COMMENTARY | According to an article by the Associated Press, Pope Benedict announced on Friday that he is in opposition to the "powerful political and cultural currents" that are influencing the legalization of gay marriage in the United States and across the world. The Pope's recent denouncement of gay marriage is in response to the recent legalization of gay marriage in Maryland. Now that Maryland has legalized gay marriage, there are eight states in the United States where gay couples can legally marry.
Even if all 50 states legalize gay marriage, the Pope (and The Catholic Church) will never accept gay marriage.
As a Catholic, when I read articles and comments that criticize The Church's stance on gay marriage, I feel propelled to defend The Church. I speak for all Catholics when I insist that the ongoing beauty and appeal of Catholicism rests in the fact that The Church never changes. She exists the way she always has, unchanged and unmodernized, passed down through the centuries from the first papal seat of St. Peter.
There is something comforting and inspiring found in the truth that no matter how the world changes around us, despite the norms and anomalies of our ever-changing social world, the Catholic Church remains preserved, like a pearl held in an oyster. The Catholic Church does not condemn homosexuality but it will never support the legalization of gay marriage. This prohibition comes from the Bible.
Societies change day-to-day, year-to-year, and if The Church were to change, marching to the drum of popular culture, in decades Catholics would have a diluted religion that would hardly resemble the faith of generations past. If mortal people make decisions to change Catholic doctrine, they set themselves up as God, which is a sin of pride not unlike that of God's arch-enemy, Satan.
This contention may seem stuffy, dated, and ignorant, but for the 1.3 billion Catholics in the world, we have an obligation to carry The Church, unchanged, for future generations. If people have a problem with the Catholic Church's stance on gay marriage, they should take it up with God and Jesus -- not the Pope.
