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ted restrictions on abortion the president says that he wants to reduce the need for abortion a commendable goal but he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions and parental notification for abortions performed on minors the elimination of these important and effective pro life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty for we recognize that in the thirty six years since roe v wade elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what pope john paul ii described as the culture of death we call on all officials in our country elected and appointed to protect and serve every member of our society including the most marginalized voiceless and vulnerable among us a culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect immature or inconvenient are discardable as predicted by many prescient persons the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized for example human embryo destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries the president and many in congress favor the expansion of embryo research to include the taxpayer funding of so called therapeutic cloning this would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues at the other end of life an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes leben life unworthy of life were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of america and europe long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid 20th century they have returned from the grave the only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of liberty autonomy and choice we will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion we will work as we have always worked to bring assistance comfort and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children our message is and ever shall be that the just humane and truly christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike a truly prophetic christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack and to do so with no favoritism partiality or discrimination the bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves to speak for those who cannot themselves speak and so we defend and speak for the unborn the disabled and the dependent what the bible and the light of reason make clear we must make clear we must be willing to defend even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition our concern is not confined to our own nation around the globe we are witnessing cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war the neglect and abuse of children the exploitation of vulnerable laborers the sexual trafficking of girls and young women the abandonment of the aged racial oppression and discrimination the persecution of believers of all faiths and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like aids we see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide euthanasia and human cloning for biomedical research and so ours is as it must be a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances marriage the man said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh genesis 2 23 24 this is a profound mystery but i am talking about christ and the church however each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband ephesians 5 32 33 in scripture the creation of man and woman and their one flesh union as husband and wife is the crowning achievement of god s creation in the transmission of life and the nurturing of children men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with god himself marriage then is the first institution of human society indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation in the christian tradition we refer to marriage as holy matrimony to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by god and blessed by christ in his participation at a wedding in cana of galilee in the bible god himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health education and welfare of all persons in a society where marriage is honored and where there is a flourishing marriage culture everyone benefits the spouses themselves their children the communities and societies in which they live where the marriage culture begins to erode social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves unfortunately we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country perhaps the most telling and alarming indicator is the out of wedlock birth rate less than fifty years ago it was under 5 percent today it is over 40 percent our society and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors where the out of wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average is paying a huge price in delinquency drug abuse crime incarceration hopelessness and despair other indicators are widespread non marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce we confess with sadness that christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent and call upon all christians to do the same to strengthen families we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty mystery and holiness of faithful marital love we must reform ill advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce we must work in the legal cultural and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is what it requires and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make the impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom rather than the cause of the erosion of the marriage culture it reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and with it the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture it would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions and not in any intrinsic way about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation promotion and protection of life in spousal communion and the rearing of children who as gifts of god are the fruit of their parents marital love we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant we acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct we have compassion for those so disposed we respect them as human beings possessing profound inherent and equal dignity and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive often with little assistance to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they no less than we regard as wayward we stand with them even when they falter we no less than they are sinners who have fallen short of god s intention for our lives we no less than they are in constant need of god s patience love and forgiveness we call on the entire christian community to resist sexual immorality and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it our rejection of sin though resolute must never become the rejection of sinners for every sinner regardless of the sin is loved by god who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to a more excellent way as his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it we further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us and with the teaching of the bible and christian tradition on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage some who enter into same sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital they fail to understand however that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman and that the comprehensive multi level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as one this is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person but truly part of the personal reality of the human being human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion or minds or spirits inhabiting non personal bodies the human person is a dynamic unity of body mind and spirit marriage is what one man and one woman establish when forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment they found a sharing of life at every level of being the biological the emotional the dispositional the rational the spiritual on a commitment that is sealed completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh not in some merely metaphorical sense but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation that is why in the christian tradition and historically in western law consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation we understand that many of our fellow citizens including some christians believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights they wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being married it would not after all affect their own marriages would it on inspection however the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand were it to prove anything it would prove far too much the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships polygamous households even adult brothers sisters or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships should these as a matter of equality or civil rights be recognized as lawful marriages and would they have no effects on other relationships no the truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re define to please those who are powerful and influential no one has a civil right to have a non marital relationship treated as a marriage marriage is an objective reality a covenantal union of husband and wife that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good if it fails to do so genuine social harms follow first the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized second the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as marriages sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically nonmarital and immoral third the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself in its critical pedagogical function becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends sadly we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture but if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture the last thing we can afford to do is to re define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is and so it is out of love not animus and prudent concern for the common good not prejudice that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture how could we as christians do otherwise the bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of god s creation covenant indeed the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between christ and his church and so just as christ was willing out of love to give himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice we are willing lovingly to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage religious l...