Editorial: Marriage - Sacrament or Sacrilege?

The intent is clear, until homosexual marriages are 'sanctioned', true marriages should be sidelined. Civil ceremony gives each couple the same start - at the lowest common denominator.

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) - On Monday, Episcopal Bishop Marc Handley Andrus, of the Diocese of California (the San Francisco area) issued a pastoral guideline calling for all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, to follow the same pattern for marriage, seeking a civil ceremony first followed by a church blessing.

This will allow, the bishop said, for all couples to enter marriage on the same footing. He is even going to personally volunteer to perform the ceremonies as a Deputy Marriage Commissioner.

In other words, he wants those whose marriages the church can sanction to seek a civil ceremony instead, followed by a church blessing.

The Episcopal Church, as with all other Anglican bodies, upholds to a greater or lesser degree the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. While not a complete statement of faith, these articles were stablished in 1563 as a means of differentiating the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. They contain the basic practices and principles of Anglicanism that provide that distinctiveness.

Article 25 is entitled "Of the Sacraments." Here Anglicans set a line in the sand against both Eastern and Western jurisdictions by declaring that there are only two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The other five are lesser sacraments, not ordained by Christ - according to the Church of England - but still viable expressions of church life.

As Article 25 explains, "Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel..." As a cradle Episcopalian, while we were taught this distinction, the five "lesser sacraments" were still practiced with reverence and deep devotion. They may have been down but they were not out.

I attended and presided at many marriage ceremonies over the years, fully recognizing the sanctity of marriage and the fear with which the man and woman were to enter in. I know the couples did as well. They sought out the church for their formation from pre-marital counseling through the celebration of Holy Matrimony using the historic liturgies. They became one flesh under God and rejoiced in the process.

From the Book of Common Prayer 1662, the introduction to the Solemnization of Matrimony reads: "DEARLY beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.

Whether they called it a sacrament or not, Anglicans have always declared that marriage was instituted by God, signified the mystical union between Christ and His Church, and was adorned and beautified by Christ during his presence at the Wedding in Cana. Generally, they have treated it with great care and deliberate caution until the mid-part of the twentieth century, when innovation took over.

This week's actions by the bishop have moved matrimony from innovation to mutilation. No longer is the church seen as a ground of being for marriage, merely frosting on the cake. A couple finds its foundation in a civil ceremony, where God is not mentioned and where grace is nowhere imparted.

The intent is clear, until homosexual marriages are sanctioned, true marriages should be sidelined. Civil ceremony gives each couple the same start - at the lowest common denominator.

Eleven years ago Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison wrote an Article in the Anglican Theological Review entitled, "Rethinking Marriage - Again." In his article, the embattled bishop, now on trial in an ecclesiastical court, wrote, "In their relationships and families, lesbian and gay couples, in fact, often display a more enviable and ideal model of the church than do heterosexual couples." While one cannot derive an entire historical movement over a dozen years from one article, clearly many of those in TEC view same-sex marriage as a higher and more profound form of relationship.

Whether Bishop Robinson's actions this past weekend were the catalyst or merely the opportunity for Andrus' pastoral letter, he set a model of marriage that gives priority of the state over the church, even to the point of encouraging his clergy to take off their clerical collars and perform civil ceremonies.

With the Lambeth Conference only weeks away, certainly the activities of the American church will again become a centerpiece of discussion among those who convene.

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