What is your problem with same-sex "marriage"?

Dear Rev. Know-it-all,

I heard you say that the state may one day demand that the church marry same sex couples.  Well, the Catholic Church says that a man and a woman marry each other and it's not a marriage if it isn't one man and one woman.  So, wouldn't that be our argument???

Yours truly, 

Al Thesame 

Dear Al, 

I promised myself that I would drop the topic of marital and connubial strangeness because I am so sick of the whole thing and there’s no way to convince these people anyway, but just today I heard that the glorious state of Illinois, led by the devout Catholic governor, Pat Quinn, and adding another feather to its cap, has just approved same-sex marriage. I mention this simply because a state one-third of whose population calls itself Catholic could not care less about what the Church teaches about sexual morality and family life. Though not a Catholic, Senator Mark Kirk, one of Illinois’ two voices in the national senate was recently asked, “Who came first, God or country?” He immediately said “Country!” I don’t think he represents the bulk of Catholic Illinois in this sentiment. I suspect that many of the Catholics in Illinois when asked who comes first, God or country, would respond, “Neither. I come first!”  

Illinois, the 9th most Catholic state in the good old US of A joins those other Catholic states like Massachusetts (½ Catholic), in declaring same sex marriage legal. When you say that the Catholic Church defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, and that should be enough, why should the state pay attention to the Catholic Church when Catholics pay no attention to her? They will lose no votes in defying the teaching of an outdated and impotent religious group. Catholics divorce and abort at the same rate as non-Catholics and I suspect that they are more favorable to same sex marriage than non-Catholics because of the triumphs of progressive Catholic education over the past forty years.

I once wrote that only 24 percent of Catholics believed in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. Someone corrected me saying, “Oh, no, Father, 100 percent of Catholics believe in the Real Presence.” The respondent’s point was that if you refuse to believe in the Real Presence, you are not a Catholic. One may have doubts and questions, but to believe means to trust. We trust what the Church teaches. Herein lays the problem. Not many people trust the Church. It is very common for people in our times to say that they are spiritual but not religious, or that they are Christians and believe in God just not in organized churches. Fine — let them follow Jesus alone, who defined marriage when He said, “…for this a man leaves his mother and father and clings to his wife and the two become one flesh.”  (Mark 10:7) Jesus says in no uncertain terms that marriage is the coming together of a man and a woman in one flesh. And what is that one flesh? Is it not the children to whom they give life? In that child’s flesh two people literally become one flesh. This is clearly Jesus vision for marriage: mom, dad, and the kids. 

If you claim to be the follower of Christ in any sense you must believe this. You can’t be disciple of a rabbi, much less a rabbi who is the Son of God, if you say, “I believe all He says, except that business about marriage.”  So I paraphrase what was said to me. “100 percent of Christians -- and of course Catholics -- believe that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman that is open to the possibility of children.”  It’s just fine with me if you want to marry your flat screen TV, or your sports car or your Uncle Fritz. The problem is that the One for whom I work, whom I worship and for whom I may someday have to die, disagrees with you. And unless you rose from the dead and can promise eternal life I’m sticking with Jesus. As far as I’m concerned, He’s a much better bet than the governor of Illinois. 

We Catholics have to admit that we lost the battle sometime in the late 1960's when we decided, despite two thousand years of consistent teaching, that families were not the purpose of marriage.  The pope wrote an encyclical “Humanae Vitae” which reminded us that the intimacy of man and woman was inseparably bound up with the life of the family. Malcolm Muggeridge, author of “Something Beautiful for God”, a life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, converted in his 80's from agnosticism to Catholicism.  He said that the decision in the 20th century of which the Catholic Church would be proudest would be her decision to reject artificial birth control, because artificial birth control would divorce erotic love from family life. And so it has come to pass. 

Artificial birth control meant that a man and woman could enjoy intimacy without sacrifice. In times past there was danger in sexual intimacy, for a man, because he risked becoming responsible for the care of his offspring. The danger was even greater for women who before antibiotics risked death every time they gave themselves to a man in intimacy. The passion and intensity of Erotic Love was once so great that man and woman would risk a great deal for its sake, and if they did things right that intensity of love spilled over into an absolute devotion to their children. Now it has been replaced with casual sex that can be free of any real risk or sacrifice. 

Children are not the natural outcome of intimacy anymore. They can be prevented or if need be killed in the womb. Fidelity is optional because divorce is the norm. The few children that our marriages produce command no real loyalty. It is common to meet children now who have never met their fathers. Faithfulness to spouse and family are entirely optional. We have no passion for our spouses and no passion for our children. It has come to pass as Mr. Muggeridge said. 

Two men or two women can pretend to marital love, but they cannot achieve it. Why? Their physical relationship is absolutely closed to family life. If they can convince some stranger to collaborate in the production of children, the child born will never be the reflection of the beloved. Even opposite sex couples who cannot have children participate in family life by their openness to children. By their faithfulness and self sacrifice they strengthen the bonds by which societies are made whole.  A same-sex couple BY ITS NATURE cannot be the cause of intense and passionate family life. 

I remember my mother, an old woman standing by the coffin of her husband, my father. He had been the love of her life since college, almost 50 years before. She touched the cold dead hand in the coffin and then quietly took my brother John’s warm and living hand. She held the flesh that the two had become and was consoled. “For this a man leaves his mother and father and clings to his wife and the two become one flesh.” 

We live in a world of convoluted relationships, in which the few children we have are more often than not reminders of failed relationships. We love them but they are not the one flesh that a man and woman can become. What was the strength of Christian civilization has become the failure of enlightenment defiance. We decided that we were the masters of nature and so have come to be unnatural. And that is the strongest argument I know against same-sex marriage. 

Rev. Know-it-all

Why didn't God make Eve First?

Dear Rev. Know-it-all,

Don’t you think it’s degrading that  God took a rib from Adam’s side to make Eve? Why didn’t he make Eve first?

Sincerely,

Earl Lee Byrd

Dear Earl,

Lots of male chauvinist humor comes to mind, but I will take the high road and keep the jokes to myself. Personally I think it’s a beautiful thing that God made Adam first. The Rabbis explain it this way.

Man was made on the Sixth day, the same day as the beasts. Eve wasn’t really created on the sixth day, she was created in the twilight, just before the 7^th day. Remember that the Jewish day starts in the evening because the Book of Genesis says,  “It was evening and morning, the first day.” (Genesis1:5) Most people think the Jewish Sabbath, as well as every other Jewish day starts at sundown. This is not quite true. It is Sabbath when one sees the first two stars in the heavens, or when one can no longer distinguish between a black and a white thread by natural light.  There is an intermittent period that is not quite Sabbath, but it isn’t quite Friday either. Adam fell into a deep sleep before God took a rib from his side. 

When does one sleep? When the sun goes down. When Adam woke up on Saturday morning, there was his bride, the very personification of Sabbath, the promise of heaven. It is Eve who humanized Adam by drawing him into the joy of Sabbath. Eve was a creation nearer and more conformed to Sabbath. She was the summit of nature, not just an afterthought. That she was a “helpmate” means not that she was to be less than Adam. 

The Scriptures say elsewhere “Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord?  He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword.” (Deut. 33:26,29) The Hebrew word for helper is “Ezer.”  It appears about twenty times in the Bible and usually refers to God. It is a quality of Godliness, not of inferiority. Eve “civilized” man who shares his creation with the beasts. Adam is made from dust. Eve is made from humanity. Thus, it is in the relationship of man and woman that the image of God, and true humanity are found. 

Men, left to their own devices, can be pretty uncivilized. I know. I am one. It is in the give and take, the yielding and the asking of vastly different men and women and especially their submission to the needs of the children their love may produce that the man and the woman are divinized. It is in the service of complimentary and sometimes discordant needs that humanity learns sacrificial love. Man and woman don’t simply take pleasure from one another, but they learn the very nature of God in their mutual sacrifice, and in the sacrifices they make for the sake of their children, if it please Heaven.

The rabbis tell us that woman was not taken from man’s feet that she might be beneath him, nor was he taken from his head lest she boast, but that she was taken from his side, that they might walk hand in hand, side by side.  There is one more thing to remember. It is the job of the rib to protect the heart.

Sabbath is all about marriage and family and the royal dignity of God’s people. Sabbath is regarded by the Jews as a bride. There is a beautiful song, sung on Friday nights in the Synagogue. All in the synagogue turn toward the door and sing the “Lekah Dodi”

Come, my beloved friend, to meet the bride, and let us welcome the presence of Shabbat. .........In fame and splendor and praiseful song.....For she is the wellspring of blessing, Arise! Leave from the midst of the turmoil.......Long enough have you sat in the valley of tears....He will take great pity upon you compassionately.....Shake yourself free, rise from the dust...Dress in your garments of splendor, my people...Your God will rejoice concerning you as a groom rejoices over a bride....  Come in peace, crown of her husband...Come O Bride! Come O Bride!

I ponder and ponder and ponder what the heck happened. In 1865, Lewis Carroll wrote a book called “Through the Looking Glass.” It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In it Alice walks through a mirror (a looking glass) into a world turned inside out, like a mirror image, precise, but backwards. There she meets the brothers Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. They wonder if everything isn’t just a dream. Alice herself might be just a figment of their imagination. 

Well, we in this age are definitely “through the looking glass.” In our attempt to redefine marriage, we are trying to live in the figment that marriage is not about man and woman, and most certainly not about children. We are trying to pretend that a behavior, that I shall not mention here, is the equivalent of the act by which an immortal human being is brought into the world. We insist that babies in the womb are not human life. We insist that we don’t have slaves because we can’t see them, far away in China or India or Latin America. We insist that we are a free people though we are enslaved by our desires and spied on by government drones. I could go on indefinitely, but our prosperity, our freedoms, our educational system and our values have all become figments of our imagination. I maintain that it started when in the name of freedom we introduced a new kind of slavery into the society because we wanted to have more freedom.

When I was a boy, there things called Sunday blue laws. All businesses were closed down on Sunday. You went to church, had dinner with your family and then went out to play with your friends. Someone somewhere decided that Sunday closings were discriminatory against those who did not observe Sunday as a quasi-Sabbath. Jews, Seventh Day Adventist, non- Christians should not be restricted by Christian custom in a secular state. People should be free to buy and to sell on Sunday if they so chose. A blow for freedom! 

Now we, like slaves, work seven days a week, plus shift work, husbands and wives never have a day together and on Sunday as well as Saturday, the kids have sports, ballet, piano, yadda, yadda and so on. There is never a moment to enjoy the freedom of the garden in which we were designed to live. Family and marriage never have a place, a time. Husbands and wives are roommates who see each other between shifts at work and the kids are farmed out to other shift workers.  For the sake of an imaginary freedom we have become slaves. Through the looking glass. The chaos began there, at least in my experience. I am sure there are a thousand causes, but the rejection of this first gift of God to humanity, the Sabbath-Bride, has caused untold misery. 

We work harder and harder just to keep up with our own luxuries and the government taxes imposed on them. A slave works 24/7. A free man has some leisure. We have become slaves. Our children, our spouses and our homes have been devastated by our voluntary slavery, our worship of wealth.  “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat, skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales?”

(Amos 8:5) We are all about money and not about love. We are about pleasure, not the gift of life.

I have the strangest idea. If we lost the battle for sanity in this country when we threw away any restriction on avarice by opening the stores on Sunday, why not undo the harm by restoring the Sabbath. We Catholics are forbidden to work on Sunday. Read your catechism.  Paragraph 2185

 “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord's Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body. Family needs or important social service can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest. The faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life, and health.” 

And paragraph 2194 

“The institution of Sunday helps all to be allowed sufficient rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives.” 

 I can hear you say, “The canoe is over the waterfall! If I tell my boss that I won’t work on Sunday, He’ll fire me!” Alright, we can’t turn back the clock, but we can do something else. We can refuse to spend money on Sunday. No fast food, no restaurants, no theater, no K-mart, no dry cleaner, no trip to the gas station. We eat at home, we don’t go to the show, we don’t go out for pizza or for ice cream after Junior’s tiddlywinks tournament.  We don’t even go to the tiddlywinks tournament.

"But Junior loves his competitive tiddlywinks. If we forbid him sports on Sunday or say no to him, he won’t like us. Tiddlywinks builds character and sportsmanship." 

Believe me, when Junior is fat, balding and 40, he wont remember getting creamed as a third string tiddlywinks player, but he will remember that he had a family and parents who loved him if Sabbath is kept as a festival of marital and familial love. There is a saying among the Jews. “If you keep Sabbath, Sabbath will keep you.” We do our shopping on Saturday and if it doesn’t happen on Saturday, it won’t happen until Monday. No shopping!!! No spending money.

There are 91.76 million Evangelicals in this country and 77.7 million Catholics. That’s almost 170 million people, more than half the US population. If half the country refused to shop on Sunday, you had better believe that stores would close, and even Mexican migrants would get to come out of the restaurant kitchens and go to their parks with spouses and children instead of sweating in some cramped back room for your dining pleasure. It is a matter of justice. Do realize that by going to a restaurant on Sunday, you are forcing your Mexican co-religionists to work, and thus endangering their families and their souls?  We may not be able to turn back the clock, but we can rediscover the Sabbath. We can no longer impose our will on the country. We can still impose our will on ourselves. If we rediscover the Sabbath in our own lives as Catholic Christians, perhaps we will rediscover the Sabbath Bride and the exalted role of Eve who creates a home in a way that Adam never could and still can’t. 

“Come my beloved let us greet the Bride, the Sabbath” (from the Lekah Dodi) and “the Spirit and the Bride say 'come!'” Rev. 22:17

Yours, the Rev. Know-it-all.

PS I am going to try to do this in my own life. Baby steps! Start with Baby Steps!

Why the opposition to same sex "marriage"?

I urge you to stop before reading the following article, and I most emphatically urge you not to allow children or more sensitive people to read it. It deals very explicitly with a very delicate topic. There will be some who think these things should not be discussed in a parish bulletin at all. I am of the opinion that we can no longer avoid the issue. It is assumed by the majority of young people even in Catholic schools that same sex marriage is equivalent to traditional marriage and should be respected as such. They are being taught this in government schools and in some Catholic universities, so called.  We live in a country founded by Calvinist Puritans who believed in predestination. I believe that it is part of the Puritan heritage to say "God made me this way." We Catholics believe in freedom and that behavior is a choice. The current climate says that a preference is unchangeable and that sexual activity defines the person.

We Catholics believe that the person is more  than a set of predestined preferences. A person is not "gay" or "straight". A person is a child of God made in his image and likeness and thus all persons merit respect and the freedom of the children of God. A human person is not an orientation. A person may experience variations of attraction between same and different genders. Those attractions  do not define the person and seem much more malleable than the current climate is willing to admit. Some of the finest and holiest people I know have struggled with these issues. Their very struggle is a token of their commitment to the Gospel and the Lord. Yet, they have struggled and refused to allow this corrupt culture to define them. The following pages are written as a real response to a real letter I received. It is written with respect and I hope honesty. I mean to offend no one, but I am bound to teach what the Church has learned from her Lord and has always  held and taught.

Again I ask you to read this advisedly, carefully and prayerfully.

Dear Rev Know-it-all,

I have just read a book that went meticulously through all the scriptural and natural law arguments that are put forward in opposition to homosexual relationships, and for each one, the author showed how they failed to provide a valid basis for deeming homosexual relationships to be wrong or immoral.  I think one of the things that makes this topic so difficult to discuss in the 21st Century western society is the yawning gap between our understanding of sexuality today and how the ancient civilizations viewed sexuality.  All of the Biblical passages, for instance, were written for an audience of ancient societies very unlike our own in regard to sexuality.  Anyone who has read about sexuality in ancient Greece or ancient Rome would be astonished at how vastly different their view of sexuality was from our own.

The book mentioned Leviticus 20:13 “If a man also lies with man, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.”  The author made the case that it was shameful for a man to degrade himself to something resembling the status of a woman.  The Catholic Church today would never dare put forward such a sexist justification for abstaining from homosexual relations. Likewise, the verses in the New Testament seem to have the same thing in mind.  1 Cor. 6:9-10 states that the effeminate “malakos” in Greek, was thought to be lacking in courage. In a couple other places, St. Paul uses the Greek term arsenokoitai to describe something that he considered to be immoral.  Paul appears to have made it up. Both malakoi and arsenokoitai have been translated at times to imply homosexuality, but that's actually inaccurate.  Neither of those terms means what we understand today to mean “homosexual.” So essentially the Bible doesn't say anything about homosexuality per se.  It remains unclear, then, how the Church came up with a blanket prohibition on homosexual relationships. And in terms of Natural Law, I would just ask that in thinking about it, you put aside any preconceived notions you might have about homosexuality and simply ask yourself, why is it intrinsically immoral for two men or two women to be in a sexual relationship?  What harm does that do?

Yours,

Someone who is trying to understand

Dear Someone who is trying to understand,

You are making a few logical errors, at least in my opinion. The first is a very basic error, at least from a Catholic perspective. You are looking for an answer that is “sola scriptura ”, that is from the “Bible alone.” Your assumption is that the Bible is self-interpreting. How can any book be self-interpreting when the words with which it is written can be redefined to suit the argument or the will of the reader?

Here are the four offensive passages in the Bible that need reinterpretation to accommodate our enlightened age.

1) “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. (Leviticus 18:22 )

2) “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” (Leviticus 20:13)

3) “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” (Romans 1:26-27 )

4) “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor the effeminate (malakoi), nor those who lie with males (arsenokoitai), nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”(1Corinthians 6:9-10)

The first two are in the Old Testament. The Old Testament does not count because, well, it’s old. Good and gentle Jesus did away with that Old Testament mumbo jumbo like stoning adulteresses and not eating barbecued pork ribs.  The next two are St. Paul and we all know what a curmudgeon he was, indeed, an embarrassment!

There is one more Biblical passage that may bear upon the topic, and one rarely  hears it referenced.

   “Some Pharisees came to Him to test Him. They asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?’ ‘Haven't you read,’ He replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’  ‘Why then,’ they asked, ‘did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?’ Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.’ ( Matt. 19:3-8)

This is not the Old Fashioned Testament, this not Paul the sexist curmudgeon. This is Good and Gentle Jesus defining marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman.  It is pretty clear in addition that Jesus thought that intimate contact outside of marriage, was wrong, a forgivable sin, but a sin none the less. He was not lightening the law. He was tightening it. He was stricter than Moses regarding sexual morality. He forbad something Moses allowed. Do you think that having forbidden divorce he would then allow intimacies that Moses taught were capital offenses?  Jesus limited sexual activity to a very narrow spectrum of activity and so do His followers. One woman. One man. Whole life. Exclusive relationship. Pretty narrow minded if you ask me. So your argument about same sex marriage is not with me, not with the Church, not with the Hebrew patriarchs not even with that old woman-hater, Paul of Tarsus. Your argument is with Jesus.  You are perfectly free to disagree with him. Who was Jesus after all? Just a failed carpenter, and un-ordained itinerant Rabbi and a person convicted of anti-government sedition, at least that’s how His world saw Him. Maybe they were right. Maybe I am mistaken in my belief that He was the Son of God and the Savior of the world, born of a virgin, crucified and risen from the dead and the founder of the religious organization to which I adhere.

My point is this, if you disagree with a guru, a philosopher, a cult leader or a politician you cannot claim to be his follower. Christians are those people who, like me, believe what Jesus the Christ has said. You cannot say “I am a devoted follower of the Great Teacher Mahatma Sri Baba Lu except in those areas about which we disagree. You’re a follower or you’re not a follower. You may be an admirer, an aficionado, a student of, but you are not a follower of the teacher with whom you disagree. If you think Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, mistaken on some fine points of doctrine and practice, you cannot at the same time call yourself a Christian. In this glorious republic and in all the world you are free to not be a Christian. You are free to think Jesus of Nazareth an interesting philosopher. You are free to leave any church you please and to join any other church, but it seems rather preposterous to claim membership in a church and then to disagree with one of its central tenets. Marriage is one of the few things enshrined as a  sacrament among Catholics. There are only seven sacraments in the Roman Church. You accept 6, but not 7? Can you be  85.6% Catholic?

The first four passages of Scripture have never been translated to mean anything but a condemnation of same sex physical intimacy until this our enlightened age. We Catholics have always believed that the interpretation of Scripture is impossible without reference to the tradition handed down to us from the Sts. Peter and Paul through the ministry of the early Christian authors and the unbroken chain of interpretation that links us to Christ and the first Christians. Trust me. Arsenokoitai and Malakoi mean exactly what they seem to mean, and that is people who engage in same sex intimacy. If you want to believe something else because of your superior enlightenment or your own political or personal needs, fine. Just don’t claim to be part of that faith which has come down to us from the apostles.

I was rather taken with a statement that you made in your letter. “Anyone who has read about sexuality in ancient Greece or ancient Rome would be astonished at how vastly different their view of sexuality was from our own.” I did read a little bit about sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome in my long distant college days as I got my degree in Classical Greek and then teaching classical languages and history for 25 years at a local university, and  I suppose I qualify as “anyone.” I am not astonished by how different our attitudes are from theirs. I am astonished at how similar they are. Fifty years ago, when we were still a Christian culture, the difference was much greater. There would be no ancient Roman or Greek who would think any of our current practices odd or intrinsically immoral, except perhaps, the Romans regarding romantic love. Romans were not very romantic.

Upper class Romans thought romantic love was always a big mistake. They may in fact have had a point, but I digress. The western world was not Roman at the time of Christ. It was Greek, just as the world is American now. Perhaps it will be Chinese soon, but for the time being it is baseball caps, Nike shoes and Chicago Bulls t-shirts that generally clothe the world. So it was at the time of Christ.  Greek language, architecture, sports and culture were everywhere from Germany to Ethiopia, from Spain to India. Quite possibly, more people in Rome spoke Greek than Latin at the time of Christ. Greek culture was embraced by the three great cities of the ancient western world, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. Greek sexual morality was everywhere and it could be summed up in a simple phrase that echoes throughout our modern and enlightened times. “Whatever turns you on!” 

Actually it was friendlier to gender diversity than that. Many educated Greeks believed that male/male relations were superior to male/female relations because women had no souls and were the intellectual inferiors of men. It was surprising to the Greeks that Christians thought women the equal of men which is why St. Paul says to the women of Corinth “Put your veils back on, girls, the neighbors are getting the wrong idea.” 1Cor. 11:5 (I am paraphrasing a bit.) Romans actually disapproved of same sex unions between adults. If a noble Roman wanted to indulge in such behavior he usually moved to Athens. Romans however had no problem with pedophilia with either gender. The stoic ideal frowned on romantic love of any kind and man was always to be the dominant partner. Greeks, had no such problems.

The Holy Land and the rulers of ancient Palestine at the time of Christ were not oriental potentates as portrayed in most Bible movies. They were  thoroughly Greek. The Holy Land was dotted with temples to goddesses and fertility cults replete with prostitute priestesses and transvestite priests who plied their trade as a form of religious worship. For example, take a certain cup, which depicts things I would rather not bring up here. (Suffice it to say no women are depicted on the aforementioned drinking vessel.) It was found about two miles west of Bethlehem and had been made in around 5 to 15 AD, just a few years after Jesus the Carpenter had been born just down the road. Those who think that the very narrow sexual morality demanded by our Jewish Carpenter God was taught in a world with different sexual mores than our own; have not studied the period very thoroughly. Ours is still a more restrictive sexual culture than the Greco-Roman culture. We still don’t approve of adult activity with minors. In the ancient world it was taken for granted. It was actually considered a necessity in classical Greek culture. How else was a boy to be educated in philosophy and the military arts?

I am not making a word of this up. If it repels or offends you, good! Because that is where we are headed if we climb back into the Greco-Roman sewer from which Christianity lifted us. The words “Whom does it hurt?” would slide quite easily form the lips of an ancient pagan, once he got over the shock that anyone would take issue with any sexual activity whatever. Paul invented a word for such activity, “arsenokoitai” because no such word existed in the ancient world. The ancients did not differentiate one form of sexual activity from another. It was all just fine. There was just “Luv” (I use the 1960's spelling for the word, to more accurately translate the Greek word Eros and the Latin word Amor.)

To be continued………….

Why can't "domestic partners" receive Communion?

WARNING:
Once again the Rev. Know it all is in a caffeine-induced snit. Do not throw this article to the floor in disgust once you have begun reading it. Please read it all the way through.            
 
Dear Rev. Know it all,
Last week, I was driving through some rural backwater and, turning on my radio, I heard what at first sounded like some half-baked preacher ranting about marriage. Then to my shock, I realized I was listening to a Catholic priest. He was an absolute fossil. He was reminding people that if they were “living in sin” they shouldn’t be going to communion. He was trying to explain the annulment process, which, as far as I’m concerned is just a bunch of Catholic mumbo jumbo. He seemed to be telling people to remain in loveless, abusive relationships because those were the rules. What does he know about it anyway? People have the right to be happy. It’s in the Declaration of Independence. When will the Catholic Church catch up to the times?
Ms. Annie  Portnoy-Storm
 
Dear Annie,
First let us understand annulments. A divorce says that there was a marriage and now it is over. An annulment says that there was no marriage in the first place. Covenants end when one of the parties involved dies. Contracts end when the business at hand is over and or, one of the parties breaks the contract. Catholics believe that marriage is a covenant, not just a contract -- “Till death do us part.”  The state believes that marriage is a contract.  So what has this do with annulments? 
Within the covenant there is an initial contract. We Catholics contract three obligations in the sacrament of marriage. We promise a marriage that is for life, is exclusive, and in which two parties concede to each other the right, perhaps not the ability, but the right to have children. It must be freely and knowingly entered and not coerced. 
If perhaps a person AT THE TIME OF THE CONTRACT AND THE COVENANT is crazy, or worried about a shot gun or marrying to hide something about themselves or marrying because they have to please their rich uncle, there is not a free contract and the ensuing covenant does not happen.
This is real. I’ve met some randy old goats who are on their fifth wife. When they have to make an important decision they call their wife, by whom they mean their first and real wife, the mother of their children. No matter how hard they’ve tried, they cannot break the indissoluble bond of marriage. On the other hand, I’ve met people who have been  married for 30 years and they are absolute strangers to each other. The spiritual bond has never been there.
Annulments are real and the annulment process is very healing for most of those I know who have gone through it. The Church doesn’t necessarily forbid divorce. There are certain extreme circumstances of real abuse in which someone is in real danger, physical or spiritual. However, in this case, the problem is not divorce but re-marriage.
This is not your real point. You, I suspect, think that people should be able to try different sexual relationships until they find one that makes them happy.  You are of the opinion that the Church is dominated by a bunch of crabby old men who wear black, and are jealous of anyone else’s good fortune. Well, we the clergy, may in fact be crabby, but it’s not because we are jealous of people who have been through a string of unhappy relationships.
After a life time of dealing with miserable divorces and their sad consequences, I have come to believe that one should prefer a serious disease to a divorce. No, we are crabby because we are expected to fix, or least tolerate, and sometimes to celebrate, the messes that some people have made of their relationships. The party line, to which I heartily subscribe, is that if you are in a sexual relationship that is not a sacramental one, you may not receive Holy Communion.
Why is the Church so narrow minded on this topic? Simple. Jesus was narrow minded on this topic. Jesus said “Anyone who divorces his wife and, except for ‘porneia,’ and marries another commits adultery (Matt 19: 9 and following). The disciples were astounded and said if you can’t divorce, it’s better not to marry.  Jesus replied, “This is a hard saying.” 
Just a note on the word “porneia.” King James who himself had a very interesting relational life, published a bible that translated the word porneia as “marital unfaithfulness.” That makes it easy. Your spouse cheats on you, you’re off the hook. The word is mistranslated. The word “porneia” means marriage in a forbidden degree, literally “sexual uncleanness.” The Egyptians, for instance, were fond of marrying their sisters. It kept the money in the family and made holidays much easier. No in-laws to deal with.  Jesus gave annulments for such bizarre arrangements, so annulments are biblical. Dumping your spouse because the old reprobate cheats on you is not biblical. The vow is “till death do you part,” not “till a good fight or a better offer do you part.”
Well then, the next question: Why was Jesus so narrow minded about the whole thing?”  Again simple: God is love.  Well isn’t that the point? We enlightened moderns hop from bed to bed looking for love?  No, we are looking for entertainment. Remember, as I am always telling you, the Greeks were precise to the point of being tedious. The specific Greek word that the Holy Spirit uses in the Gospel text is “agape” which means sacrificial love. You can almost translate the bible quote, “God is Love” as “God is sacrifice.” So I ask you, are you dumping your wife, the mother of your children for an 18 year old exotic dancer in a spirit of sacrifice?  Are you ditching your bald and boring couch potato husband for a good looking pool boy because you want to be conformed to Christ? 
You may have noticed that I am not fond of garden weddings. Beyond the bugs, the mud and the sunburn, there are reasons against garden weddings. When people ask me why they have to be married in a church I always tell them because there is an altar in a church. An altar is where you make sacrifices, and believe me, marriage and family are sacrifices. The world will tell you that the purpose of life is happiness of which true love is a component.  Jesus will tell you that Love, defined as sacrifice, is the purpose of life, and happiness is only its  by-product. We believe that the first purpose of marriage is the sanctification of the partners and of their children, that means your job is to get yourself, your spouse and any children to heaven. If doing that makes you happy, fine, but happiness in this world is not the first goal. If it was, Jesus would not have let Himself be crucified.
Marriage is a VOCATION, a calling from God for the purpose of making people look like Christ, full of love and kindness, self-control and obedience and all the other fruits of the Holy Spirit. Do you really believe that God is calling you to a deep spiritual commitment to the new squeeze you met in the dim light of some sleazy tavern?  As for happiness, I can’t remember anyone I’ve ever known who was really happier in the long run with wife numbers 2, 3 or 4, than they were with wife number 1. Jesus said he who loves his life in this world will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will gain it to everlasting life? Do you think He was kidding?
Well still, why can’t people who are desperately trying to sort out their lives receive Holy Communion? Don’t they need the consolation of the Sacrament even more? There you go again, thinking that the Body and Blood broken on Calvary are just nice things to make you feel better. We call it the sacrifice of the Mass. When I take communion, I am receiving what Christ sacrificed for me and I am saying that I will sacrifice myself for Him and His bride, the Church. Communion isn’t just where you “get Jesus.” It’s where you give yourself to Him. “O Lord, I give you everything about me, except of course, my sexuality which is none of your business, Amen.” Having given yourself totally and eternally to a few spouses you can’t give yourself to the Lord. There’s nothing left because you’ve squandered it all on your search for happiness. The narcissism of the age is not an acceptable offering on the altar of the Living God. 
So what are people to do if they are in a non sacramental relationship?  Should they just don a sackcloth and a scarlet letter, move to the desert and mumble “Unclean! Unclean!” to warn people they meet on the way? Not necessarily. If the relationship is one of concubinage (an archaic term meaning “shacking up”) stop it! If you are in a “committed relationship” (don’t you love that currently trendy term?) why not get married? Or aren’t you that committed to your committed relationship?  If you are involved with someone who is not free to marry, end the relationship. There is usually some reason that the first spouse dropped him or her like a bad habit. If you are married civilly to someone but not sacramentally proceed with care, especially if children are involved. Go see your pastor and inquire about the possibility of an annulment. In my experience, many people who divorce were not ready to be married in the first place. We live in a culture whose idea of morality is Hollywood. Try to get “right with God,” as the saying goes.
St. Augustine says that, regarding the Christian journey, “To wish to go is to go.” If you are desperate enough to really repent, bow your head and say,”Lord, I want to follow you. Teach me ways and show me the right thing to do.”  I’ve never known that prayer to go unanswered when prayed by the sincere heart, the heart ready to obey. By the way, you asked “When will the Catholic Church catch up to the times?” The times stink. Hooray for the Church.
Rev. Know-it-all