In 1972, the Catholic Church refused to marry my husband and me; I was a practicing Catholic, but he was not. Our marriage is legal, but the Catholic Church doesn't recognize it. Many religions have requirements and limitations on marriage, as is their right. And it is our right as citizens of the United States to marry outside any religion if we so choose.
My Catholic schoolteachers taught us about brave settlers who came to America to escape religious persecution and why the separation of church and state and religious freedom are essential underpinnings of democracy.
I was in fourth grade during John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. He wisely outlined how carefully he would honor the separation of church and state. At some point after Kennedy died, the Catholic Church became political indeed. Even as the church hierarchy knowingly harbored pedophiles within their "celibate" priesthood, bishops started denying Communion to and publicly excommunicating liberal politicians for political
reasons.
Two issues the Catholic Church is prioritizing and lavishing money on right now are fighting reforms to the statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes in Pennsylvania and Colorado, to reduce its own liability, and amending Minnesota's constitution to limit the definition of legal marriage, even though the church will never have to recognize or confer the sacrament of matrimony on same-sex couples -- any more than it had to recognize my own "one man and one woman" marriage.
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How can any Minnesotan of conscience listen to an institution on any matter of morality or love that to this day protects depraved pedophiles who shattered the hopes, dreams, and very lives of children?
Laura Erickson
Duluth
