Pope Benedict on marriage: key to world peaceAs the Pope begins his visit to the United States there is one topic he is certain to speak on.
Over and over again he has made it clear that the marriage and family debate is central -- not peripheral -- to understanding the human person, and defending our human dignity. For example, when receiving the credentials of the new U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his appreciation for America's recognition of the important of a dialogue of faith and faiths in the public square and linked this to respect not only for religious freedom but for marriage as the union of husband and wife: "I cannot fail to note with gratitude the importance which the United States has attributed to interreligious and intercultural dialogue as a positive force for peacemaking. . . The American people's historic appreciation of the role of religion in shaping public discourse and in shedding light on the inherent moral dimension of social issues-a role at times contested in the name of a straitened understanding of political life and public discourse-is reflected in the efforts of so many of your fellow-citizens and government leaders to ensure legal protection for God's gift of life from conception to natural death, and the safeguarding of the institution of marriage, acknowledged as a stable union between a man and a woman, and that of the family." Pope Benedict devoted about half of his message for the January 1 World Day of Peace to the significance of marriage in developing a culture of peace: "Consequently, whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace. This point merits special reflection: everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace." Marriage essential to world peace? This may strike American ears as an oddity. If so Benedict has made clear it is not an unintentional one. On September21, 2007, in an address to participants in a conference of the Executive Committee of Centrist Democratic International, Pope Benedict prefigured the same theme: "There are those who maintain that human reason is incapable of grasping the truth, and therefore of pursuing the good that corresponds to personal dignity. There are some who believe that it is legitimate to destroy human life in its earliest or final stages. Equally troubling is the growing crisis of the family, which is the fundamental nucleus of society based on the indissoluble bond of marriage between a man and a woman. Experience has shown that when the truth about man is subverted or the foundation of the family undermined, peace itself is threatened and the rule of law is compromised, leading inevitably to forms of injustice and violence." The short pontificate of Benedict XVI is already a standing rebuke to those voices of our time who seek to make us ashamed or embarrassed of caring about marriage and sexual issues, who try to get us to view the contemporary marriage debate as merely a distraction from more important issues. Pope Benedict clearly connects life and marriage, the human person in the human family, with the most fundamental international issues of peace and human rights facing our times. Maggie Gallagher is president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. |
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Comments (8)
Susan Reibel Moore said...A splendid short piece. Thank you, Maggie.
Australia | Thursday, 17 April 2008 at 7:02 pm
Tony Iheanachor said...The Human race needs to do some meditation on the family so as to understand the need for its protection . When people try to give excuses for wrong doing or attempt to make what is wrong look right,then it should not come to us as a surprise when other reactions like violence are experienced. The family is the nucleus of the society and if it is troubled, the whole of society is in trouble.
Nigeria | Friday, 18 April 2008 at 8:39 pm
charles nixon said...Let us pray that more people will listen to the Bishop of Rome Charles+
Canada | Saturday, 19 April 2008 at 1:10 am
Rea Kosuke said...Oy… I respect and admire the Catholic faith.
Therefore, I would be extremely happy if the Pope would remember that there is a future; that in that future, homosexual marriage is a -fact-. And that in that future environment, he will be looked back upon as standing in the way of moving forward with human rights. I don’t want people in the future to look at the Catholic faith as being backwards and misguided.
-- | Monday, 21 April 2008 at 2:14 pm
srabeela said...marriage is one of the seven sacraments in the catholic church so as to other sector of religion of these planet, however as human gain knowledge thru science and technology it turns the event so rapidly, immorality thrive as just an ordinary affair living in the world of “eat drink and be maerry for tomorrow we die”. Deep seated marriage life requires equal tune up from the parents to the children like a guitar which all string shoud be on its appropriate pitch to obtain the most harmonious sound that may contribute to world peace in minute proportion. We need a closer look how we contemplate Christ in our Bible, Allah in the Koran or any Divine Books each leading World Religion if we have one.
-- | Monday, 21 April 2008 at 8:55 pm
EdwardMartin Rwarinda said...Rea Kosuke do you think that human rights originate from man or from God? Do you think we should prefer human criteria over God’s criteria in judging the Catholic Faith?
If human rights are God given then where do you get the guts of calling homosexual marriage a right?
If human criteria of judgment are prone to error why should we prefer them over God’s criteria that are perfect? Can the Catholic Church which is founded on God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be destroyed by human means?
No power can destroy or judge the Catholic Church which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ the Conquerer of sin, evil and death.
Please leave the award of human rights to God
Uganda | Monday, 21 April 2008 at 11:57 pm
Tony Iheanachor said...The Catholic church will always follow in the footsteps and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christ did not condemn anyone and neither does the church. But the church prays for all men to find the way, the truth, the life and the light which is Christ himself. By so doing, supposed homosexuals would come to realize the mistake they are making and seek help for correction of their unnatural tendencies. For Christ himself can cure them, if only they would ask and believe. However, if they go on asking for rights and privileges to support their unnatural inclinations, they would only be trying to cause an imbalance in the natural order. All search for rights and freedoms should be geared towards the restoration of the natural order where it has been destabilized by human activities.
Nigeria | Tuesday, 22 April 2008 at 12:46 am
Mary Jo Anderson said...Maggie, this is an important reminder for every culture!
The Pope has made the basic foundation of society, of civilization, clear to a world that styles itself as so modern as to be beyond that human truth.
There is also a a need to use words to communicate truth. It is not a violation of a human right to insist that words *not* be emptied of meaning, or have antithetical meanings injected. Marriage requires the joining of the two halves of the human species. This conjugal union creates a bond between and for the opposite sex, so that each participates in the other’s life, a unifying of the totality of the human experience. This cannot occur in a same-sex union. To reserve to the term “marriage” the truth of what happens in that bond, is not to deprive same-sex pairs of any “right.”
Maggie, thank you for your hard work.
United States | Wednesday, 23 April 2008 at 1:11 am
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