error, it is nevertheless not probable for it to be in error unless the authentic papal Magisterium itself acknowledges that it made a mistake. The faithful owe every exercise of authentic Magisterium an internal assent of mind and heart, even though the teaching is not infallible. Many Catholics nowadays need to be informed or reminded of that obligation.
It should be clear that a pope’s casual public remarks have no authority in Church teaching. Such remarks are often taken out of context and badly distorted in public media. The Church teaches authoritatively at various levels, but the remarks of Pope Francis or any other pope in an interview are not even Church teaching at all. Even if Pope Francis is again suggesting that a more limited legal recognition of homosexual civil unions is a social structure that is a justifiable material cooperation in evil, as he suggested previously in Argentina before accepting the papal office, he is not imposing this opinion on us as a matter of doctrine. The faithful do not owe any kind of assent to such non-magisterial remarks. Furthermore, the non-magisterial interpretations and comments of any pope or bishop on existing magisterial teaching, even his own, are often in error and are not a reliable guide to the authentic Magisterium of the Church. So we are free to disagree with the casual remarks and opinions of the Pope Francis, just as we are free to disagree with the exegetical opinions offered by Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) in his Jesus of Nazareth books.
Clarifying the actual intent of the 2003 CDF document through a legitimate exercise of the authentic papal Magisterium could be very helpful, however, though many people might be inclined to misinterpret and condemn any such qualification, especially if it were made by Pope Francis, whose acts are frequently and unfairly interpreted as advancing a progressive agenda. It is true that the Catholic faithful have an obligation to assent to the approved teaching of St John Paul II in the 2003 CDF document on the legal recognition of homosexual unions, but Francis or another pope could decide to revise and clarify it. Any such revision would merely qualify and essentialize the teaching it by an authoritative interpretation. The Church’s position is not that any legal recognition of homosexual unions is intrinsically evil, but that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage would be a material cooperation in evil that cannot satisfy the principle of double-effect because the overall harm that it does is proportionately greater than the overall good that it does.
Those who do not understand the difference between intrinsically evil acts and acts which materially cooperate in intrinsically evil acts find this confusing. The confusion can only be eliminated by good moral catechesis and better education. And the more limited form of legal recognition, which simply grants legal rights to any given couple, regardless of sex, to make a contract in which one party designates the other party as his or her “significant other” for non-marital purposes, is a remote material cooperation in evil that is morally justifiable because it can in fact satisfy the principle of double-effect. The intent is not to approve of homosexual conduct but only to avoid unjust discrimination with regard to unmarried persons, including people who have a homosexual orientation and a same-sex “significant other.” As Pope Francis has emphasized on many occasions, the real world is morally messy, and the real world is getting messier everyday as the infallible moral teaching of Christ and his Church is rejected.
On various occasions, Pope Francis has in fact publicly practiced conscientious objection to legalizing same-sex marriage. It should be clear at the very least that he firmly upholds the infallible moral teaching of the Church. Nothing in his authentic papal Magisterium even comes close to suggesting that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage is morally justifiable. The principle of charity demands that we interpret the comments of Pope Francis with a hermeneutic of continuity. Pope Francis thus in fact believes that true marriage is inherently heterosexual and procreative, that sexual intimacy is moral only in the context of the proper marital act within a true marriage, that homosexual civil unions are not true marriages, that homosexual unions ought to be chaste friendships, that abortion and contraception are intrinsically evil, that we have a moral duty to oppose civil laws which are contrary to the common good, that every person needs a male father and a female mother to help them shape their identity, and the like. None of these moral doctrines is in question or changeable. Catholics who want these doctrines to change are either ignorant or living in denial. Dissenters ignore the inherent conservative dynamic of the Magisterium and unreasonably expect the Catholic Church to reverse its infallible moral doctrines. The Catholic Church will never make any such changes. That which is intrinsically evil will be always be regarded by the Catholic Church as intrinsically evil, even though the secular world will often disagree and attempt to rationalize immoral conduct.
Pope Francis’ primary concern seems to be with material cooperation in evil, which he thinks is morally justifiable in certain legal, political, and pastoral contexts. The conditions under which material cooperation in evil is morally justifiable are sometimes difficult to judge, and Catholic bishops sometimes disagree on how to make particular applications. We might consider for example the recent disagreement over whether voting for political candidates who have a pro-abortion platform is morally justifiable. In my opinion, it is not morally justifiable. But with regard to the legal recognition of homosexual couples, we need to be careful not to become so concerned to avoid material cooperation in evil that we fall into an unjust form of discrimination.
Those who are conservative in their estimation of the respective proportion naturally regard any legal recognition of homosexual unions as imprudent and inexcusable. Those who are more liberal in their estimation of the respective proportion naturally regard the absolute refusal to grant any legal recognition of homosexual unions whatsoever as rigid and intolerant. If Pope Francis were to clarify the authentic teaching of St. John Paul II magisterially and grant that we can tolerate and materially cooperate with the legal recognition of homosexual non-marital civil unions but must resist and conscientiously object to the legal recognition of homosexual civil unions which pretend to be marriages and which unjustly demand legal rights which are proper to true marriage, then there would be a path of reconciliation open between the two opposing positions.
We must keep in mind that since 2003, most of the Western world has rejected Catholic moral teaching on the issue of homosexual unions and has in fact radically legalized them as if they were marriages, as it previously legalized abortion and other evils. Such legalizations are scandalous and morally corrupting of society. They are unjust civil laws which must be opposed and reversed if possible. The most pressing question now is how to help the faithful to function and maintain employment and raise families in societies which are increasingly secularized and immoral. We need more guidance on this issue, and the authentic teaching of the Church on the issue must continue to undergo legitimate development. Pope Francis and his successors must guide us in how to practice conscientious objection to evil, as well as in how to judge correctly the conditions under which material cooperation in evil is morally permissible. Both of these practical judgments are currently unavoidable, and we need pastoral guidance in both. Like it or not, additional pastoral guidance from Pope Francis is probably coming soon. The teaching of St John Paul II might be slightly revised. But the doctrine that homosexual behavior is intrinsically evil is not changeable. Neither is the doctrine that contraception is intrinsically evil. Those who compromise the doctrine against contraception within true marriage inevitably compromise the doctrine against same-sex marriage. Pope Francis, as a disciple of St Paul VI, understands that dynamic and will not compromise the Church’s moral teaching on human sexuality.
In authentic Church teaching there are clear limits on what is reformable. The point is not to undermine what St John Paul II taught about homosexual civil unions, but to adapt it to the present circumstances, bringing out what is essential in it. As a successor of St. Peter and St. John Paul II, Pope Francis has the authority and power to reform that teaching, but he has not yet done so. Perhaps he is indicating that he intends to do so; perhaps not. If he does decide to qualify the 2003 CDF document on the legal recognition of homosexual unions, he will need to give papal approval to some new CDF document or other teaching instrument which would clearly state the conditions under which legal recognition to non-marital civil unions could morally be given. Many ecclesiastical leaders hope that he will allow the 2003 CDF document to stand unqualified, while others regard this attitude as scrupulous. But the document does need clarification. The concern to avoid being too rigid and the concern to avoid being too lax are equally legitimate and fundamental to having a mature Catholic attitude about material cooperation in evil. Toleration of evil is often morally necessary, but approval of evil is never morally permitted.
In the face of public episcopal disagreement about what the pope should do with regard to legitimate development of Catholic doctrine, every Catholic should recognize and affirm that no infallibly taught moral doctrines can ever lose their doctrinal weight or be changed. We must trust the Holy Spirit and not be alarmed. The devil often uses fear in his attempt to undermine divine authority and encourage rebellion. We should reassure the faithful that the moral teaching of the Church is permanent and will not be compromised. At the same time, following the example of St Francis of Assisi, we should help the faithful to maintain due obedience and reverence to Pope Francis, who stands in continuity with Vatican II, St. John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. To abandon the hermeneutic of continuity is to move in the direction of schism. To understand the actions and intentions of Pope Francis correctly requires us to exercise charity and patience. There are many people nowadays who either intentionally or unintentionally misinterpret his actions and intentions to suit their own agenda either to the political right or to the political left. Pope Francis has a difficult job and must maintain a delicate balance. Let us pray for him.
About Rev. Thomas G. Morrow
