 In my previous post, “Why the Catholic Church Defined Marriage,” I noted that the Roman pagan world, into which the Church was born, had monogamy, but not the Christian understanding of monogamy—and that’s why the Catholic Church had to properly define marriage 2000 years ago by redefining it against the pagan culture. To repeat: Roman heterosexual monogamy was not life-long. The pagan Romans allowed easy, no-fault divorce, and multiple remarriages. A man had a right to have sex with concubines, his slaves (male and female, adult and child), and prostitutes. Marriage was basically a contract for having children and handing on property. To be fair to the ancient pagans, there were a handful of Greek and Roman philosophers and statesman who proclaimed something much more like the Christian understanding of marriage—primarily Aristotle and the Stoics. But these philosophers were the exceptions, even among philosophers, and certainly had little effect on the larger culture—and it was that larger cultural, moral, legal context against which the Church redefined marriage as life-long, sexually-exclusive, heterosexual monogamy. But if the Catholic Church redefined marriage once, can’t it redefine it again? That’s what proponents of gay marriage demand. The answer is “no.” Redefinition is never possible again. The first redefinition 2000 years ago was a correction of the definition of marriage in light of revealed and natural truth, and these truths cannot be changed . . . Read the rest at ncregister.com.
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