Fr. Farfaglia on Unjust Laws and Same-Sex 'Marriage'

Public opinion does not make something right or wrong; the objective moral law does. When a civil law is not in conformity with the moral law, it is an unjust law. Legalized forms of segregation were unjust laws. Legalized abortion, legalized euthanasia, legalized same sex 'marriage' are all unjust laws. They are contrary to the objective moral law, and therefore, no human law can claim them to be legitimate.

P style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal align=justify>CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - The Catholic Church has always pointed out that civil law must conform to the moral law.  Public opinion does not make something right or wrong; the objective moral law does.  Thus, not only Catholic politicians, but also all men and women in public life have an objective moral criterion to follow. 
 
When a civil law is not in conformity with the moral law, it is an unjust law.  Legalized slavery, for example, was an unjust law.  Legalized forms of segregation were unjust laws.  Legalized abortion is an unjust law.  Legalized euthanasia is an unjust law.  Legalized same-sex marriage is an unjust law.  Slavery, segregation, abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex 'marriages' are in essence contrary to the objective moral law, and therefore, no human law can claim them to be legitimate.

The teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas explains this point with great clarity when he writes that "human law is law inasmuch as it is in conformity with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law.  But when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; but in this case it ceases to be a law and becomes an act of violence" (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 93, a.3, ad 2).  Furthermore he goes on to say: "Every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law.  But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law" (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 95, a.2). 

Pope John Paul II in his monumental encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae wrote: "Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for morality or a panacea for immorality" (70.4).  "It is therefore urgently necessary, for the future of society and the development of a sound democracy, to rediscover those essential and innate human and moral values which flow from the very truth of the human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person: values which no individual, no majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy, but must only acknowledge, respect and promote" (71.1).
 
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America understood this relationship between civil law and moral law.  James Madison, for example, once said, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions...upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

George Washington, our first president, said, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.  And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.  Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle. The smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself ordained."

The official teaching of the Catholic Church on what are called same-sex 'marriages' cannot be any clearer:  "The Church's teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of man and woman reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose. No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, tend toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives.

There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts are closed to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity of male and female. Under no circumstances can they be approved. 

Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts as a serious depravity... ( Romans 1:24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:10; 1 Timothy 1:10). This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.  This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition.

Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.  They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however objectively disordered and homosexual practices are sins gravely contrary to chastity" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 3, 2003).

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Father James Farfaglia, the Happy Priest, is the pastor of Saint Helena of the True Cross of Jesus Catholic Church in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Father has a hard hitting blog called Illegitimi non carborundum.  He has also published a book called Man to Man: A Real Priest Speaks to Real Men about Marriage, Sexuality and Family Life.  You can contact Father at fjficthus@gmail.com.

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