Campaign '04: Catholic view on family more than same-sex marriage

Published: 2004-07-27

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- As Congress headed toward its summer recess in July, most of the marriage-related talk focused on efforts to revive the stalled Federal Marriage Amendment, which would amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. But as the U.S. bishops made clear in their 2003 statement on "Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility," marriage- and family-related issues of concern to the Catholic Church go far beyond the same-sex marriage question. American Catholics "must strive to make the needs and concerns of families a central national priority ... in the face of the many pressures working to undermine" them, the bishops said. "Washington is in some ways divided, and the political parties are divided" about which marriage and family issues are most important, said Nancy Wisdo, director of the Office of Domestic Social Development of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Some say the only marriage and family issue that is important is same-sex marriage, while "some say it's only economics," she added. "We (in the Catholic Church) say it's both, and that's what makes us different."

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