Episcopal Church ...we quickly add, before we follow out further the chain of possibilities: “I’m sure everything will turn out well.”

Notes for the Etiquette of a New Age

By Hadley Arkes

This past week, in Washington, it was announced that “effective immediately, same-sex weddings may be celebrated at Washington National Cathedral,” standing at the heights of the city. 

In making the announcement, the Dean of the Cathedral observed that, “for more than thirty years the Episcopal Church has prayed and studied to discern the evidence of God’s blessing in the lives of same-sex couples.” This did bring some additional news. 

Are we to gather that for thirty years the Episcopal Church has done more than extend a pastoral concern for all people, with their varied descriptions, but had actually been cultivating an acceptance of same-sex “couples”?

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But from Bethesda, and the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, the young Msgr. Edward Filardi put out a message rather different from that of the Dean of the Cathedral. Msgr. Filardi has often had to put himself at odds with the liberal currents that run within his own parish.  He could hardly avoid doing it again unless a striking change in the moral terms of our lives would be treated as matter barely worth noticing.

          The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by John Martin, 1852

And so he opened his pastoral note by saying, “Welcome to Sodom. Yes, that is what Maryland has now become. . .with the same disregard for the natural law of human love”: 

That same disregard is now written into state law. The distinctive physical and life-cultivating complementarity of woman and man has been dismissed as a basis for marriage. Additionally, those who cannot honor this diluted definition in their personal and business activities will be held legally liable for discrimination and punished accordingly.

Msgr. Filardi went on to record a “great sadness that many of Satan’s helpers in ushering in this demonic distortion of marriage were Catholics, such as our governor [Martin O’Malley]. . . .We must pray that they recognize this error, repent and make reparation.”

While we wait for those recognitions to come rolling in, along with the reparations, it is clear that a change in the laws will bring with it a change in many parts of the so-called “culture.”  As Msgr. Filardi noted, many ordinary people would face penalties if they demurred from recognizing the rightness of these marriages – e.g., if they simply declined to take photos for them.

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