Doomsayers claimed the Catholic Church would never recover from the recent sex scandals; they also insisted she had lost her moral authority. Yet, despite vital reforms and healing that still needs to be done, she has continued to minister to her children, and to all the world. In Thursday’s release of the document regarding the legal recognition of homosexual unions (“Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons“), we find the Catholic Church standing up for all the faithful, regardless of their sexual orientation.

With most topics of emotional impact, the real issue inevitably gets muddled. People are willing to talk about all sorts of things tangential to homosexual unions, but they rarely address the union itself. The newly released document provides crucial leadership, first by addressing the nature of homosexual unions and then by articulating the responsibilities of the faithful — among them, those politicians who identify themselves as Catholic.

Homosexual culture has become more and more mainstream. As a result, there are many more people today who identify themselves as homosexuals. In countries like the United States, numbers play a great role in our understanding — the culture seems to live by polls. If a large number of people accept something, then (so it’s felt) it must be true and good. Consider television programming. Sexual orientation has become a significant part of many major shows. Stories about people have largely been reduced to statements about their sexual orientation — end of story.

And because “everyone’s doing it,” the idea gradually gains greater acceptance. Since homosexuality ties into every other story, the reasoning goes, it must also play into the story of marriage. Not so, cautions the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Catholic Church does not deny that the homosexual orientation exists. Nor does she deny that individuals with this orientation engage in relationships that are intimate and personal. But the church is also willing to call a spade a spade. Despite the growing acceptance of homosexual relationships, homosexual unions are simply not the same as the heterosexual unions that form marriages.

“Marriage,” the document explains, “is not just any relationship between human beings.” A unique relationship, marriage exists not only for the union of the couple, but also for the good of the children who naturally proceed from marriage. As Notre Dame law professor Gerry Bradley recently noted, classic legal parlance identifies children as the “issue” of the marriage. From the marriage itself, children are born; they are a real extension of the love existing between the parents. Homosexual acts will never have an “issue”: They will never generate a child.

Same-sex unions are thus inherently different from the heterosexual unions that are essential for marriage. They do not reflect the complementarity of man and woman and, in and of themselves, their sexual acts do not participate in the generation of children. Whatever one’s personal beliefs on homosexuality, the simple, biological fact remains: Homosexual unions are intrinsically different from heterosexual unions. The fact that the conjugal nature of marriage does not extend to homosexual unions is not a matter of opinion. To equate the two would be to misunderstand and deny the nature of each.

The Catholic Church has made no secret of the fact that it considers homosexual acts to be gravely disordered. No one expected this document to say anything new in that regard. It is one thing to tolerate behavior — the church’s document calls for respect and compassion — and another to legitimize it. The agenda to recognize same-sex marriages is an attempt to legitimize a particular behavior. Moreover, legitimizing it would implicitly endorse the notion that the union of a man and woman is merely a variation, one particular type of “marriage.” In other words, marriage — the foundation of society — would no longer be marriage.

Perhaps the new twist in this document is the section directed to Catholic politicians. Last January, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a document concerning the participation of Catholics in political life. That same exhortation takes hold in today’s document: “Faced with legislative proposals in favor of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are to take account of the following ethical indications…”

The language here is not a mere suggestion or recommendation for Catholic politicians. The church is telling Catholic politicians that they must reflect both the faith they profess and their responsibility as politicians. The Catholic politician can’t hide behind the veil of so-called “personal belief” and not articulate opposition to laws supporting same-sex unions. Politicians who wish to publicly identify themselves as Catholic must be accordingly open about their Catholic beliefs, and they have to vote accordingly. Being Catholic carries with it a responsibility to reflect one’s faith.

At stake in the marriage debate is marriage itself. The view of the Catholic Church is explicit on this: Catholic politicians have an obligation to defend marriage because the good of every man and woman depends upon it.

— Pia de Solenni is a fellow at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. She is also a moral theologian.