The Bishops of the United States continue their ad limina visits this week, with prelates
from the US states of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri in Rome to pray at the tombs
of the Apostles and meet with the Pope and the various offices of the curia.
In
a general allocution last week to the bishops of regions, VII, VIII and IX – including
the bishops in Rome this week – Pope Benedict XVI focused his remarks on the need
for the Church in the United States to offer a reasoned defense of traditional marriage
against often powerful political and cultural forces that are seeking to alter - and
in some cases have succeeded in altering - the legal definition of marriage.
The
Church’s conscientious effort to resist this pressure calls for a reasoned defense
of marriage as a natural institution consisting of a specific communion of persons,
essentially rooted in the complementarity of the sexes and oriented to procreation.
The
states, whose bishops are visiting, are not strangers to the struggle: Iowa’s supreme
court imposed a legal alteration of marriage in 2009, when it ordered that marriage
licenses be issued to same-sex couples in 2009; Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, meanwhile,
have each passed amendments protecting the legal definition of marriage.
Also
in his addressed to the bishops, The Holy Father explained that sexual differences
cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the definition of marriage.
He went on
to say that defending marriage as a basic natural social institution is ultimately
a question of justice, “since,” he said, “it entails safeguarding the good of the
entire human community and the rights of parents and children alike.”
The bishops
of Region IX are in Rome from March 12th to the 17th. Listen