Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron addresses those gathered April 18 at the Amazing Parish Conference in Detroit. Archbishop Vigneron co-authored a statement Sept. 14 with Buffalo, N.Y., Bishop Richard Malone reaffirming the U.S. bishops' stance supporting the Church's teaching on marriage. (Dan Meloy | The Michigan Catholic)Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, as chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Doctrine, co-authored the statement, "God's Plan Doesn't Change," with Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo, N.Y., chairman of the bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth.
"As pastors of the Church it is timely to reaffirm the Church’s authoritative teaching about marriage as it comes to us from God as the author of creation and of revelation," the statement said. "The Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage as exclusively the permanent, faithful, and fruitful union of one man and one woman cannot change."
The statement quotes the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches in No. 1603 that "the vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator."
Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, N.Y., speaks during a news conference in November 2015 fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. (Bob Roller | CNS photo) The two bishops wrote that "despite so many various cultural changes and understandings, this 'order of creation persists' (No. 1608)."
Archbishop Vigneron and Bishop Malone pointed to Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si' ("On the Care for Our Common Home"), in which the pope calls for all of mankind to respect God's creation regarding the "relationship between human life and the moral law."
"We cause great harm to ourselves, to each other, and to the world when we ignore the moral law given to us by God and inscribed in our very nature," the bishops wrote. "The goodness and beautiful diversity of God’s creation does not include those things that are consequences of our sins.
"The attempt to redefine the essential meaning of marriage is acting against the Creator. It cannot be morally justified, 'for he commanded and they were created; and he established them for ever and ever; he fixed their bounds and he set a law which cannot pass away' (Ps 148:5b-6)," the statement said. "Therefore, as a community and a nation, we cannot make progress in human development if we 'think that the weakening of the family as that natural society founded on marriage will prove beneficial to society as a whole' (Amoris Laetitia, no. 52)."
