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<\/a><\/p>\nI have to wonder if same sex marriage will be the issue that finally and irrevocably rends the American church in two.<\/p>\n
First, there\u2019s Seattle: <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The folk mass hymns and gospels were familiar, the response \u201cAnd with your spirit\u201d recited Sundays in church by millions of Catholics, but the 120 faithful gathered outside Seattle\u2019s St. James Cathedral on Sunday afternoon were praying for a cause their bishops are campaigning\u00a0against.<\/p>\n Mobilized by Catholics for Marriage Equality, they celebrated a \u201cLiturgy of Love,\u201d praying for the recognition of same-sex unions and the passage of Referendum 74, which would legalize marriage between persons of the same\u00a0gender.<\/p>\n \u201cI would just say the God I have come to know is not one to tell people they are not equal,\u201d said Robert Gavino, a Seattle University\u00a0student.<\/p>\n John House, a parishoner at Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Snoqualmie, added:\u00a0 \u201cCatholics believe Christ\u2019s primary message is one of love, and Catholic social teaching teaches us that God loves everybody.\u00a0 We are standing up for centuries of Catholic social\u00a0teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n They are also standing against their\u00a0bishops.<\/p>\n Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain has issued a pastoral letter denouncing Referendum 74, and put three anti-74 videos on the diocesan website.\u00a0 \u201cR-74 jeopardizes freedom rather than expands it:\u00a0 It endangers our religious liberty and the right of conscience,\u201d Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima claimed in a particularly strident letter to the\u00a0faithful.<\/p>\n We disagree, said those on the steps of St. James\u00a0Cathedral.<\/p>\n \u201cI find (bishops\u2019 claims) perplexing:. Nothing about marriage equality in the state of Washington is any infringement on liberty.\u00a0 This is about civil marriage and civil law,\u201d said John Morfield, a longtime parishoner at St. Mary\u2019s Catholic\u00a0Church.<\/p>\n And Barbara Guzzo, organizer of Catholics for Marriage, argued that the bishops have brought \u201canguish, division and sadness\u201d to the faithful, \u201cparticularly those with a gay person in their families, the hurt that this has\u00a0caused.\u201d<\/p>\n Fr. John Whitney, S.J., pastor of St. Joseph Church, has encouraged discussion and helped a recent meeting to promote reconciliation between those who share the bishops\u2019 passionate opposition and those who back Referendum 74.\u00a0 \u201cAuthority never supplants conscience,\u201d he told parishoners in a recent \u201ce-blast.\u201d<\/p>\n But stridently conservative bishops across the country have brought politics to the pulpit \u2014 and delivered dictates of what belongs in the consciences of those in the pews.<\/p>\n \u201cA properly formed Catholic conscience will never contradict the Church\u2019s teachings in matters of faith and morality,\u201d Bishop David Kagan of Fargo, N.D., said in a weekend letter.\u00a0 The letter contained no mention of social teachings or poverty or human rights, but among things \u201cnever acceptable\u201d was \u201cnot recognizing the unique and special role of marriage as a unique union of one man and one\u00a0woman.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Across the country, there\u2019s Maryland: <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n In Baltimore\u2019s St. Vincent de Paul church, Fr. Richard T. Lawrence read a nuanced letter from Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori at all the weekend\u2019s Masses. It concluded: \u201cEach one of us \u2014 as Catholics and faithful citizens \u2014 must show up on election day and do our part by voting against Question 6,\u201d the Civil Marriage Protection Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe archbishop\u2019s thoughts on this question are powerful, and will be persuasive in conscience to many\u201d and should be read and prayed over by all, said Lawrence, who has been St. Vincent\u2019s pastor for 39 years.<\/p>\n He then stated his own homiletic thoughts:<\/p>\n I cannot tell you how any of this will come out, but I will tell you that I stand in genuine awe of all those parents, native-born, naturalized, documented and undocumented, who strive with every fiber of their being to ensure that their children have more opportunities than they had.<\/p>\n And I will continue to stand in genuine awe of all those couples \u2014 straight, gay and lesbian \u2014 whose day-to-day, year-to-year, and decade-to-decade faithfulness to each other is to me a sacrament, a believable embodied sign, of the absolute faithfulness of God to us all.<\/p>\n Lori\u2019s letter to all parishes said the approaching election placed in the voters\u2019 hands \u201cthe momentous choice of whether to maintain marriage as the union of one man and one woman in Maryland, or to irrevocably dismantle our state\u2019s legal recognition of the most basic unit of our society \u2014 the family unit of mother, father and child.<\/p>\n \u201cMaryland has long provided to domestic partners many of the same protections married couples receive,\u201d the letter states. \u201cThese include medical decision-making and hospital visitation rights; exemption from inheritance and real estate tax laws, and government health benefits, to name just a few. Recognizing this fact, do not be fooled in thinking it is necessary to redefine marriage for all of society simply to provide other couples [with] benefits.<\/p>\n \u201cRedefining marriage is not only unnecessary \u2026 We cannot underestimate the long-term consequences that redefining marriage would have on children, on the family, and on the religious freedoms of individuals and institutions who continue to hold fast to our deeply held beliefs about marriage,\u201d the letter continues.<\/p>\n Lawrence then said in his homily that religious and civil law are separate and that \u201cevil\u201d civil law, like segregation, should be resisted in conscience while other civil laws, like taxes, can be complied with in conscience \u201ceven when we disagree with them\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026The St. Vincent parishioners gave Lawrence a standing ovation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n