We need to face widespread rejection of Church teaching

Dear Editor, 

Fr Mannion (Letters, 28/05/2015) fails to notice the clear teaching of Jesus in Mark 10 that marriage is a natural union of male and female, substituting instead the ideas that men and women share equal dignity and “the ideal of marriage as a commitment for life”. Logically, his interpretations do not exclude the teaching that marriage is a union of man and woman as ‘one flesh’. It is entirely possible and right to accept all three of these interpretations, following the constant tradition and magisterium of the Church.

Fr Mannion finds a warrant for same-sex marriage in the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, surely a new low in the distortion of that council’s teaching. He ignores the threat to Christians’ consciences and livelihoods now that marriage has been radically redefined in contradiction with Christian belief and practice. People will be coerced to accept, and even publicly support, same-sex marriage. ‘Equality’ trumps religious freedom.

The sacrament will indeed be touched by civil marriage’s extreme redefinition. If it is morally and legally necessary to treat same-sex couples as no different from opposite-sex couples (with regard to marriage and family), as the new amendment implies, then how can the Church justify treating them as different in her own teaching and practice? Do Catholics who publicly supported a ‘yes’ vote accept fully that Church teaching and practice are justified?

Any effective ‘reality check’ requires that Church leaders face head-on the widespread rejection or ignoring of her teaching among clergy and laypeople, and stop delaying treating this ‘cancer’ within the Body of Christ with the excuse that a new language needs to be found. It’s great if we develop new, orthodox evangelising approaches; but, right now, we must stop constantly talking around the topic and avoiding proclaiming the full Gospel.

Yours etc.,

Dr John Murray,

Clonliffe Road, Dublin 3.