Los Angeles, Calif., Dec 6, 2008 / 11:37 am
The bishops of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, led by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, issued a letter to homosexual Catholics on Friday seeking to ensure them that the Church’s support for Proposition 8 was not meant to diminish their dignity or their membership in the Church. The true aim of the Church’s support, the bishops write, was to “preserve the ordered relationship between man and woman created by God.”
The pastoral letter, which was printed in the archdiocesan paper The Tidings, is written to all homosexual members of the Church as well as the rest of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. According to the bishops, its purpose is to offer reassurance to gays amidst the fallout surrounding Prop. 8’s success that they are “cherished members of the Catholic Church, and that we value you as equal and active members of the Body of Christ.”
The letter then states the reason that the Church supported Prop. 8 was to “resist a legal redefinition of marriage.” “Our support for Proposition 8,” the bishops say, “was in defense of the longstanding institution of marriage understood as the life-long relationship of a man and a woman ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of their children.”
But the bishops also state that they are “disappointed that the ballot information about Proposition 8 stated that the purpose of the initiative was ‘to ban gay marriage’" and that “from the very beginning, this was not our purpose.”