An Open Letter to Tim Kaine

When a Catholic pol has to get out there and Win One for the Team, he always invokes the Third Vatican Council and prophesies about how Real Soon Now the Church will change its teaching to fit the Dem platform.  That’s Tim Kaine’s job right now: to assure the Dem faithful that any day now the Church will Change the Teaching on gay “marriage”.

Now it’s quite possible that the bishops will acknowledge, as a fait accompli, that Caesar has decided to pretend that changing civil law and civil contracts between two homosexuals constitutes “marriage”.  The Church can’t tell Caesar what to do if Caesar doesn’t feel like doing it.  So the Church may well say, “Welp, that’s what Caesar has chosen to do and we will have to keep that legal reality in mind as we move forward from here.”

But that’s not “changing the teaching” any more than recognizing that Caesar’s tax increase will mean Catholic school buses will cost more to run.  It’s “prudently facing reality”.

Changing the teaching means saying “We were wrong.  A union between between two people of the same sex has the character of marriage and, in fact, two people of the same sex can be the matter of the sacrament of marriage.” And that, Senator Kaine, will only happen on the day the Church begins baptizing people in Coca Cola and consecrating Twinkies and 7 UP in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

The Church did not establish the sacraments.  They are not her property to do whatever the hell she wants with.  She cannot change the matter of the sacraments to suit the Democratic party platform.  His bishop told him as much.

Catholic Answers has remarks along these lines (and more) for Senator Kaine to ignore, as is the custom of politicized American Catholic pols winning one for the team.  But we should not ignore them.