Inter-Faith Support on Contemporary Issues of the Family

New expressions of inter-faith agreement have recently addressed shared concerns about family and religious freedom.  The Diocese of Lyon website today posted a common agreement among Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Jewish and Muslim clergy on marriage.  Here is an English translation (by me):

Today, the question arises whether the law can authorize the marriage of two people of the same sex.  That is not a matter of a simple social debate, but of a major choice, without precedent in the history of humanity.  It is not a gift to be given to future generations.

There is already enough suffering caused by the fragility of family ties, not to speak of diseases that touch those close to us, and losses.  This fragility is for many in the difficulty that adults encounter in helping young people to build their lives.  How will they be able to acquire a solid formation, to face their future with confidence, to honour the obligations of a profession, and to build their own families in balance, if the institution of marriage is relativized?  It is paramount not to disturb this cornerstone of humanity.

Such an essential institution cannot be subjected to the fluctuations of currents of thought.  It is placed well beyond religious differences or ideological cleavages.  In an hour when so many teachers note the increasing difficulty for young people from broken families in following their scholarship correctly, can we really consider such an upheaval, the consequences of which could be devastation?  Experience shows what it is costing us today to have let nature be ransacked.  Let us not go on now to destroy humanity, which is the heart of all creation!

There is a lie to the claim that it does not matter whether or not a child grows up with a father and a mother.  Humanity’s foundational stories are built on the difference and the complementarity of man and woman.  The faithful see its attestation in the creation accounts that the Word of God transmits to them: "In the beginning, God created man and woman".  They are called to unite in marriage to give life and to make it grow.  Such is the original pedestal on which our personal lives, our families and our societies are founded.  Let us not forget that it is fragile!

Lyon, February 6, 2007

Cardinal Philippe BARBARIN, Archbishop of Lyon

Mr. Azzedine GACI, President of the Rhone-Alps Regional Council of the Muslim Faith

Father Athanase ISKOS, Priest of the Greek Orthodox Church

Mr. Kamel KABTANE, Rector of the Mosque of Lyon

Rev. Chris MARTIN, Minister of the Anglican Church

Pastor Jean-Frédéric PATRZYNSKI, of the Lutheran Church

Mr. Richard WERTENSCHLAG, Grand Rabbi of Lyon and of the Rhone-Alps Region

Pastor John WILSON, of the Evangelical Baptist Church

Msgr. Norvan ZAKARIAN, Bishop of the Armenian Apostolic Church

In similar mutual support, U.K. Muslim groups last week voiced support for the Catholic Church's request for the Catholic Adoption Agency to have an exemption from a new law that prohibits discrimination against gay couples in adoption services.  The new law will go into effect in April, and the Church will have 20 months before the law is scheduled to fully impact Catholic and other religious adoption agencies.  In the meantime, those adoption agencies will be required to refer any homosexual couple to an agency that provides adoption services to gay couples on an equal basis with heterosexual couples.

The U.K.'s Federation of Synagogues has also called on Jewish leaders to stand with Catholics and Anglicans on this issue, according to a U.K. Jewish website. 

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor wrote a letter on January 22 asking for the exemption, followed by a January 31 article in the Telegraph about the issue.

Ruth Gledhill at the Times Online quoted Tom Wright, the Anglican Bishop of Durham, as follows, giving outspoken support to the call for religious freedom to be respected in connection with the new law:

"This completely fails to take into account the views and beliefs of all those involved. The idea that New Labour - which has got every second thing wrong and is backtracking on extended drinking hours, is in a mess over this cash-for-peerages business, cannot keep all its prisons under control - the idea that New Labour can come up with a new morality which it forces on the Catholic Church after 2,000 years - I am sorry - this is amazing arrogance on the part of the Government.

"Legislation for a nouveau morality is deeply unwise. That is not how morality works. At a time when the Government is foundering with so many of its policies - and I haven't even mentioned Iraq - the thought that this Government has the moral credibility to be able tell the Roman Catholic Church how to order one area of its episcopal teaching is frankly laughable. When you think about it like that, it is quite extraordinary. I suppose the hope is that in 18 months time there will be a different Prime Minister who might take a different view, and this will kick it into the long grass until then."

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said this last week about the issue's implications for religious freedom in the U.K.:

"I’ll wait to see I think what the period of negotiation that lies ahead will bring, to see whether the concerns of the Catholic Church has raised are going to be addressed. But what we’d most want to do is to disentangle two things. There’s a particular issue on which the Catholic church has taken a stand, as other Christians have; and there’s a general issue about the rights of the state and the rights of conscience especially in voluntary bodies. Now that second question is one that, I think, is by no means restricted to this issue. And I think it’s not going to go away, so I would like to see some more serious debate now about that particular question – what are the limits, if there are limits, to the State’s power to control and determine the actions of voluntary bodies within it, in pursuit of what are quite proper goals of non-discrimination. So I hope there’ll be a debate about that."