It’s looking like New Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church is serious about tolerating — or even supporting — domestic partnership legislation if, as expected, Gov. Bill Richardson calls a special session of the Legislature later this year. Such an outcome could be powerful ammunition for backers of domestic partnerships.
The six Hispanic Democrats in the New Mexico Senate who voted against the controversial legislation in late February — all Catholics — might be persuaded to reconsider their votes.
It would only take a four vote swing in the Senate to reverse last February’s outcome.
But before any more votes are cast, an ongoing debate within the church will continue to simmer.
“I don’t think the Catholic Church wants to deny anyone on any civil rights,” Father Stephen Imbarrato said in a recent interview. But, he quickly added, “the Catholic Church also believes that all sex outside of sacramental marriage is immoral.”
The parish priest based in the tiny town of Roy is less than enthusiastic about any would-be compromise on domestic partnerships.
“I’m not sure that any comprise that is reached now, if the courts down road will up uphold these compromises,” Imbarrato, a New York native, explained, saying he worries that judges could someday try to force priests to perform same-sex marriages.
He also speculated on what he considers a reasonable, perhaps necessary response to unpredictable events: “I think the whole solution on this is for the Catholic Church to get out of the civil marriage business.”
Imbarrato, the clerical force behind defendinglife.org (”Catholic Pro-Life Ministries in New Mexico”) for nearly four years, describes himself not as a conservative or traditionalist priest, but as an obedient one.
“I don’t have a problem with anything that’s worked out that doesn’t put Catholic priests where they have to perform a sacramental marriage for homosexual couples,” he said.
The Independent talked with other local Catholic priests who had much different take on recent developments than Imbarrato, although each declined to talk on the record.
Father Richard McBrien, a Catholic priest and theologian at Notre Dame University, did agree to an interview.
“What the archbishop is doing is a good thing,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Many Catholics would like to see more bishops searching for common ground on controversial issues like this than posturing to impress their conservative Catholic base or their superiors in the Vatican.”
McBrien is a familiar voice to many due to his syndicated column in the Catholic press for many years, as well as numerous appearances on national television.
While McBrien said he doubts Archbishop Michael Sheehan would describe his efforts to secure a would-be compromise on domestic partnerships as a “blessing” of such partnerships — figuratively or literally — he didn’t mince his words about the direction of such a compromise.
“It would be a major step forward if someone of his stature in the Catholic Church at least did not oppose such legislation out of hand,” McBrien added.
To date, only one Catholic diocese in the country has actually endorsed domestic partnership legislation. That was in Maine, which enacted domestic partnerships into law in 2004. As recently as yesterday, Bishop Richard Malone of the Diocese of Portland spoke out publicly in favor of the state’s current domestic partnership law — and against a current legislative push to approve same-sex marriage in Maine.
McBrien added that the ultimate decision over whether or not New Mexico’s Catholic Church will oppose, support or be neutral toward a potential compromise on domestic partnership legislation, will almost certainly lie in Sheehan’s hands.
“To be sure, the archbishop would need to coordinate his actions with those of the other bishops in the state,” McBrien, the author of more than 20 books on Catholicism, said.
“But he is their leader. I would think that, once he consulted with the other bishops of New Mexico, Archbishop Sheehan would be free to decide what is the pastorally prudent thing for him to do in these circumstances.”
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