WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Over Meaning of Marriage
News Analysis
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
11/17/2009
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington and the Episcopal Bishop of Washington are at odds over same-sex marriage. 
Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl issued a Pastoral Message for Homosexual Catholics in the Archdiocese of Washington saying that of the many teachings of the Catholic Church, perhaps some of the most challenging for Catholics in today’s culture involve human sexuality, including homosexuality.
“Modern cultural pressures and assumptions are often at odds with the teachings of Christ handed down through the centuries. For some parishioners the issues are deeply personal. Living out the Church’s teaching can be a difficult challenge. Yet, no one needs to do this separated from the grace and love of the Church.
“It is important to affirm that the Catholic Church is and always will be welcoming of any person who seeks who seeks a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ….The Catechism of the Catholic Church upholds the human dignity of every person and condemns any form of unjust discrimination (2358).”
Episcopal Bishop John Byson Chane however announced his support for the D.C. marriage legislation.
Chane gave his support for legislation legalizing same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia and made his endorsement in a column on the Web site of The Washington Post: http://tinyurl.com/yaze3xu
Noting that recent media coverage has pitted conservative Christians against liberal secularists, the bishop articulated what he called a Christian case for same-sex marriage.
“I would say respectfully to my fellow Christians that people who deny others the blessings they claim for themselves should not assume they speak for the Almighty,” Chane said. “The church has deepened its understanding of the way in which faithful couples experience and embody the love of the creator for creation. In so doing, it has put itself in a position to consider whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.
“Theologically, therefore, Christian support for same-sex marriage is not a dramatic break with tradition, but a recognition that the church’s understanding of marriage has changed dramatically over 2,000 years. “
Chane also praised the D.C. Council for its sensitivity to issues of religious liberty.
“[I]t's important to emphasize that the actions taken by the D.C. Council do not address the religious meaning of marriage at all,” he wrote. “The proposed legislation would not force any congregation to change its religious teachings or bless any couple. Our current laws do not force any denomination to offer religious blessing to second marriages, yet those marriages, like interfaith marriages, are equal in the sight of the law even though some churches do not consider them religiously valid.
“D.C.’s proposed marriage equality law explicitly protects the religious liberty of those who believe that God’s love can be reflected in the loving commitment between two people of the same sex and of those who do not find God there. This is as it should be in a society so deeply rooted in the principles of religious freedom and equality under the law.”
Like many Episcopal bishops, Chane permits the clergy in his diocese to bless same-sex relationships. He said the diocese is examining the church’s canons to determine whether priests will be allowed to sign marriage licenses if same-sex marriage becomes legal.
It should be observed that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese has 580,000 communicants while the Episcopal Diocese of Washington has an Average Sunday Attendance of 15,364. The diocese dropped 1.3% in attendance between 2008 and 2007. The Diocese is basically propped up financially by the Soper Fund.
As one observer noted, “The canard about divorce providing the rationale for homosexual behavior persists. Chane's citing of the 1979 Prayer Book marital rite is an archetypal example of the 'slippery slope' of theological revisionism. It is interesting that the bishop turns to a 30-year old TEC document drafted by a General Convention rather than Holy Scripture.”
END
| Poster | Thread |
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| Balthazar | Posted: 2009/11/17 20:21 Updated: 2009/11/17 20:21 |
Quite a regular   Joined: 2007/12/12 From: Posts: 51 |
 Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove...I wonder what the average Sunday attendance is in the DC Archdiocese.
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| Isaac | Posted: 2009/11/17 21:18 Updated: 2009/11/17 21:18 |
Home away from home   Joined: 2004/3/1 From: Texas Posts: 628 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... “Theologically, therefore, Christian support for same-sex marriage is not a dramatic break with tradition,"
Uh, actually, yes it is. Furthermore, homosexual "marriage" is not wrong because some of us say it is, it is wrong because the Bible says it is. Isaac |
| CH-Discern | Posted: 2009/11/17 22:19 Updated: 2009/11/17 22:19 |
Home away from home  Joined: 2009/10/10 From: Posts: 259 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... The TEC Bishop says: “Theologically, therefore, Christian support for same-sex marriage is not a dramatic break with tradition, but a recognition that the church’s understanding of marriage has changed dramatically over 2,000 years."
What is he talking about? This is a 'dramatic' example of "double-speak." He is talking out of both sides of his mouth and both assertions are lies. The truth is, the ideas that homosexuality might not be sin or that same-sex marriage is even possible are both brand-spanking-new ideas. When during the 2000 years of Christian tradition have we heard about such things? Only in the past 40 years (or less). So it IS a dramatic break with tradition, and as far as the Church as a whole is concerned, its understanding of marriage has never changed. |
| Cennydd | Posted: 2009/11/17 23:05 Updated: 2009/11/17 23:05 |
Home away from home  Joined: 2005/10/30 From: Los Banos, CA, Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin Posts: 6862 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... Balthazar, you can rest assured it is a whole lot more than the shrinking Diocese of Washington.
Cennydd |
| larsil | Posted: 2009/11/17 23:16 Updated: 2009/11/17 23:16 |
Home away from home  Joined: 2005/10/23 From: near Pittsburgh Posts: 202 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... Many of us have admired Archbishop Wuerl since his time as RC Bishop of PITTSBURGH. Yup, he is not only a colleague but a strong friend of Archbishop Duncan.
...Ummmm, if I had to choose between +Chane or ++Wuerl, I know which one I'd rather work with. ---L. |
| dannyiseli | Posted: 2009/11/18 13:02 Updated: 2009/11/18 13:02 |
Not too shy to talk  Joined: 2006/6/18 From: new jersey Posts: 38 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... Chane is a good drummer in his jazz combo. As a bishop he's a FALSE TEACHER--with all that jazz!
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| jfmckenna | Posted: 2009/11/18 13:23 Updated: 2009/11/18 13:23 |
Home away from home Joined: 2006/2/4 From: Posts: 584 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... The day will come when people will look at this in the broad context of the sexual revolution and hold all cultural leaders accountable, most especially the religious leaders. Casual sexual activity, casual divorce, casual standards of pornography, and now casual standards about what is normal as opposed to what is perversion. Chane no doubt regards himself as sympathetic to the two-thirds of Washington that is African-American, but it is precisely his affirmation of this aspect of the sexual revolution that places him on the side of the forces that have come close to destroying the African-American family over precisely the same time period. Hold him accountable!
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| patulous | Posted: 2009/11/18 13:26 Updated: 2009/11/19 13:27 |
Home away from home  Joined: 2007/5/18 From: Posts: 1778 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... Chane is a sick puppy from a sick church. Just because it has been 2000 years since the bible was written by the inspiration of God, there is no scripture that says that we can change it when we get tired of the way it was written.
God gets angry at the stupidity of the TEC bishops, so, don't stand too close to Chane. |
| daveball | Posted: 2009/11/18 13:47 Updated: 2009/11/18 13:47 |
Home away from home  Joined: 2004/12/18 From: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 2377 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... So - here we have two statements, one from the Christian perspective and one from the TEc perspective. Chane is a delusional person and apparently has taken leave of whatever he was taught in seminary. "Current society" has no bearing whatsoever on the teachings of the Bible. Theology is not a democratic discussion where the current majority rules. Chane is dead wrong and, unless he repents big time, will have all of eternity to regret his false teachings.
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| shadowmane | Posted: 2009/11/18 16:49 Updated: 2009/11/18 16:49 |
Just popping in   Joined: 2008/6/21 From: Salisbury, NC Posts: 20 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... Or, he is parroting what he was taught in seminary and isn't worried about what is actually contained in scripture.
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| ICCEC | Posted: 2009/11/18 18:14 Updated: 2009/11/18 18:14 |
Just can't stay away  Joined: 2004/1/17 From: Posts: 138 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... It would be very interesting if the two Bishops sat down at a table with Jesus Christ and discussed the following:
1. http://www.psalm19-7.com/homosexuality-in-society.html 2. http://www.psalm19-7.com/homosexuality-in-the-church.html I bet I could sale a lot of popcorn! |
| mathman | Posted: 2009/11/18 18:37 Updated: 2009/11/18 18:37 |
Home away from home Joined: 2004/5/26 From: Rockville, MD Posts: 1064 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... I must have missed something.
Jesus of Nazareth, shown to be the Messiah of God by His resurrection from the dead--did He speak for the Almighty? Either He did or He did not. If He did not, then our salvation does not exist. The Holy Scriptures--either they accurately represent the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or they do not. If they do not, then our salvation does not exist. Those of you not believing that Jesus spoke for the Almighty or that the Holy Scriptures record what Jesus said, can stop reading now. For the rest, we have Matthew 18, in which Jesus records that from the beginning the Almighty made the two, male and female, one. Any so-called marriage which is not in accord with what Jesus taught is not marriage. Sorry, but there it is. |
| e00d00ww | Posted: 2009/11/19 1:49 Updated: 2009/11/19 1:49 |
Just popping in  Joined: 2007/9/23 From: Lakewood WA 98499 Posts: 4 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... Much ado about little. Humans can cobble together any form of social norm they want. In the comparison between the spiritual and that of humans, remember that marraige existed prior to Adam and Eve leaving the Grace of Creator. The union told in Genesis is spiritual and not the human rutting one experiences in all sorts of places.
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| otispage2 | Posted: 2009/11/19 2:43 Updated: 2009/11/19 2:43 |
Home away from home Joined: 2007/3/14 From: Posts: 615 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... Chanes argument is not with a Catholic Bishop but with his own revered theologian, John Stott:
The specific statement by Christ regarding the Creator’s intent: The theologian John Stott states, “Verses 26-27 are a crucial text in the contemporary debate about homosexuality. The traditional interpretation, that they describe and condemn all homosexual behavior, is being challenged by the gay lobby. Three arguments are advanced. First, it is claimed that the passage is irrelevant, on the ground that its purpose is neither to teach sexual ethics, not to expose vice, but rather to portray the outworkings of God’s wrath. This is true. But if a certain sexual conduct is to be seen as the consequence of God’s wrath, it must be displeasing to him. Secondly, ‘the likelihood is that Paul is thinking about pederasty’ (sex with a boy) since ‘there was no other form of male homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world’, and that he is opposing it because of the humiliation and exploitation experienced by the youths involved. All one can say is the text itself contains no hint of it. Thirdly, there is the question what Paul meant by ‘nature’. Some homosexual people are urging that their relationships cannot be described as ‘unnatural’, since they are perfectly natural to them. John Boswell has written, for example, that ‘the persons Paul condemns are manifestly not homosexual: what he derogates are homosexual acts committed by apparently heterosexual people’. Hence Paul’s statement that they ‘abandoned’ natural relations, and ‘exchanged’ them for unnatural (26-27). Richard Hays has written a thorough exegetical rebuttal of this interpretation of Romans 1, however. He provides ample contemporary evidence the opposition of ‘natural’ (kata physin) and ‘unnatural’ (para physin) was ‘very frequently used…as a way of distinguishing between heterosexual and homosexual behavior’. Besides, differentiating between sexual orientation and sexual practice is a modern concept; ‘to suggest that Paul intends to condemn homosexual acts only when they are committed by persons who are constitutionally heterosexual is to introduce a distinction entirely foreign to Paul’s thought-world’, in fact a complete anachronism. So then, we have no liberty to interpret the noun ‘nature’ as meaning ‘my’ nature, or the adjective ‘natural’ as meaning ‘what seems natural to me’. On the contrary, physis (‘natural’) means God’s created order. To act ‘against nature’ means to violate the order God has established, whereas to act ‘according to nature’ means to behave ‘in accordance with the intention of the Creator’. Moreover, the intention of the Creator means His original intention. What this was Jesus tells us and Jesus confirmed: ‘At the beginning the Creator “made them male and female” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one.’ Then Jesus added his personal endorsement and deduction: ‘Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’ Eph 5:23 In other words, God created humankind male and female; God instituted marriage as a heterosexual union; and what God has thus united, we have no liberty to separate. [Comment: This is Christ's explicit teaching!] This three fold action of God established that the only context which he intended for the ‘one flesh’ experience is heterosexual monogamy, and that a homosexual partnership (however loving and committed it may claim to be) is ‘against nature’ and can never be considered as a legitimate alternative to marriage.” |
| islandbear | Posted: 2009/11/19 15:46 Updated: 2009/11/19 15:46 |
Quite a regular  Joined: 2005/4/23 From: Rochester, NY Posts: 68 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... I, too, know Archbishop Wuerl from his time in Pittsburgh.
To use a sports analogy, Bishop Chane is fighting well out of his weight class -- Archbishop Wuerl is a word class theologian and teacher. Bishop Chane, obviously, is not. Islandbear+ |
| bradhutt | Posted: 2009/11/19 18:51 Updated: 2009/11/19 18:51 |
Just can't stay away Joined: 2004/5/5 From: Washington D.C. Metro Area Posts: 146 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... It is pretty clear in the Canons that Marriage is between a man and a woman:
CANON 18: Of the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony Sec. 2. Before solemnizing a marriage the Member of the Clergy shall ascertain: (b) That both parties understand that Holy Matrimony is a physical and spiritual union of a man and a woman, entered into within the community of faith, by mutual consent of heart, mind, and will, and with intent that it be lifelong. |
| CLIVE | Posted: 2009/11/20 2:48 Updated: 2009/11/20 2:48 |
Just popping in Joined: 2009/11/12 From: Posts: 1 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... Bishop Chane: '....people who deny others the blessings they claim for themselves should not assume they speak for the Almighty'. Are we to infer therefore that Chane does?
Clive |
| OrthoMonk | Posted: 2009/11/22 16:57 Updated: 2009/11/22 16:57 |
Just popping in Joined: 2009/7/26 From: Posts: 7 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... "...the blessings they claim for themselves..."
Well, that sort of says it all. Now, blessings are a commodity we claim for ourselves, rather than gifts of grace we ask for and accept from another. Bishop Chane might as well dispense with any discussion of theology since he clearly believes our own "logoi" are all-sufficient and "Theos" serves little, if any, purpose beyond linguistic window dressing. Anaxios! |
| gralan | Posted: 2009/11/27 6:06 Updated: 2009/11/27 6:06 |
Just popping in  Joined: 2009/11/19 From: Canyon Lake, Texas USA Posts: 15 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... It should be clear by now that many "Apostolic" Bishops have divorced themselves from the tradition and teachings of the Apostles; not only lately but history shows even from the earliest years. We must not be paying attention to myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.
2Pet 3.17,18 NASB You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviou Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. your fellow suffering servant, gralan |
| rubio | Posted: 2009/11/27 19:47 Updated: 2009/11/27 19:47 |
Just popping in Joined: 2009/11/26 From: Posts: 12 |
Re: WASHINGTON, DC: Catholic, Episcopal Bishops Clash Ove... “Theologically, therefore, Christian support for same-sex marriage is not a dramatic break with tradition, but a recognition that the church’s understanding of marriage has changed dramatically over 2,000 years. “
Exactly what "church" is it he is talking about here? Christ defines the church not Chane with his changes |
