Evangelical leader Dr. Michael Brown recently explained how the allegedly devout Catholic Tim Kaine has rejected the truth about marriage as revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.  Two months ago, I wrote about Kaine’s rejection of the right to life of our youngest neighbors in the womb, noting, “His position is morally incoherent and unfaithful to the Bible, Christian tradition and Catholic doctrine.”

So, it is not only on the right to life that Kaine is in serious error. Now he rejects the truth about marriage.

To be precise, Kaine told 3,600 attendees at the annual dinner of the “Human Rights Campaign” that “my full complete unconditional support for marriage equality is at odds with the current doctrine of the Church that I still attend. But I think that’s going to change too. …”

This is a reversal of his earlier view. During his 2005 campaign for governor of Virginia, he defended marriage, stating in a radio ad, “I’m against same-sex marriage. I’m conservative on personal responsibility, character, family and the sanctity of life. These are my values and that’s what I believe.”

His “evolved” rejection of marriage, which conveniently tracks changing public opinion, completely rejects Catholic teaching. Dare I call it the “h” word? The Catechism of the Catholic Church, citing the Code of Canon Law #751, defines heresy as “the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith.”

The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith is the Vatican watchdog. They issued a doctrinal note to Catholic politicians in 2002 including this direction that “the family needs to be safeguarded and promoted, based on monogamous marriage between a man and a woman.” The note was signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation. Most will recognize the name. He went on to become Pope Benedict XVI.

Tim Kaine is not a defender of marriage and the family. He undermines both and admits to being “at odds” with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Kaine is a smart man. He regularly reminds us that he is a “devout Catholic” and that he served as a lay missionary. He knows that what the Catholic Church teaches about marriage, like what She teaches about the Right to Life, is based not only on the teaching of the Bible, which Dr. Brown elucidated in his article, but on two thousand years of settled Christian teaching and the natural moral law. In other words, it is not simply a “religious” position, but one knowable through the exercise of reason and binding upon all men, women and nations.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith affirms:

The Church’s teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose.

And, in spite of Mr. Kaine’s assertion that the Church will somehow “evolve” and reject the ontological truth about marriage, the congregation added these words: “No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, tend toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives.”

Tim Kaine is no more a devout Catholic than I am a potted plant. He is in serious error. He is a dissident. He is following the misguided trail of dissidents like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Mario Cuomo into dangerous rebellion against the Church and the truth that She teaches and defends. It is imperative that faithful Catholics oppose and expose his errors while we pray for his conversion. Our Christian brethren in other traditions are hoping we will stand firm! Many of their own church communities are collapsing under the ferocious attack of the devil on the right to life and the true nature of marriage.

With such public dissent from truths that every Catholic must believe, Tim Kaine is in open and notorious public dissent, which the Catholic Catechism calls scandal:

Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense. (CCC#2284)

Mr. Kaine, the Catholic Church will never, ever, change Her teaching on the right to life or the true nature and ends of marriage. She cannot deny the truth as revealed by the Lord. It is you who must turn from your serious error. Please, repent and return to the faith you claim to believe. And, until then, please stop claiming to be devout.