And no, I am not defending polygamy.
By defending these people, and by suggesting that the government should not have raided this place, yes, in effect you are.
It is a most foolish and unwise state of matrimony if you ask me.
It is morally wrong, against natural law, and mortally sinful. It is also illegal.
Now before you make any more arrogant and stupid pronouncements, I suggest you and others, just like yourself, read the following article from the National Catholic Reporter:
Aquinas on polygamy
Robert B. Fiser
The sad story narrated by Evans K. Chama in "The Christian cost of rooting out polygamy" (NCR, Sept. 17), about how Joseph Milimo's father was forced by a missionary to abandon his No. 2 wife so he could be baptized a Catholic, once more shows how seminarians sometimes did (and do) not learn their theology well.
The missionary had not studied well his scholastic theology or its history. An archbishop named Raymond of Toledo in 12th-century Muslim Spain organized a polyglot team of translators, including Muslims, Jews and Christians, to translate the works of Aristotle from Arabic into Latin. As a result of this broad-minded enterprise, there arose a great respect for Muslim scholars such as the Arab philosopher from Cordoba, Ibn Rushd, known to Europeans as Averroes. Yet how to explain that these scholars were polygamists?
In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas noted this and the fact that the biblical patriarchs David and Solomon had several wives. How to explain that? Aquinas commented in his Sentences that the Franciscan Bonaventure had appealed to a divine dispensation from monogamy due to the situation of the times "to increase the number of believers." But that was nonsense to Aquinas. He said if there was any dispensation in favor of polygamy, it was because it was reasonable: It was not inconsistent with the primary purpose of marriage.
In Aquinas' Summa against the Gentiles, he developed his thought on the "three ends of marriage," later on to be taught as Catholic teaching on marriage. The test end is the bringing forth and the education of children. The second end is the common life enjoyed by the spouses. The third end is the sacramental sign given by the fidelity of one man to one woman. The last end, he said, was distinctly Christian. Of the three ends, only the third is ruled out by polygamy. The primary end is not compromised at all. The "scholastics judged the Christian form of marriage to be the optimal one, but polygamy was not intrinsically evil.
If Joseph Milimo's missionary had-known his theology, he would not have caused so much grief to him or to his mother. My point is this: Before authorities make public statements, even if they believe they are being obedient to recent Roman documents, they should seek the advice of theologians before they cause another gaffe that gives rise to ridicule of church magisterium.
(Fr.) ROBERT B. FISHER, SVD
Bay St. Louis, Miss.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_43_40/ai_n6250711/print
