Attending Forbidden Marriages
The Church says that marriage is of great importance and is the foundation of
society. That is to say that any threat to marriage is to be abominated or hated
completely. No approval at all to any degree is to be granted. The Catholic
Church says this is true of the human level. But marriage is made infinitely
more important by being the unit of the divine society - the Church and having
being established by God and full of his grace. If it is bad then to think
marriage matters a lot as an institution then it is astronomically bad to invest
it with religious significance as the Church does.
Marriage is defined by the Christian faith and the state as the union of one man
and one woman for life to the exclusion of any other sexual partners.
Christianity says that gay weddings are sacrilege and fake and dangerous and no
true Christian can attend one. That would be implying approval for the wedding
or saying it is tolerable.
It may be answered that attending and participating are not the same. To attend
however would mean you go just to see the ceremony and not to approve it. You
would not be going as a guest. A guest is a person who participates by
attending.
Marriage is seen to be the basic unit in religion as well as society in general.
Married couples say in Hinduism are the reason the religion exists. To attend
the wedding of another religion or to help it to happen then is to betray your
own religion.
What if you are Christian and it is your brother or sister getting married in
violation of the Christian faith and they ask for your support? Religion answers
that support is a two way thing. They say that the brother and sister should
support your right to obey the Christian faith and not get hostile to you if you
choose not to attend the wedding. So if they get hostile it is not you who is
causing the discord. If so, nobody then has the right to call a Catholic a bigot
if the Catholic refuses to attend say a Mormon service. But if the gay wedding
improves life for the couple it is certainly bigotry to keep away from it over
religious principles. Nobody should ever have to go against their principles,
but if you have to sacrifice one principle for another, the sacrificed principle
should be the religious one.
In Radio Replies, 1, Question 1089, we read, “Is it a sin for a Catholic to
attend weddings in Protestant churches? The law of the Catholic Church forbids
participation in a religious service that is not Catholic because it is an
implied repudiation of the faith which a Catholic professes to be the only true
faith”. In the answer to Question 1091, we read concerning attendance at a
Protestant service, “Our attendance would sanction to a certain extent their
idea that their religion also is as good as our own. But our absence from their
Churches gives them food for thought.” Attendance is not encouraging a
Protestant to look into the Catholic Church to see if it is the true religion.
Roman Catholic teaching about attending what it sees as attempts at marriage or
gravely immoral marriages, is horrendous. And there is a twisted logic to it
that is a bad example for other religions. Even the question arising about
attending such marriages shows bigotry.
Catholics today tend to not take religion very seriously. But that does not
change the fact that their faith has nasty implications. The harm a religion
implies should be done is a bigger reason for leaving it and telling it to get
lost than the harm it actually does.