Can there be any more doubt that Catholic responses to same – sex relationships, and to gay marriage, are evolving – rapidly. In the latest piece of evidence, we have this thoughtful reflection at Commonweal, by Joseph Bottum, a man with impeccable credentials as conservative Catholic, once renowned as a staunch opponent of marriage equality:

The Things We Share: A Catholic’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage

 

There’s this guy I know in Manhattan. Call him Jim. Jim Watson. We’re friends, I guess. We used to be friends, anyway—grabbing a hamburger together near Gramercy Park, from time to time, or meeting out on the Stuyvesant Town Oval on a summer afternoon to play some folk and bluegrass with the guitar strummers, mandolin pickers, autoharpers, and amateur banjo players who’d drift by. None of us any good, but fun, you know? Old-timey Americana like “Wayfaring Stranger,” “Pretty Saro,” and “The Orphan Girl.” A version of “Shady Grove,” I remember, was one of his specialties: When I was just a little boy, / all I wanted was a Barlow knife. / But now I am a great big boy, / I’m lookin’ for a wife.

A few years ago, his friendship began to cool, bit by bit. You understand how it is: a little here, a little there, and last time I was through New York he didn’t even bother to answer my note suggesting we put together one of our low-rent urban hootenannies. The problem, our conversations had made pretty clear along the way, was that I am a Catholic, and Jim is gay.

-continue reading at Commonweal Magazine

The article is long, but after a preamble on some of the unconvincing reasons for changing the  Catholic Church’s view on gay marriage, he helpfully makes plain  the crucial point to which he’s headed (my emphasis):

And so, I argue, a concern about the government’s recognizing of same-sex marriage ought to come low on the list of priorities as the church pursues the evangelizing of the culture. For that matter, after the long hard work of restoring cultural sensitivity to the metaphysical meanings reflected in all of reality, Catholics will have enough experience to decide what measure of the deep spirituality of nuptials, almost absent in present culture, can reside in same-sex unions.

– See more at:Commonweal Magazine