Washington Post: Virginia Catholics "Pushed" to Support Same-Sex Marriage Ban

From The Washington Post:

Virginia's Catholic leaders can take comfort from recent polls showing that a majority of state voters are in sync with them in supporting a constitutional amendment to ban civil unions. What worries them is their own flock.

A Washington Post poll conducted this month showed that a majority of Catholic voters oppose the proposed amendment, which would ban same-sex marriages. As a result, Virginia bishops are flexing their growing political muscle in an attempt to sway more Catholics on the issue and get them to voting booths.

"When Catholics are presented with our church's perspective on the nature of marriage, its relationship to the common good of society and the importance of the proposed amendment for children and families . . . they will be much more likely to support the amendment," said Jeff Caruso, executive director of the Virginia Catholic Conference.

The lobbying group spent about $25,000 this year on 100,000 glossy copies of a letter that Richmond Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo and Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde wrote to explain why Catholics should support the amendment.

The amendment campaign is one of DiLorenzo and Loverde's largest political efforts. They founded the conference just last year, although many states -- including Maryland -- have had Catholic lobbying groups for decades.

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A solid majority of the state's Catholic voters -- 60 percent -- said gays should "be allowed to form legally recognized civil unions," compared with 38 percent who said they shouldn't, according to a Washington Post poll conducted this month. Slightly more than half of Catholic poll respondents -- 51 percent -- said they oppose the proposed constitutional amendment, compared with 46 percent who said they support it.

[More]

My Comments:
"A Washington Post poll conducted this month showed that a majority of Catholic voters oppose the proposed amendment, which would ban same-sex marriages."

Disappointing, but hardly surprising given the "leadership" most Virginia Catholics have experienced over the past 30 or so years (at least in the Richmond Diocese, prior to Bishop DiLorenzo's appointment).


UPDATE
I had to update with this little tidbit from a couple weeks back in the Daily News-Record, the newspaper serving the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, which quotes my former pastor (who used to be at St. Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel in Columbia, VA, when I was a parishioner there):

Other Catholic churches in the area also back the state’s stand. Father Gerald A. Przywara, pastor at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Staunton, said that he will distribute duplicates of the bishops’ letter, and address the memorandum at mass.

Przywara calls the bishops’ letter important, adding that all Christians should support such action.

"The existence of God and the definition of marriage are not Catholic curiosities that we are trying to force on the rest of the world, but [rather] the dictates of reason that come from natural laws," said Przywara.

One of the reasons I love Fr. Jerry is that he always talks like that -- citing to Natural Law and/or his favorite encyclical. He always peppered his homilies with a heavy dose of such stuff.



Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Virginia Churches Split on Same-Sex "Marriage"

Virginia Catholics Urged to Back Same-Sex "Marriage" Ban

Charlottesville Churches Square Off Over Virginia's Marriage-Protection Amendment

Virginia Bishops Endorse Postcard Campaign