In late September, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J., upped the ante in the hierarchy’s culture war against LGBT civil rights by declaring that those who support marriage equality should refrain from receiving the Eucharist. With somewhere between 52 percent and 72 percentof Catholics in this country supporting same-sex marriage, a lot of people are going to be turned away hungry from the altar.
Myers articulated his position in a 16-page letter on marriage. Not surprisingly, most of the document reads as an argument against same-sex relationships rather than a pastoral letter that offers counsel on the many challenges that plague heterosexual marriages.