July 2009 Study Guide

Bible Blurbs

“God cre­ated man in his image; …male and female he cre­ated them. God blessed them, say­ing: ‘Be fer­tile and mul­ti­ply’…“
Gen­e­sis 1:27-28

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.
Gen­e­sis 2:24

“…for I will honor those who honor me…“
1 Samuel 2:30

Blessed are they who are per­se­cuted for the sake of right­eous­ness, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven.
Matthew 5:10

Cat­e­chism Clips

372: Man and woman were made “for each other” - not that God left them half-​​made and incom­plete: he cre­ated them to be a com­mu­nion of per­sons… for they are …com­ple­men­tary as mas­cu­line and fem­i­nine.
2202: A man and a woman united in mar­riage, together with their chil­dren, form a fam­ily. This insti­tu­tion is prior to any recog­ni­tion by pub­lic author­ity, which has an oblig­a­tion to rec­og­nize it.
1778: In all he says and does, man is obliged to fol­low faith­fully what he knows to be just and right.
2333: Phys­i­cal, moral, and spir­i­tual dif­fer­ence and com­ple­men­tar­ity are ori­ented toward the goods of mar­riage and the flour­ish­ing of fam­ily life.
2360: Sex­u­al­ity is ordered to the con­ju­gal love of man and woman.

Pope Quotes:

“… the need to avoid con­fus­ing mar­riage with other types of unions based on weak love is espe­cially urgent. It is only the rock of total irrev­o­ca­ble love between a man and a woman that can serve as the foun­da­tion on which to build… a home for all mankind.
(May 11, 2006)

Mar­riage is engraved in the human being him­self… man leaves his par­ents and is united to a woman in order to form only one flesh, so that the two may be a sin­gle exis­tence.
(April 6, 2006: Meet­ing with young people)

The sex­ual dif­fer­ence that dis­tin­guishes the male from the female body is not a mere bio­log­i­cal fac­tor… man and woman, by becom­ing one flesh, can achieve authen­tic com­mu­nion… and coop­er­ate with God in the pro­cre­ation of new human beings.
(May 11, 2006)

Thus, …mar­riage is not an inven­tion of the Church: it is really cre­ated right in the moment that man is cre­ated, as a fruit of the dynamism of love in which the man and the woman find them­selves and thus also find the Cre­ator who called them to love.
(April 6, 2006: Meet­ing with young people)

Today the var­i­ous forms of the ero­sion of mar­riage, such as free unions and “trial mar­riage” and even pseudo-​​marriages between peo­ple of the same sex… makes the body despi­ca­ble, plac­ing it… out­side the person’s authen­tic being and dig­nity.
(June 6, 2006)

Vir­tu­ous Ver­biage Verification:

big­oted: utterly intol­er­ant of any creed, belief, or opin­ion that dif­fers from one’s own.
con­science: one’s best judg­ment, in a given sit­u­a­tion, on what is right or wrong. It is our duty to “form” our con­science - this means to learn what is objec­tively right from wrong, so we can make the right choices.

dis­cern­ment: a process in which one prays and lis­tens to the Holy Spirit, in order to fig­ure out what the will of God is.

enthu­si­as­tic: hav­ing or show­ing great excite­ment, moti­va­tion, and interest

happy/​happiness: the sense of con­tent­ment, ful­fill­ment, and being sat­is­fied. We become “more” happy as we get closer to God, and we will only be com­pletely happy with Him for­ever in Heaven.

mar­riage: the voca­tion (or life-​​calling) from God, to one man and one woman, empow­ered by grace through the sacra­ment of mat­ri­mony, to become united to each other phys­i­cally, spir­i­tu­ally, and emo­tion­ally. This bond is per­ma­nent (until death), and it is exclu­sive (they only unite with each other, never with any­one else). The fruit of a true mar­riage is open­ness to chil­dren, through which a man and woman par­tic­i­pate in the very life and love of God.

naive: inex­pe­ri­enced, simple-​​minded, lack­ing the knowl­edge that one learns from expe­ri­ence, gullible

right: 1) good, just, cor­rect 2) a priv­i­lege one nat­u­rally deserves or is guar­an­teed by a gov­ern­ment: “the right to life”, “inalien­able rights…”, “the right to remain silent…”

slan­dered: defamed, had one’s rep­u­ta­tion ruined by another’s false claims or accusations

sur­rep­ti­tiously: with sneaky and secret plans, espe­cially related to an attack or a trap

Dis­cus­sion questions:

1. What does it mean to be “tol­er­ant” of oth­ers? Did Car­rie Pre­jean say any­thing that was “intol­er­ant” of oth­ers? Were Perez Hilton and the offi­cials of the Miss USA/​Miss Cal­i­for­nia Pageants tol­er­ant of Carrie’s reli­gious beliefs? Does being tol­er­ant require that you change your beliefs? Is it pos­si­ble to “accept” a per­son with­out accept­ing their beliefs?
2. Does the Catholic church define mar­riage for one man and one woman because it hates homo­sex­u­als and wants to pun­ish them for not “fit­ting in”? Or is the Church really look­ing out for what is best for ALL men and women?
3. Since God designed mar­riage to be “life-​​giving” and “pro­cre­ative,” is it ok for a man and woman who are mar­ried to refuse to be open to hav­ing chil­dren, even if they are totally capa­ble of doing so?

Jour­nal Writing:

• Make a list of some of the things you believe in the most and feel the strongest about… the kind of things you would be will­ing to stand up for no mat­ter what. Write about why you believe in those things, and if you think they mean enough to you that you would sac­ri­fice your dreams or goals for what you believe in like Car­rie did.
• Imag­ine you have a friend who lives in a coun­try where there is no free­dom of speech or reli­gion, a place where this friend could be arrested for sim­ply stat­ing what he/​she believes. write a let­ter to this friend and encour­age them to hold on to their beliefs.

Debate:

Divide in two teams. The debate topic is “Does a gov­ern­ment have the right to define mar­riage with­out tak­ing into account the reli­gious beliefs of the major­ity of its peo­ple? Is this a mat­ter of sep­a­rat­ing church and state? Or is this a mat­ter of gov­ern­ment tak­ing away some free­doms of reli­gion and speech?”

Activ­ity:

Write let­ters of sup­port to Car­rie Pre­jean. Offer her encour­age­ment for the many more choices she will have to face as she con­tin­ues to grow. Find out how to send them to her, or send them to us at O.F.I.A. and we will send them to her.