Reconsider "mistake" of same-sex marriage: Canadian Roman Catholic bishop

Aug. 24 (CNA/CWNews.com) - Canada's Parliament made a “terrible mistake” when it redefined marriage last year, said Bishop Richard Smith of Pembroke, Ontario, to the 800 women present at the annual national convention of the Catholic Women’s League last week.

The bishop told the women in Halifax, August 15, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s promise of a Parliament vote in the fall on whether to reopen the same-sex marriage debate, offers “a rare second chance” to revisit the issue, Canadian Catholic News reported.

Bishop Smith, who is the CWL’s national spiritual advisor, urged the group’s 99,000 members across the country to get in touch with their members of Parliament and to address the marriage issue on the parish level. The bishop reportedly said he believed he could speak for all Canadian bishops when it came to the “incredibly important issue” of upholding marriage as the lifelong bond between a man and a woman.

Bishop Smith also urged the league members to bring the resolutions passed at the national convention last week— on health, the environment, aging, and religious freedom— back to their parishes for grassroots action. Most of the attention, he said, is focused on moving resolutions up the ladder from the parish level to the national level. He suggested more attention be focused on moving the resolutions back down to the local parish level once they are passed so they can be “put into practice at the parochial level.”