Separation of church and state in marriage?

"It isn’t exactly a movement — more of a blogosphere hubbub.

In solidarity with his gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, one well-known evangelical pastor in Minneapolis is taking a stand. As long as his state won’t confer upon homosexuals the legal right to marry, Tony Jones won’t sign a marriage license. He will officiate at a Christian ceremony, what he calls the “sacramental” part of marriage. But he refuses to act as an agent of the state.

“Will you join me,” he asked colleagues online last year, “and refuse to legally marry people?”

In July, Jones made his point personally. He remarried, but this time only sacramentally. “I consider my marriage 100 percent valid,” he told me.

-read the full report at  The Washington Post

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DIY Catholicism: Twin Cities "Synod of the Baptized".

The "whole church" self-evidently includes many more people than simply the self-appointed oligarchy of bishops and their clergy, but the Vatican has never made any serious effort to involve the rest of us in the affairs of the Church - beyond serving as fund-raisers and cheap labour for the simpler tasks. Questions of serious planning and decision-taking it keeps very carefully to its own. However, as I have noted frequently, there are abundant and increasing signs that ordinary Catholics, lay people, religious women, married priests now outside of institutional control, and some more progressive regular priests are recognizing the importance of making a full contribution to the life of the Church. Where they are not being properly involved by the institutional oligarchy, they are simply doing it for themselves.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="461" caption="One part of the "whole church", called into mission."][/caption]

One of the more impressive examples of this comes from the diocese of Minneapolis / St Paul, which has just brought to fruition their very successful "Synod of the Baptized". This has been the fruit of long months of hard work and preparation, so I was delighted to read how well the event seems to have gone off - and that the team are already engaged in planning for the next stage.

Taken from the Progressive Catholic Voice, these are some extracts from a report by Paula Ruddy: