Copyright © 2009, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C. 0946

Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 3211 Fourth Street, N.E. • Washington, DC 20017-1194Tel: (202) 541-3070 • Fax: (202) 541-3054Website: www.usccb.org/prolife

enter marriage they are entering something thatis far more than a relationship between twoindividuals.

Human beings have discovered that the rela-tionship of man to woman and woman to manin marriage is unlike any other relationship.Husband and wife share headaches and heartaches; laughter and tears; agreements and argu-ments about habits and finances; and formcommon memories and share their life together.But good friends can also do these things.

Husband and wife transform the ordinary tasksof life by making a unique gift of self one toanother. There is one irreplaceable act thatmarks marriage out as an utterly unique rela-tionship. This act brings all of the routine tasksof shared life to a new level.

Husband and wife in marriage make a totaland complete gift of self in love, which culmi-nates in the two-in-one flesh union. The two-in-one flesh union is an utterly unique action.Husband and wife take everything they are andmake a gift of self in and through the full reali-ty of their bodies one to another in an act oflove: the conjugal, marital act.

The conjugal act is not simply a sexual act.Their persons truly become one in a total giftof self. This oneness is accomplished in andthrough the sexual difference male-to-femaleand female-to-male.

The love husband and wife express in the con-jugal act leads them in this moment to overflowand become ek-static: outside themselves inlove for this person—they have become a giftof self on every level of their being, includingthe physical and sexual. They are not meant toacquire pleasure quickly, but to give beautycontemplatively. Such a gift is, of its verynature, permanent, faithful, and open to life.

This act reveals the profound meaning of thebody, sexuality and sexual difference. The basicbiological and physiological realities are inte-gral to the personal identity of man andwoman. These realities express the personalcommunication of the reciprocal gift of selfproper to marriage through the conjugal act.Sexual difference establishes an openness andmutual receptivity between persons of theopposite sex which allows them to trulybecome one on every level of their being in themarital act. This openness is simply not presentfor persons of the same sex. Sexual actsbetween persons of the same sex can neverform a true union of persons.

ConclusionMany of us, religious and non-religious, knowpeople who experience same-sex attraction. Weknow the confusion and pain so often experi-enced by those who have a homosexual orien-tation. And we know this as friends. TheChurch longs to share pastoral resources thatcan assist all people to develop chaste friend-ships and a virtuous style of life.

It is not discrimination to treat different thingsdifferently: Marriage between persons of theopposite sex is completely and totally differentfrom any type of relationship between personsof the same sex. Same-sex unions underminenot just procreation, but also the central ele-ment of sexual difference and its relation to theunitive good, the sanctity of human sexualityand the permanent and abiding meaning ofmarriage.

Rev. Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield is a priest of the Archdiocese ofPhiladelphia and serves as Associate General Secretary of theUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is the authorof The Human Person According to John Paul II (Pauline,2010) and Living the Beatitudes: A Journey to Life in Christ(Pauline, 2011).

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Bride and Groom Photo: Video Gate Studio

The marriage of one man and one woman isthe most recognized institution in time andspace. Sacred Scripture and the authentic teach-ing of the Church confirm what was presentfrom the beginning of time, namely, that mar-riage is a relationship constructed on the basisof heterosexual difference.

The natural relation, man to woman andwoman to man, that is made possible by sexualdifference has always been the essential basefor the permanent, faithful, fruitful bondbetween one man and one woman. This is easi-ly recognized as the teaching of DivineRevelation, the truth revealed by God which ishanded on through Sacred Scripture andTradition. But this is also clearly recognized asthe classical truth of natural reason: Marriageis not only a sacred institution; it is also a time-honored institution as recognized in the estab-lished, standard and traditional understandingof marriage as the permanent union of oneman and one woman. This understanding ofmarriage is today under relentless attack fromthe attempt to redefine marriage to includesame-sex unions, and thus exclude the essentialmeaning of sexual difference from the heart ofmarriage.

The CrisisThe attack we face today is based in the crisisof the identity of the human person inheritedfrom yesterday. A misunderstanding of thenature of the human person has been advanc-

ing for centuries in prestigious universities andin seemingly mundane sociological trends.

What is your identity as a human person?Often, when we think of our identity we tendto think of our national origin, our life-history,our occupation, neighborhood, and commit-ments. But our identity is deeper. It was influ-enced by events that took place long before wewere born. These events in particular, includethe Industrial, Sexual, and TechnologicalRevolutions.

The Industrial Revolution of the late 1800’s,while positive in many ways, also had detri-mental effects. Before the Industrial Revolutionall economies were local. In the agrarian ormercantile society, the father was always rela-tively close to home, and the children interact-ed with their father regularly throughout theday. In such a setting the person was under-stood in terms of the relation to his or her fam-ily. The industrial society dragged the fatheraway from the home to the factory. The longhours and demanding schedule led to a concep-tion of the person as one who produced,acquired, and consumed things.

Fifty to sixty years later, the Sexual Revolutionagain changed the notion of the person.Ironically, women sought liberation in takingthe exact same route men had taken only a fewshort years earlier in the Industrial Revolution:

Away from the home. This move was not anymore liberating for women than it was formen. Many women now find themselves strug-gling to balance a full-time career with the full-time demands of raising a family.

With the advent of so called free-love, thepornography industry, the contraceptive pill,and no-fault divorce, the Sexual Revolutionseparated marriage from sexuality, and sexuali-ty from love. The human person was under-stood as someone whose meaning came notjust from acquiring things, but from acquiringpleasure. Commitment, especially that of mar-riage, was seen as the enemy of pleasure.

Forty years after the Sexual Revolution alongcame the Technological Revolution. With com-puters, cell phones, iPods, and instant messag-ing, the notion of personal identity againchanged. Now, being a person meant not onlythat one acquired pleasure, but that one did soquickly.

To sum up, the Industrial, Sexual, andTechnological Revolutions altered the popularunderstanding of identity of the human person.Instead of being grounded in marriage andfamily, the person’s identity is grounded inacquiring pleasure quickly. One result is thepopular misconception that the human personconsists simply of “consciousness”: A person ishis or her internal, individual, subjective,rational and emotional consciousness. Theemphasis on the inner psyche has led to a de-

emphasis of the meaning of the body: the bodyis dismissed as an incidental and unimportantreality which surrounds the real self. The factthat human nature includes either male orfemale persons is deemed unimportant, and iseven a restriction to be overcome.

The crisis we face today has deep roots.Abortion, divorce, euthanasia, human embry-onic stem cell research, fatherlessness andsame-sex “unions” all emerge out of the notionthat being a person means acquiring pleasurequickly. This distortion of what it is to behuman is tragic and devastating for individualsand society.

The Classical Sense of MarriageThe classical sense of the human person, devel-oped from natural reason and DivineRevelation, is very different. The human personis a union of body and soul. The body is partof the full and complete personal reality of thehuman being. When a man and a womanbecome friends, date, become engaged and