marriage – NZ Catholic Newspaper

Working at marriage relationship for six decades

Sue Seconi — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 04:00:02 +0000

Vi and Mike Davies, parishioners of 49 years at Holy Family church, Whanganui, renewed their wedding vows before the congregation at the vigil Mass on December 10. The couple have been married for 60 years. After presider Fr Dondon Rancho blessed again their wedding rings, they each placed these marriage symbols on each other’s fingers as a sign of unbroken love and

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Couples need to avoid ‘The Four Horsemen’

Rowena Orejana — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 02:00:40 +0000

by PETER GRACE The presence in a marriage of four particular negative behaviours, known sometimes as the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, are strong predictors of divorce, says counsellor, pastor and radio DJ Aaron Ironside. Mr Ironside, from west Auckland, was a keynote speaker and workshop presenter at a marriage educators’ training weekend in Auckland from May 20 to 22. In a workshop on

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Myths about forgiveness exposed

Michael Otto — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 21:44:45 +0000

Refusing to forgive someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die, says pastor, counsellor and radio broadcaster Aaron Ironside. Mr Ironside was one of three keynote speakers at the 13th national Catholic marriage educators training weekend from May 20 to 22 at the Waipuna Lodge in Auckland. Mr Ironside told the 120-plus delegates that he is the pastor of Harvest

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Ministries to divorced, remarried strive to echo pope’s call for mercy

Washington (CNS) — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 22:57:34 +0000

By Dennis Sadowski
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Divorce is never easy.
From the realization that love has failed to feelings of shame and a tendency to assess blame, divorce poses an untidy conundrum for families even when a couple settles on an amicable legal separation.echo $variable;

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God’s plan for marriage the best

Rowena Orejana — Mon, 26 May 2014 00:00:21 +0000

by ROWENA OREJANA
AUCKLAND — God has a plan for marriage and his plan works.
This is what Blenheim couple Bill and Jenny McElhinney, members of
the Lamb of God community, stressed in the marriage enrichment seminar held at the Kelston Girls’ High School in New Lynn on May 3.echo $variable;

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NZ bishops make submission on same-sex ‘marriage’ bill

Michael Otto — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 03:49:43 +0000

New Zealand’s Catholic bishops appeared on November 28 before the Government Administration Select Committee considering the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill to share their concerns over the future implications should it become law. Their submission follows:

Who we are
1. This submission on the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill (“the Bill”) is made by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference. The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference is the national body for the Catholic Bishops of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Introduction
2. We believe that the term “marriage” signifies a particular reality; that of a public, committed, permanent and loving relationship between one man and one woman, a relationship which has a natural orientation towards the procreation of new human life.
3. We are seeking to protect the current legal understanding of the nature of marriage as being a union between one man and one woman.
4. The Catholic Church has long promoted marriage as a stable and loving environment for the nurture of family and children, and the consequent good of society. To this end we have supported the institution and practice of marriage through marriage preparation courses, counselling, support for married couples in difficulty, and accompaniment for those who suffer loss of a spouse through death or separation.
5. This is not a debate about homosexuality. Our stance on marriage is not a denigration of persons who are homosexual.
6. The Catholic Church is one voice in a pluralistic society. We have a right to participate in the debate and to be treated fairly and with respect, just as any other group in society.
The Nature of Marriage
7. No church, faith community or state invented marriage. Marriage is a basic human institution that existed before legal and religious constructs were put around it to formalise the institution in society.
8. Marriage derives from the nature of the human person; male and female are sexually different in ways which are complementary. Sexual difference affects all aspects of human existence — biologically, psychologically, genetically and socially. Marriage is founded on sexual difference. The traditional definition of marriage reflects this fact.
9. Marriage is unique; it is a committed union between a man and a woman which has a natural orientation towards the procreation of new human life, and which has the potential to result in children who are fully genetically connected to their parents. This uniqueness requires a name and definition which distinguishes marriage from any other form of relationship.
10. Marriage is not defined in the Marriage Act 1955 specifically as being between a man and a woman. This reflects the reality that people understand the sexual difference of man and woman to be integral to marriage, to the extent that it did not need legal definition in the Act. Prior to the changes made to the Marriage Act 1955 by the Civil Unions Act 2004, the “Forbidden Marriages” listed in Schedule 2 of the Marriage Act were solely between males and females, evidence of society’s clear understanding of marriage.
Individual choice
11. The case for redefining marriage is ultimately premised on an assumption that the individual has the “right to choose”, and that this “right” is not limited by any prior given (other than what society, exercising its “right to choose”, has already determined).
12. There are givens, prior realities, which constitute boundaries within which we are entitled to make our choices.
13. The given or prior reality which exists in the case of marriage is the physical difference between the partners. Neither individual choice, nor societal choice, can make sexual differentiation irrelevant, which is what the proposed redefinition of marriage effectively seeks to do.
14. If the “right to choose” allows a given to be ignored, there is no limit to how marriage might be redefined from time to time.
“Rights, equality, discrimination”
15. Catholic teaching acknowledges a “right of marriage” which no human law can abolish. The right of any person to enter into marriage depends upon fulfilling the criteria which characterise the true nature of marriage.
16. The sexual difference between man and woman makes marriage unique. Sexual activity involving a man and a woman has a natural orientation towards the procreation of children. No third party is needed to provide eggs, gestational carrier or sperm.
17. If a person desires to “marry” someone of the same sex, the relationship does not meet a defining requirement for marriage; that is, the sexual difference essential to the complementarity which gives marriage its uniqueness.
18. Same-sex unions may meet the requirement for a loving, lifelong commitment which is essential for marriage. Same-sex unions cannot meet the defining requirement of marriage, the sexual difference and complementarity of the partners which is ordered to the procreation of children.
19. The union of a man and a woman in marriage is not the same as a same-sex union. It is not discrimination to treat different things differently.
20. Equality cannot be achieved by calling two things which are essentially different by the same name.
Adult choice and children
21. Marriage is the context for both the generation of new life and the nurture of children.
22. The Bill opens a pathway for homosexual couples to adopt the child of one of the partners, or a child who is being placed for adoption. A child born to one of the partners and adopted by the couple will be deliberately deprived of the close parenting of either a mother or a father. A child placed for adoption with a homosexual couple will not experience the parenting of both an adoptive mother and an adoptive father.
23. Psychiatrists assure us that the love of the father and the mother are different, and contribute differently to a child’s development. Children need to experience the love of a mother and the love of a father, and their love for each other.
24. The loss of a child’s parent, precisely as father or as mother actively involved in parenting the child, is a loss to that child’s development and wellbeing.
25. However much children brought up by homosexual partners may be loved and cared for, no one has the right to intentionally deprive them of a father’s love or a mother’s love or the parenting of either a father or a mother.
26. Too often children suffer because of the ways adults pursue their own interests and desires. An adult’s claim to a “right to choose” inflicts a penalty on the child.
27. Marriage protects the right of the child to be raised, wherever possible, by his/her biological parents, and to fully experience the parenting of a mother and a father. Circumstances may mean this ideal is not always be able to be met, but it should not be deliberately set aside in order to satisfy adult desires.
Freedom of conscience
28. There have been public assurances from the Bill’s author, Ms Louisa Wall, that churches will not have to solemnise the marriages of same-sex couples.
29. Section 29 of the Marriage Act states, “a marriage licence shall authorise but not oblige any marriage celebrant to solemnise the marriage to which it relates”.
30. Currently religious ministers are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs, without breaching the unlawful discrimination provisions of the Human Rights Act (HRA). According to the Human Rights Commission, if the Bill becomes law no religious minister would be required to officiate at the marriage of a same-sex couple, anywhere, including in a church. Ceremonial or consecrated spaces, or any other religious premises that are not made available for the public to hire, are not covered by the HRA.
31. The Human Rights Commission opinion on how the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, if passed, would operate for churches, is partially reassuring. However, we can only be fully reassured if the protection of religious beliefs in relation to same sex unions designated as marriages is enshrined in the Bill.
32. We are concerned about potential conflict, should the Bill be passed, between the state and religious institutions as a result of the difference in the definition of marriage. As a legitimate group in a democratic society we would want a legislated guarantee that we can teach and publicly promote Catholic teaching on marriage without penalties such as being excluded from benefits accorded to other institutions, or compelled to provide services to same-sex couples via our agencies where these conflict with our religious beliefs.
33. We cannot help but be sceptical that without specific legal protection in this Bill the reassurances of Louisa Wall and other MPs will, over time, be worthless. During the debate on the Civil Union legislation, many MPs gave assurances that marriage would remain unchanged. Eight years later these assurances mean nothing.
Conclusion
34. A same-sex partnership can be loving and committed. It can never, however, meet the other essential and defining characteristic of marriage, the sexual difference and complementarity between the two partners that has a natural orientation towards the procreation of new human life.
35. Marriage as it is now protects the right of the child to be raised, wherever possible, by his/her biological parents, and to fully experience the parenting of a mother and a father.
36. The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill presents the current understanding of marriage as discriminatory, and this as justification for the Bill. There are some similarities between marriage and same-sex unions; nevertheless, marriage and same-sex unions remain fundamentally different and therefore should not both be covered by the term “marriage”.
37. The sexual differentiation between the partners in marriage is why other faithful, caring, committed relationships are not termed marriage. Marriage has its origins in human nature and for this reason it is beyond the redefinition being proposed by the Bill.

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Social science and ‘gay marriage’

Michael Otto — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 00:00:26 +0000

by Dr NEIL WHITEHEAD Social science has a lot to say about “homosexual marriage”. It shows marriage and same-sex union originate differently and should not be equivalent, either in concept or law. Many family factors have a bearing on later same-sex union, but in the study I cover here, it is the heterosexual family in

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Marriage a call for the good of Christian society

Michael Otto — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 03:15:56 +0000

by JULIA DU FRESNE
It’s years since I formed the dearest friendship of my life, with a man who’s gay. He’s gone from me now to the far side of the world, with several others,echo $variable;

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Traditional marriage still the best, say Milan archbishop

Michael Otto — Wed, 23 May 2012 01:43:53 +0000

VATICAN CITY (LSN) — As the Vatican geared up for the World Meeting of Families in Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan, told media at a Vatican press conference on May 22 that the family, based upon the marriage of a man and a women, is still “the best way to generate and raise children”.
For this reason, he said, and because of the ongoing attacks on that basic paradigm of the family, the Vatican had committed itself to holding the World Meeting of Families every three years in different cities around the world.
Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said that subjects to be covered in the catechesis at the event, already translated into 11 languages, will be “inter-religious marriage, regulation of fertility, demography, the ethic of life from conception to natural death, the ethics of health, the rights of minors”.
Officials expect at least a million to attend the papal Mass launching the event on May 30, and at least 300,000 to attend the Feast of Testimonies.
Bishop John Hine, the head of the Committee for Marriage and Family Life of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and a delegate to the meeting, told Vatican Radio that the trend to redefine marriage in many countries is one of the greatest threats to the family, calling it a move towards “destroying the home and the family”.
The World Meeting of Families is a major project of the Vatican and a favourite movement of Pope Benedict XVI, who has mentioned it twice in public speeches in the past two weeks. From May 30 to June 3, officials and family-promoting NGOs and groups will discuss the theme, “The Family: Work and Celebration”.
Bishop Hines noted that the British government’s consultation on “gay marriage” excluded the possibility of discussing whether the definition of marriage should be changed, allowing only submissions on how it will be changed.
The Catholic bishops of England and Wales, he said, have raised with politicians the fact that “this was never in any party’s political manifestos; they didn’t get elected to do this and yet they’re suddenly foisting it upon us”.

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Religious leaders unite to defend marriage and religious freedom

Michael Otto — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 03:47:40 +0000

WASHINGTON, D.C., (Zenit) — Leaders of some of the largest religious communities in the United States have joined together in an open letter to all Americans to voice their shared concern for marriage and religious freedom.
The letter, titled “Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together,” was released on January 12. Signatories include leaders from Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish, Lutheran, Mormon and Pentecostal communities.
Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, was one of the four signing Catholic bishops.
“Marriage and religious liberty are at a crisis point in the United States,” he said. “This letter is a sign of hope. Not only are tens of millions of believing citizens represented in the letter’s signatories, but the letter itself testifies to the growing and shared awareness of just how important marriage and religious freedom are to the wellbeing of our country. The letter makes a compelling argument that needs to be heard by all of us, especially those in positions of authority: Anyone truly concerned with religious freedom must also be a defender of marriage’s perennial definition.”
In the letter, the leaders counter a common claim that the principal threat to religious freedom is the possibility of ministers being forced to officiate at same-sex “weddings”.
The leaders wrote: “We believe the most urgent peril is this: forcing or pressuring both individuals and religious organisations — throughout their operations, well beyond religious ceremonies — to treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct. There is no doubt that the many people and groups whose moral and religious convictions forbid same-sex sexual conduct will resist the compulsion of the law, and church-state conflicts will result.”
They added that “these conflicts bear serious consequences”.
“They will arise in a broad range of legal contexts, because altering the civil definition of ‘marriage’ does not change one law, but hundreds, even thousands, at once. By a single stroke, every law where rights depend on marital status — such as employment discrimination, employment benefits, adoption, education, healthcare, elder care, housing, property, and taxation — will change so that same-sex sexual relationships must be treated as if they were marriage. That requirement, in turn, will apply to religious people and groups in the ordinary course of their many private or public occupations and ministries — including running schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other housing facilities, providing adoption and counseling services, and many others.”
The leaders warned that redefining marriage has consequences for the religious freedom of all Americans and urged civic leaders to defend marriage so as also to defend religious liberty.
“We especially urge those entrusted with the public good to support laws that uphold the time-honoured definition of marriage, and so avoid threatening the religious freedom of countless institutions and citizens in this country,” the religious leaders said. “Marriage and religious freedom are both deeply woven into the fabric of this nation.”
The release of the letter came four days before the presidential proclamation for Religious Freedom Day and a few weeks before World Marriage Day (February 12) and National Marriage Week USA (February 7-14). The letter follows a letter of shared commitment released on December 6, 2010.

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