In reaction to the new ruling of the United States Supreme Court on marriage equality or same sex marriage.
The US Supreme Court was asked whether banning same-sex marriages was in accord with the Constitution. It has recently ruled that such a ban is unconstitutional. That is the gist as well as the significance of the ruling of the US Supreme Court. Its reference is the US Constitution.
Fortunately for human persons, there is so much more to us and to our dignity than what the law prescribes. While human positive law is the distillation of human experience of orderly and organized life, it does not exhaust human wisdom, nor does it have room for the wisdom of which God makes us participants.
The Church continues to maintain what it has always taught. Marriage is a permanent union of man and woman, in the complementarity of the sexes and the mutual fulfillment that the union of a man and a woman bring into the loftiness of the matrimonial bond. If there is an undeniable difference between man and woman, there is also an undeniable difference between the permanent union of a man and a woman.
This is the way the Church has always read Sacred Scriptures. This is the way it has live its faith, inspired by the Holy Spirit, in that living normative found called Sacred Tradition. We will continue to teach the sons and daughters of the Church that marriage, transformed by The Lord Jesus and by His Church into a sacrament — a means by which the Risen Lord encounters his people — is an indissoluble bond of man and woman. There is much that the Church receives that is part of the “depositum fidei….the deposit of faith” of which she is not maker but guardian and steward.
As President of the CBCP, however, I reiterate our commitment to the pastoral solicitude of all, and no bishop, priest, deacon, religious or lay leader actively serving the Church will ever demand to know of a person his or her orientation before serving the person, as The Lord Jesus commands all his disciples to serve. All will continue to find welcome in the Church, while, under command from The Lord himself, will continue to teach what the Church has unceasingly taught.
The US Supreme Court decision will not go unheeded. We shall study it with assiduousness, and revisit our concepts and presuppositions, always with an eye to being faithful to the Gospel and to the mission of the Church.
+ SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS
Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan
President, CBCP
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