The Official Catholic Marriage Prayer

The Catholic archbishop of Minnesota has released a prayer that he wants recited at mass for the next year, as our state approaches a vote on a constitutional amendment defining marriage.  Here’s the prayer:

Heavenly Father,

Through the powerful intercession of the Holy Family, grant to this local Church the many graces we need to foster, strengthen, and support faith-filled, holy marriages and holy families.

May the vocation of married life, a true calling to share in your own divine and creative life, be recognized by all believers as a source of blessing and joy, and a revelation of your own divine goodness.

Grant to us all the gift of courage to proclaim and defend your plan for marriage, which is the union of one man and one woman in a lifelong, exclusive relationship of loving trust, compassion, and generosity, open to the conception of children.

We make our prayer through Jesus Christ, who is Lord forever and ever. Amen.

Too bad for those heterosexual quadripalegics who want to get married but aren’t “open to the conception of children.”  They’re obviously not part of God’s “plan for marriage.”  In fact, I can think of some other examples of couples who are in a “lifelong, exclusive relationship of loving trust, compassion, and generosity,” but can’t conceive children.

To read my thoughts on this issue, see my $.99 ebook, There Are Two Marriages.