Response to Viewpoint piece on Bishop Davies' Pastoral Letter

I was interested to read Carla Ryan's letter regarding Same-sex Marriage, and her response to the Bishop of Shrewsbury's pastoral letter. www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=23048 As Ms Ryan acknowledges, Bishop Davies 'held firm to the Church's official teaching'. What else should a Bishop do, I wonder? I am not a parishioner of the Diocese of Shrewsbury, but I am extremely grateful that we have in Bishop Davies a prelate who has the courage to write and speak in a direct and clear way that does not hedge bets or fudge difficult issues. Catholics who wish to stay loyal to the Magisterium need all the help they can get to make sense of the world we are living in.

The issue of same-sex marriage is a large and thorny one. There has been a great deal of debate in the secular and Catholic media recently, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Many people have stories to tell, anecdotes that shed light on why they take a particular stance on this matter. However, if we wish to remain loyal Catholics there is only one thing we really need to know: What does the Catechism of the Catholic Church say about this issue? Here are the relevant extracts:

2331 "God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them"; He blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply"; "When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created."

2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.

2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.

2334 "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity." "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God."

2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." All human generations proceed from this union.

This is not superstitious folly, nor is it cold-hearted, fearful or prejudicial, as Ms Ryan suggests. It explains and upholds what God ordained, and what Jesus taught. Marriage between a man and a woman imitates God's generosity and fecundity. Marriage is a sacrament, and must be protected, defended and upheld. I think we need to try and explain this aspect of Catholic teaching to the modern world, rather than wishing that we could change Catholic teaching in order to conform to the modern world.

Caroline Shaw

Diocese of Clifton