Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Features

Society is taking a wrong turn

by Staff writers
18 August 2013
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A
Society is taking a wrong turn

Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth

There is a push towards recognising homosexual marriage in Australia and the issue is becoming a major election issue. Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth, England recently wrote on the topic.

 

WEEKS ago, Royal Assent was given to the controversial Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which attempts to redefine the institution of marriage and to extend marriage to gay couples. Bishops have expressed their alarm at the grave social consequences this will bring.

The passing of this Bill is the inevitable outcome of a process that has been gathering pace since the sexual revolutions of the 1960s.

Until then, the natural and Christian understanding of marriage, sexual intercourse and family life prevailed.

Sexual intercourse was seen as located exclusively within married life and having a double end or purpose – the expression of love and the procreation of children.

Since the 1960s, however, artificial contraceptives have been widely available, which split these two ends of sexual intercourse, separating the unitive and suppressing the procreative aspect.

Lifted from its natural context within married love and commitment, and coupled to pleasure without responsibility, sexual intercourse could now be experienced outside marriage, and thus, in time, take on a new meaning in human relationships.

This has led to the “contraceptive mentality” Pope Paul VI spoke of so prophetically in his 1968 Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae and to the decline of marriage and now to its redefinition.

For in the revised understanding of sexual intercourse and family life, powerful lobby groups have enabled homosexual relationships to become socially acceptable, and so the Government’s attempt to extend marriage to same-sex couples – and in time, presumably, to other combinations and partnerships – is an inevitable development.

Related Stories

50 tiny babies welcomed in 24-hours across Mater hospitals

Pope Francis tells global leaders to save children and the planet ‘before it’s too late’

New accommodation initiatives needed to keep women and families safe from domestic violence

As Catholics, like Israel in Egypt, we now find ourselves in an alien land that speaks a foreign language with unfamiliar customs.

For what we mean by the matrimony, sexual intercourse and family life is no longer what today’s world, the government and policy-makers understand by marriage, sex and the family.

Parliament’s Orwellian attempt to redefine marriage radically changes the social context and this presents a massive challenge to the Church in England and Wales – to those who wish to marry in our churches, to Catholic parents bringing up children, to teachers in our Catholic schools, and to the clergy engaged in pastoral ministry.

We will certainly need to review our preaching, teaching and school curricula, which henceforth must recognise that our Catholic system of meanings and values is strikingly different from what secular culture now deems normal or acceptable.

It is important to reiterate that the Church loves homosexual persons, even if we hold firm to our Christian conviction that sexual relations find their true place within marriage.

It goes without saying that support needs to be offered to those of same-sex attraction to help them find that inner freedom, chastity and perfection which Christ offers.

Moreover, we also need to reiterate that Christ came to call not the virtuous, but sinners to repentance.

Living up to the ideal of Christian chastity has always been demanding, even when the cultural context was supportive of Christian values and the pursuit of holiness.

Christians are committed to the natural way of life, but thanks to original sin, that natural way of life has always needed the supernatural means Christ offers us, if we are to achieve it.

Even so, however demanding, the Way of Christ is truly the way to happiness, and as disciples of the Lord, we have to give witness to this. Pastors have always been ready and willing, in Christ’s name, to offer mercy, forgiveness and support to those who are struggling and striving to live up to the ideals Christ calls us to.  They are, after all, ideals written deep in the human heart, and which in heaven will find their eternal fulfilment, resolution and true flowering.

As Catholics, let us be on our guard, and continue compassionately to warn our society of the wrong turns it is taking.

Previous Post

Young migrants need help

Next Post

Teen searching for his way

Staff writers

Related Posts

50 tiny babies welcomed in 24-hours across Mater hospitals
News

50 tiny babies welcomed in 24-hours across Mater hospitals

27 September 2023
Pope Francis tells global leaders to save children and the planet ‘before it’s too late’
News

Pope Francis tells global leaders to save children and the planet ‘before it’s too late’

19 September 2023
Domestic terror: Centacare has issued fire blankets and fire extinguishers to some women terrified that their partners will make good on their threats to mimic the brutal deaths.
News

New accommodation initiatives needed to keep women and families safe from domestic violence

9 August 2023
Next Post
Teen searching for his way

Teen searching for his way

Celebrating Italian spirit

Celebrating Italian spirit

Jesuit kidnapped in Syria

Jesuit kidnapped in Syria

Popular News

  • Two Brisbane religious weigh in on global decline in vocations

    Two Brisbane religious weigh in on global decline in vocations

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • NSW euthanasia laws come into effect as bishops release guide for those accompanying Catholics considering euthanasia

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Why do we pray to St Anthony when we want to find something?

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Eleven saint quotes on the Eucharist for Corpus Christi Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Nominations open for Youth Leader Awards for Brisbane archdiocese

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping