Catholic Church teaching on marriage has changed down the centuries

It seems clear that if young people vote in Friday’s same-sex referendum it will be passed. Even if they don’t vote in sufficient numbers, such is their enthusiasm, that will soon be reflected in law. We’ve seen the pattern before with contraception and divorce.

And, once more, the Catholic Church finds itself on the wrong side of youth and history. Apologists will say this is as it should be: that unchanging truth should not be subject to the whims of the day, as they would characterise it.

But church teaching on marriage has changed.

As pointed out here on April 8th last, for most of the past 2,000-plus years, Christianity saw marriage as inferior to chastity. Marriage wasn’t even a sacrament until 1184. Up to then the old Roman pagan rite was used by Christians.

In 1917, the church’s code of canon law stated: “The primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children; the secondary (end) is mutual support and a remedy for concupiscence.”

It went on: “matrimony . . . has not as a primary and intimate end the personal perfection of the married couple but the procreation and upbringing of a new life.

The other ends, in as much as they are intended by nature, are not equally primary, much less superior to the primary end.”

It also reiterated the superiority of virginity.

Complete flip

By 1983 the church had done a complete flip. Then, in its revised code of canon law, it said: “The marriage covenant . . . has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children.”

So, and just 32 years ago, the church had moved from an understanding of marriage as primarily about reproduction and the rearing of children to one that is first and foremost about “the good of the spouses”.

It is an emphasis it shares with parties to same-sex marriage and their supporters.

Still, it is possible to feel sympathy for the Catholic bishops and the bind they are in. Some of them. Generally, in a pastoral context, they are sensitive to gay people and groups, as are most priests. This also makes sense as few institutions have such a disproportionate number of gay men in their ranks.

Such sympathy has to be tempered, however, by a realisation of what the bishops have not told their congregations over recent weeks. They have not told them that they can, in conscience, vote Yes on Friday.

Conscience

Back 32 years ago also, in the fraught atmosphere of the 1983 abortion referendum campaign, then Catholic primate Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich and the church’s then spokesman, Archbishop

Joe Cassidy

, publicly acknowledged the right of Catholics to, in conscience, take a position different to theirs.

Not so their successors this time. And the bishops’ fall-back on civil partnership as default position in fading argument holds no credibility at all. They opposed civil partnership legislation and reject the validity of such arrangements.

Another matter not discussed in this campaign to date is a theological body of opinion that believes Jesus knowingly acknowledged and blessed a same-sex union.

Jesus never referred to homosexuality but some theologians believe he cured a gay man’s lover.

It concerns the Roman centurion that Jesus met in Capernaum. According to the gospels of Matthew and Luke the centurion asked Jesus to heal his “servant”, who was very ill.

Jesus offered to go to his house to do so but the centurion declined with a response familiar to Catholics from their Communion rite, in which it is paraphrased: "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed." Jesus responded ". . . in no one in Israel have I found such faith", and cured the centurion's "servant". Except the word the centurion used to describe his "servant" to Jesus was "pais", a Greek word which theologians argue meant the younger partner in a same-sex relationship.

This interpretation of relevant gospel stories is contested by more traditional theologians but it has sufficient credence to be deserving too of careful reflection.

Patsy McGarry is Religious Affairs Correspondent