Catholic mothers, like all others, delight in their offsprings' weddings - and those of other family members. They are not alone. Weddings are the occasions of major family gatherings, where we gather to celebrate with them, cement the family bonds and interrelationships that have been set up by earlier weddings when we catch up with news from those members we only see at weddings and funerals, and lubricate the family bonding with suitable refreshments, music and dance.
Such celebrations apply to all couples, opposite-sex or same-sex. A few months ago, a colleague told me that his son was preparing for a civil partnership with his then boyfriend - and my friend gave me a regular running commentary of the hoops his wife and son were making him jump through in the wedding preparations, from early visits to (gay) wedding shows and expos, to choosing the outfits, to planning the "wedding" reception. When my niece married her wife on a Cape Town beach a few years ago, my staunchly Catholic mother and the rest of the family gathered from across the country to celebrate with her, just as they regularly do for all family weddings.
All this is to do far, far more than simply "congratulate" the new spouses. Yet in New York, a report at Unicorn Booty claims that Archbishop Timothy Dolan has "forbidden" Catholics from even congratulating gay or lesbian newly-weds:
But then the decree takes a sharp right turn and steers right off a cliff into Even Crazier Town, the affluent suburb to the north of Crazy Town proper’s city limits.
Dolan, on behalf of the Catholic Church, forbids Catholics from even being happy for their newly married gay friends or offering congratulations. Failure to comply with this perversion of law from their all-knowing, all-loving god that hates some of the things he lovingly created in his own image will result in canonical sanctions – a fancy way of saying priest court.
Oh, and stay the F away from Catholic churches, homos.
Now, the writer of this has himself veered off into Crazy Town - there is not a word in the decree to prevent Catholics from congratulating or celebrating with lesbian or gay newly weds, just a ban on doing it on Church property, or by Church personnel. One of the tragic features of (some) bishops' crazed, irrational overreaction to gay marriage, has been the crazed, irrational overreaction to the Catholic Church from (some) secular gay activists.
There is, however, good reason nevertheless to conclude that Catholic bishops' reactions to gay marriage, in the US and in Scotland, have taken them to the outer fringes of crazy town - but not for the reasons given by Kevin Farrell at Unicorn Booty.
), is wrong.