How Reporting on Gay Marriage Made Me Reevaluate My Catholic Identity
Posted: 10/09/2014 4:46 pm EDT
Updated: 3 hours ago
Olivia Bahou
Student, Northwestern University
In the Catholic Church, confirming your faith involves one small word and a whole lot to swallow. It's a simple task, receiving communion, but in my religion class, it warranted a rehearsal. I practiced walking in line down my teacher's lawn, my right hand beneath my left, in an obedient gang of beggars. At the end of the line, a simple "Amen" won me a Saltine, a kind substitution for the bland wafer I had yet to taste.
Days later I strutted down the aisle of Saint Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in a miniature wedding dress and my first pair of kitten heels. With a confident affirmation of my faith and a rushed sign of the cross came a harsh reality. There was no divine intervention, no secrets of life suddenly revealed. I knelt and prayed until my knees bore marks from the scratchy red fabric, willing a response that would never come. The mystery of faith no longer seemed like such a mystery; it was just a bad snack.
I continued on as a Christmas and Easter Catholic, one in a town of many. On holidays our masses were standing room only; the next weekend the pews were left empty. There was nothing standing between me and my faith, nor was there anything holding me to it. It wasn't until college when I met wives Maria Carandang and Lisa Atansio that I questioned Catholicism once again. This time the problem was its position on gay marriage, even for those simply attending the wedding.
On the eve of Maria's backyard wedding, she practiced her walk down the aisle as the rain poured down and her heels sank into the damp grass. The once promising forecast now predicted below-average temperatures and certain rainfall. Waiting inside the sliding glass doors was her fiancé, Lisa, who had more on her mind than the impending rain.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-bahou/reevaluating-my-catholic-_b_5961326.html
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Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)Last edited Sun Oct 12, 2014, 06:21 AM - Edit history (1)
She quotes the Monsignor as saying that a Catholic's conscience "must be informed by the teaching of the Church." Now, despite what some in the institutional Church say, "must be informed by" is not another way of saying "is dictated by". I have come across some who say that a Catholic who disagrees with Church teaching cannot have an informed conscience, since a properly informed conscience must, by definition, follow Church teaching. Those who say this expect us to follow the party line as if we were Stalinists in the 1930s.
Thomas Aquinas says says that a conscience, even an erring conscience, must be followed, even if it goes against Church teaching. See his Summa Theologica, I, question 79, article 13.
When gay marriage became legal in Illinois, my wife and I attended the wedding of a couple we know, two men who have been together for over thirty years. My wife, who is a close friend (and former boss) of one of the two, served as Best Woman. When she was asked to stand up at the wedding, she said that she would be happy to, but there was no way she was going to be "Matron of Honor". At the reception, we found out that Nichelle Nichols did exactly the same thing, with exactly the same title, at George Takei's wedding.
rug
(82,333 posts)When I hear that, I remember the jury instruction on reasonable doubt:
"A reasonable doubt is a doubt for which you can give a reason. A doubt to be reasonable must not be based on whim or personal preference. A reasonable doubt is a doubt which would cause a prudent person to hesitate before acting on a matter of great importance to him or her."
Now, we do have an obligation to know the Church's teachings, but not all of it is infallible or carries the same authority. And we do have God-given minds and consciences. When they clash, the stated teachings must yield.
