Our journey to holy union

Congratulations!

Kate, as a felllow Catholic and a woman, I applaud your courage to speak openly about your experince in a Catholic forum. I'll leave it to others to debate the same issues that always come up around the issue of homosexuality, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of Catholics out there who support you and pray for a day when the Catholic Church openly accepts homosexuals. Even though they don't like to admit it, the Church can be wrong; they used to condem Jews, African-Americans and women (they even went so far as to debate whether we had souls) all in the name of God. They have learned from those mistakes and I hope they will learn from the ones they are making now. I don't know about you, but my God created EVERYONE in his/her own image and told us to love one another, not discriminate against them.

If we look to the biblical origins of what we now call "marriage", we find that in Genesis' creation mythology, after Adam was created, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18). So, God went on to make a partner for man in order to remedy loneliness. On this basis, the premise is not procreation, but companionship. What later became known as "marriage" is a decision to enter an enduring partnership that is based on the human need for companionship.

If God creates people to be both heterosexual and homosexual, it is not up to the so called 'religious' of any particular denomination to decide for those of another denomination or within secular society (who may not be adherents of a denomination or even any faith group at all) how they should partner to allay the condition of loneliness. Nor does any particular tradition necessarily get to dictate how another might interpret making a commitment to a partner that is intended to allay loneliness through a loving relationship. Who owns the dictionary, after all! Words are defined by the use to which they are put in any given culture or age. Many are redefined as we evolve and expand understanding.

It takes collosal nerve to limit others because of our narrow-mindedness.

" . . . and the greatest of these is love . . . " Thank you, Kate and Ariana, for listening to the law-of-love, and walking in that law. In the end, that's ALL that counts.

Dear Kate,
Much happiness to you and Ariana! Thank you for your courage and your open and honest sharing. Hearing your story and one another's stories, helps me to know what is real in folks lives and hopefully eliminates understanding important issues only in a black and white framework.

I look forward to hearing more from you. Peace

As a Catholic, I remain deeply scandalized by the role our hierarchy had in getting the hateful, homophobic Prop 8 passed. Same goes for the Knights of Columbus, who gave 1 MILLION dollars to promote Prop 8. I will certainly never donate to them again.

God bless you in your marriage.

Thank you for your brave witness to love-as-action. I was very moved by your story.

Just beautiful. Complex issues, that seem to me simply backwards and outdated by the time, tackled by the outstretched hands of two lovers. When will our communities see through eyes of equality and compassion for all families?

My beloved and I legally married in California on August 2, in our church. We have been together for sixteen years.

Part of getting married is the creating of the ceremony, then the ceremony itself; but an important part is, as you wrote, the opportunity for loved ones to share their stories. This, a wedding is not only a couple-building event, but a family- and community-building event. This is an interactive event that just cannot have a counterpart when a couple fills out domestic partnership forms and goes to the UPS store to have it notarized. Those who oppose us are trying to keep us in closets of their own making, providing a way to pretend once again that we don't exist.

Marrying is a way of saying I DO! not only to one another, but to the God of love who created and -- yes -- loves us all. No one can legislate THAT away from us.

Congratulations!

Well, I hope you have a very long and happy marriage. The scandal in marriage today is the number of divorces not the sex of the married couples.

Dear Kate and Ariana!
BRAVO!!!!! Thank you for standing up for your truth and for allowing your voices to be heard in an Institutional culture that seems to only want to hear the voice of the vocal minority. I am frankly tired of being silenced for being woman, spiritual, passionate, a healer and a visionary. Prophets like you need to be heard! Keep speaking your truth.

Thank you for sharing with us your journey to holy union. And holy union, it certainly is, for where love is, so is Godde.

Yours is a beautiful story :-) May your union be blessed always. May the fruit of the Spirit stay with you both as you grow older and wiser together.

Your happiness is contagious. Thank you again.

Kate - I was so worried that I would come here and find negative comments, but I'm so pleased with the response you have received thus far. Thanks for this beautiful reflection. Best to you and Ariana.

And to all of us who have been touched by Kate's honest and beautiful words - let us not rest in the struggle for full civil and religious equality for all who identify as part of the LGBTQ community.

Dear Kate and Ariana - thank you for your story. It makes me super happy. But, I'm finding myself edging away from the Catholic church these days (I'm a 40 year old gay single New Yorker, happy as can be and always trying to honor God in my thoughts, deeds and actions). Can you (or anyone reading) recommend a good book that would help me embrace the Catholic church - and, say, you know, THE POPE - amidst all this hateful nonsense with shunning the homos? If I could go to church with all these fine commenters, then all would be well. Meanwhile, I feel judged to the hilt when I go get communion.

Thanks - and all good things to you and yours,

Jeffrey

Congratulations! It's so important for Catholics to hear such a positive message about the LGBT community. Thanks for your commitment to each other and to a faith community, of which I am a member, that has so much more to learn.

There's still not enough discussion of the different definitions of marriage operative in, say, the Roman Catholic Church and societies around the world.

Kate and Ariana have their own definition of marriage. The Church says it doesn't recognize itself in Kate and Ariana's definition of marriage. Why not? Differing definitions of "marriage" I'd say.

Even if marriage is just a "construct" its not at all clear why I should prefer somebody else's construct to the Church's construct.

The problem with marriage in modernity, with our 50%+ divorce rate, is that, too often, marriage is made to conform to our convenient ideas rather than the Church's attainable, livable ideal. Simply put, people would be happier if they lived up to the ideal rather than down to their idea.

May God have mercy on you both - you're going to need it.

You've decided what is sinful and what isn't, you've decided what is holy and what isn't, and you've decided what is Truth and what isn't. In effect, you've eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree, and your eyes were opened, and you decided that even then, it was still Good. You truly have become like gods, and you've chosen to no longer follow the one God. But there is still time to repent.

I'm not a big Mahony fan, but he pretty much nails it here. The whole issue is the definition of marriage. Anyone seeking to change it has to demonstrate why this definition is wanting and their proposed definition is better.
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Published: Friday, December 5, 2008
A pastoral message to homosexual Catholics in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles
By Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and the Auxiliary Bishops of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

As Bishops of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, we are addressing this message first of all to the homosexual members of our Church. Given the controversy generated by the passage of Proposition 8, we want to reassure each of you that you are cherished members of the Catholic Church, and that we value you as equal and active members of the Body of Christ. At the same time, we would like to address this message to all the members of the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and to all men and women in the wider community.

The passage of Proposition 8 in the State of California does not diminish in any way the importance of you, our homosexual brothers and sisters in the Church. Nor does it lessen your personal dignity and value as full members of the Body of Christ. The Church's support of Proposition 8 was our effort to resist a legal redefinition of marriage. Our support for Proposition 8 was in defense of the longstanding institution of marriage understood as the life-long relationship of a man and a woman ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of their children.

We are disappointed that the ballot information about Proposition 8 stated that the purpose of the initiative was "to ban gay marriage." From the very beginning, this was not our purpose.

When the United Nations was established in 1948, it proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which set in place some 30 Articles to embrace all rights of all peoples on the earth. Article 16 deals with marriage. In the context of the time when it was written, it is clear that the basic understanding of the family, as envisioned by the United Nations Declaration, was one founded on the marriage of one man and one woman.

Subsection 3 states: "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State." It is this universal understanding of marriage and family which Proposition 8 desired to guarantee in California.

Such an understanding of marriage is found in at least three major religious traditions which have described the origin, meaning, and intent of marriage in their sacred writings. In the Hebrew Scriptures, we find explicit reference to marriage between a man and a woman in 51 verses located in 19 books. The Christian Scriptures have 14 verses dealing directly with marriage in six books. The Muslim Koran records 14 passages dealing with marriage.

Thus, our faith communities and their sacred writings are in agreement about the application of the term "marriage." And there are other faith communities which, in their own sacred writings, concur with this understanding. Our faith communities have never understood this term to be applied to other types of relationships between people.

These sacred writings and traditions, spanning thousands of years, support the fundamental truth that God created the human family as male and female, sending them forth to be fruitful and multiply. This is the understanding of marriage which has prevailed throughout human history, and has been enacted in the laws of peoples, nations, races and religions everywhere. It is this truth that is at the heart of Proposition 8.

Proposition 8 was not crafted as a concern for civil rights but as an effort to resist a redefinition of marriage. "Marriage" is not a merely religious concept, but is so fundamental to human experience that it cannot be redefined legally.

The Catholic Church has historically opposed attempts to deny or to limit the exercise of the basic rights which are known through the natural law and which are expounded in Sacred Scriptures and in the charters and declarations of world bodies. Our efforts in this country to espouse equal rights for all citizens have frequently created adverse reactions for our Church: our somewhat belated efforts to prohibit slavery; our insistence on equal educational opportunities for all children; our strong support of immigrants' rights; our struggles on behalf of unborn children and those at the end of life's journey, and so many others.

In 1997 the United States Catholic Bishops' Committee on Marriage and the Family published Always Our Children: A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children and Suggestions for Pastoral Ministers, urging the Christian community and especially parents of homosexuals to offer them understanding and pastoral care.

Proposition 8 was never intended, directly or indirectly, to lessen the value and importance of gay and lesbian persons. Your intrinsic value as human beings and as brothers and sisters continues without change. If we had ever thought that the intent of this proposition was to harm you or anyone in the State of California, we would not have supported it. We are personally grateful for the witness and service of so many dedicated and generous homosexual Catholics. We pledge our commitment to safeguard your dignity.

Here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles we began our spiritual and pastoral outreach to homosexual people over 20 years ago. And we were pilloried by many for doing so. We began the various Serra Residences for victims of HIV and AIDS when the public understanding and fear of this illness repulsed so many.

As we have come to learn over these past decades, there are many groupings of people residing under one roof across California. Some of these groupings are related family members, while others are companions and friends. There are now 17 rights for such companions and friends specifically included in the State of California's legal structure.

We are saddened that some people who opposed Proposition 8 have employed hurtful and accusatory language, and even threatening actions, against those who voted for Proposition 8. This is most unfortunate since such strategies obscure the basic matter at issue: the preservation of the ordered relationship between man and woman created by God.

Supporting marriage as it has always been understood diminishes none of us.

We welcome thoughtful and civil dialogue with you so that we can deepen our realization that all of us cherish God's creative life which we equally share. We are committed to find ways to eliminate discrimination against homosexual persons, and to help guarantee the basic rights which belong to each of us.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony
Bishop Thomas Curry
Bishop Gerald Wilkerson
Bishop Edward Clark
Bishop Gabino Zavala
Bishop Alexander Salazar
Bishop Oscar Solis

Congratulations Kate and Ariana, and blessings on your marriage. I am sure that the seriousness with which you have undertaken your commitment to each other will not go unnoticed by our God. Like many others here, I believe that if everyone contemplating marriage took the steps you have, we would significantly reduce the divorce rate.

I am disappointed to see Cardinal Mahony's letter. It is to me, yet one more example of an inappropriate attempt by religious leaders to interfere in secular matters. Also, his words may say I am cherished and valued, but his actions completely contradict those words.

In this country, our government provides economic incentives for couples to become one economic unit, and calls it marriage. To provide those economic benefits to one group of people - regardless of their ability, intent or willingess to procreate - without providing them to another, violates our constitution and its founding principles. On top of that, we have made religious leaders proxies for our government - another constitutional issue - in allowing a marriage performed by a religious leader to be binding civilly.

Prop 8 would have moved us one step closer to truly separating church and state functions, while preserving any religious group's right to choose its rules of membership.

I hope and pray that our leaders begin asking themselves "What would Jesus do?" I believe in the depths of my soul that He would welcome Kate and Ariana with open arms, and rebuke our church leaders as the Pharisees and Saducees of our time.

Mark, I'll take up your challenge: "Anyone seeking to change it has to demonstrate why this definition is wanting and their proposed definition is better."

The traditional definition of marriage is a contractual property obligation granting most legal rights to the male partner. Distant tradition granted males the right to marry as many women as they wanted, and some men got very wealthy on the ability. Polygmay is inherent on the Old Testament.

I believe the reason the Church has gone bonkers over the gay marriage issue has nothing to do with gays and everything to do with the maintenance of male dominance in culture. Children raised in a 'traditional' family will give knee jerk acquiesence to male dominance because daddy sat at the head of the table.

Male dominance in culture, fostered through traditional patriarchal families, has brought humanity to the brink of extinction. It is also the core unit in which our all male clerical hierarchy maintains it's unaccountability in Catholic culture. Nobody really holds 'daddy' accountable in a traditional marriage. This is why incest and other sexual trysts in families is as under reported as pedophilia is in the church. It's scandalous only because it rocks the unexamined trust in the patriarchal model. It must be kept secret for everyone's own good, but mostly "father's" own reputation.

Humanity can no longer afford our long standing experiment with unquestioned male dominance as reinforced by 'traditional marriage'. Which is probably why traditional marriages are failing at the rate they fail. Barack isn't just our first black president, he's our first raised by a non traditional family. Maybe that's why he can entertain the notion of sharing power with opponents.

For this reason alone I welcome any other kind of committed relationship. Diversity is good for humanity.

Thanks, Colkoch, but you only did part "a" - diagnosing the problem. What is part "b" - your new definition of marriage?

All,

The truth of the matter is that, no matter how much the words and views of the Church are twisted or poorly presented here, marriage is a type or figure of the mystery of Christ's relationship with the Church. Secondly, it is for procreation and for companionship between a man and woman. God has given us bounds to this life for our own good and because He wills it. Whether or not a man or woman is tempted to a homosexual life, the boundary remains. Just as I can not lie, worship false gods, or commit adultery, I can not give in to the temptation of homosexuality. If I do, I am bound to reconcile with God and truly strive to amend my life. There is no gaurantee in this life of material happiness or fulfillment. But what a small thing compared to the promises of our heavenly home!

The defense of marriage in this world is a defense of Christ's love for the Church. If a weakness in a man or woman leads toward homosexual passions, that man or woman must strive in this life to approach God's love and flee from the sin. Christ is our shepherd here on earth; he tends the flock with perfect love. But at the end of this life, there is only judgement. So yes, God loves the homosexual, the thief, and the liar. But, at the end of our time here on earth, God must judge (if not, what does His justice mean? How can it have value?) Christ was clear about the difficulty of entering Heaven when he spoke here on earth. He minced no words about the fate of those who willingly reject the law and love of God.

In as much as I will prayer for you, I ask the same of you for me, a sinner.

Yours in Christ,
Shane

Is this a catholic site? Does OBEDIENCE to the magisterium still mean anything to you? Does the teaching of the GOSPEL still mean anything to you? No wonder Chritianity is dying in the west.

I have no idea how can anyone be in favour of homosexual marriage. Now don't get me wrong I think legislation should be introduced to protect descrimination against homosexuals and to protects their rights however that legislation should not give them 'marriage rights' especially when it comes to family issues. They should not have the right to adopt kids as no one has a 'right' to have a child and kids are not a commodity that can be bought but a GIFT. and since the homosexual lifestyle is not open to this gift, they should not be entitled to share in this gift.
Society needs to protect the traditional form of the family at all costs as it has been and will continue to be the foundation upon which we build our future.

very nice article thank you very much....

We have used marriage as a metaphor to help us understand Christ's relationship to the Church. Marriage existed before Christ and the Church and it was a legal recognition of a man's rights over his household members and his (and their) property. Our understanding of marriage has evolved as the rights of women and children have been recognized: they are human beings and legal entities in and of themselves, not only as they are attached to a male. Marriage has been entangled in church/state issues since clerics were granted the legal right to witness marriages for the state.
Personally, I think the church should get out of the legal marriage business. Marriage as defined by the Catholic Church (see Mahoney above: "as the life-long relationship") doesn't exist (except as a promise or possibility) until the death of one of the partners. The state can define a legal marriage however the people of the state want. It has nothing to do with how the church defines marriage - witness the legalization of divorce, which the church doesn't recognize. The confusion comes because we use the same term - marriage - to mean different things. Maybe we should try to make a distinction between legal/civil marriage and religious/sacramental marriage. In some countries legal marriage is totally separated from the church/religious ritual. It would help clarify the discussion concerning homosexual unions if the legal and the religious definitions could be kept apart. The state gets to preside over the legal definition and the Church over the sacramental one and people can decide if they want to be legally married and/or sacramentally married.

God created Adam and Eve, not Ellen and Eve

Dear Kate and Ariana,
With the greatest of respect ladies you are not married.. you know the stuff about marriage being between a man and a woman.... and whilst you may indeed be in a relationship, it is not a marriage. Sadly you are also no longer in a state of grace but in mortal sin. You have de facto excomunicated yourselves by your actions, and you should not receive the Blessed Sacrament...I beg you read the scriptures that warn about 'eating and drinking condemnation unto yourself'i.e. the concequences, if you do. You have decided what you wanted to do, but you have not been faithful to what the Church teaches and because you have set yourself above obedience to the gospel, you have decided you know better/are better than God. Is your relationship with God subordinate to this earthly relationship you have? Remember eternity is a long time to be in hell... without God... and as God has given you the free will to choose to follow Him or not, you will have brought this judgement on your own heads.
Believe me I speak from absolute experience when I say this... I tried to sustain a relationship such as this (for more than 20 years)and felt initially that it was right to make the compromises just as you have and for all the same reasons. But the peace of God which passes all understanding is worth far more to me than any earthly relationship. And no I have not been brainwashed by evangelicals... I remain a gay person but celibate, and I am now a faithful catholic christian, and my reltionship with God and His love for me is above ALL other things/people.
Please listen to what I am saying. Do not look into the face of Jesus when you face His judgement, as we all will, and then realise I was telling you the truth because by then it will be too late... and that means forever.
With Love and prayers maryclare :-)

Remember when marriage for LOVE was scandalous? (For example, when troubadours sung of courtly love?) The then contemporary institutional church was against that also.

I hope that all those reading here, and most especially those congratulating Kate and Ariana, will pray that the Holy Spirit will enlighten them and allow the to know what is necessary for their eternal salvation.

To the editors of the National Catholic Reporter:

I respectfully request that you consider the following requests, first made by then-Bishop Charles H. Helmsing of Kansas City-St. Joseph (MO) in 1968:

IN AS MUCH as the National Catholic Reporter does not reflect the teaching of the Church, but on the contrary, has openly and deliberately opposed this teaching. I ask the editors in all honesty to drop the term "Catholic" from their masthead. By retaining it they deceive their Catholic readers and do a great disservice to ecumenism by being responsible for the false irenicism of watering down Catholic teachings.

I further ask the editors and the board of directors, for the love of God and their fellow men, to change their misguided and evil policy; for it is evident to me that they have already caused untold harm to the faith and morals not only of our laity, but of too many of our priests and religious.

Some time ago, I did need to buy a house for my firm but I didn't earn enough cash and could not buy something. Thank heaven my fellow proposed to try to get the business loans from reliable creditors. Therefore, I did that and was happy with my student loan.