It is time for “devout Catholic” Tim Kaine to be publicly corrected.

nd by his bish­op, Fran­cis Xavier DiLoren­zo. Here is the long and short of it. The Con­gre­ga­tion for the Doc­trine of the Faith pub­lished this doc­u­ment, called “Con­sid­er­a­tions Regard­ing Pro­pos­als to Give Legal Recog­ni­tion to Unions Between Homo­sex­u­al Per­sons.”

Sec­tion 10 has to do with the “posi­tions of Catholic poli­tians.” That’s the part that applies to Sen. Kaine. Let’s look at what the CDF says:

If it is true that all Catholics are oblig­ed to oppose the legal recog­ni­tion of homo­sex­u­al unions, Catholic politi­cians are oblig­ed to do so in a par­tic­u­lar way, in keep­ing with their respon­si­bil­i­ty as politi­cians. Faced with leg­isla­tive pro­pos­als in favour of homo­sex­u­al unions, Catholic politi­cians are to take account of the fol­low­ing eth­i­cal indi­ca­tions.

When leg­is­la­tion in favour of the recog­ni­tion of homo­sex­u­al unions is pro­posed for the first time in a leg­isla­tive assem­bly, the Catholic law-mak­er has a moral duty to express his oppo­si­tion clear­ly and pub­licly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harm­ful to the com­mon good is grave­ly immoral.

[That’s mor­tal sin lan­guage, right there. It’s not some­thing to take light­ly.]

When leg­is­la­tion in favour of the recog­ni­tion of homo­sex­u­al unions is already in force, the Catholic politi­cian must oppose it in the ways that are pos­si­ble for him and make his oppo­si­tion known; it is his duty to wit­ness to the truth.

Now, this verbiage—“ways that are pos­si­ble for him”—does not mean that peo­ple like Sen. Kaine are free to fudge or dis­sent. Oppos­ing same-sex mar­riage remains a “duty,” as we shall read:

If it is not pos­si­ble to repeal such a law com­plete­ly, the Catholic politi­cian, recall­ing the indi­ca­tions con­tained in the Encycli­cal Let­ter Evan­geli­um Vitae, “could lic­it­ly sup­port pro­pos­als aimed at lim­it­ing the harm done by such a law and at less­en­ing its neg­a­tive con­se­quences at the lev­el of gen­er­al opin­ion and pub­lic moral­i­ty”, on con­di­tion that his “absolute per­son­al oppo­si­tion” to such laws was clear and well known and that the dan­ger of scan­dal was avoid­ed.

So none of this “I per­son­al­ly sup­port” and “the Church will some day change its posi­tion to agree with me” garbage. The CDF does not give Sen. Kaine that lib­er­ty.

This does not mean that a more restric­tive law in this area could be con­sid­ered just or even accept­able; rather, it is a ques­tion of the legit­i­mate and duti­ful attempt to obtain at least the par­tial repeal of an unjust law when its total abro­ga­tion is not pos­si­ble at the moment.

Rea­peal must be “not pos­si­ble.” And “not pos­si­ble” would mean some­thing like there are not enough votes in Con­gress. It does not mean “the vot­ers won’t like me” or “the par­ty boss­es will have my head on a plat­ter.” None of that.

Catholics have a duty to oppose same-sex unions.

Catholic politi­cians have a duty to do so “in a par­tic­u­lar way.” It is their moral duty. To shirk this duty is “grave­ly immoral.” To do oth­er­wise is to cause scan­dal.

End stop.

•••

And yet Sen. Kaine, in remarks at the annu­al gala of the Human Rights cam­paign said he believes the Church may even­tu­al­ly change its posi­tion on same-sex mar­riage.

“I think it’s going to change,” Kaine says, “because my church also teach­es me about a cre­ator who, in the first chap­ter of Gen­e­sis, sur­veyed the entire world, includ­ing mankind, and said, ‘It is very good.’ ”

So? What does that mean?

I’m sor­ry, Sen. Kaine, but you are caus­ing con­fu­sion and scan­dal. Yes, God said, “It is very good,” but have you not heard that in the begin­ning he cre­at­ed them male and female? The good­ness of the design of cre­ation was that mar­riage was designed for oppo­sites, for male and female, in a com­ple­men­tary rela­tion­ship. That is what was “very good.”

“Who am I,” Kaine continued—as though is more supreme­ly wise and hum­ble than the Church—“to chal­lenge God for the beau­ti­ful diver­si­ty of the human fam­i­ly? I think we’re sup­posed to cel­e­brate it, not chal­lenge it?”

No, Sen. Kaine, it is by posit­ing that there can be such a thing as same-sex mar­riage in the first place that you are “chal­leng­ing God.” Jesus, speak­ing about mar­riage, Sen. Kaine, began with these words: “In the begin­ning he made them male and female.”

Sen. Kaine goes on in the inter­view to describe, not how he intends to live up to what the Catholic Church tells him is his duty as a Catholic, and his par­tic­u­lar duty as a Catholic politi­cian, but to describe how he changed his posi­tion and now thinks that same-sex mar­riage is a beau­ti­ful thing.

And this is the per­son AP reporter Kath­leen Ron­ayne describes as a “devout Catholic.”

Sor­ry to be the one to inform Ms. Ron­ayne of this, but no. Sen. Kaine is a dis­si­dent Catholic.

If Sen. Kaine were a “devout Catholic,” he would know (and he would also accept) that no one in the Church, not even the pope, has any author­i­ty to change its teach­ing on same-sex mar­riage. The Church does not just make up what it teach­es, Sen. Kaine. It teach­es what has been revealed by God, and the con­tent of divine rev­e­la­tion does not change. It is what it is—“inalienable,” as the CDF puts it.

“Inalien­able” means invi­o­lable, absolute, sacro­sanct, unable to be changed.

Ontol­ogy 101, Sen. Kaine. God designed mar­riage for the union of the spous­es and for the pro­cre­ation of chil­dren. He did not design male to fit with male, nor female with female.

Who is Sen. Kaine to ques­tion the design of God? Who is the Church?

But when politi­cians pro­fess to be “devout Catholics” and spec­u­late that Church teaching—the word of God, in fact—can be changed on such points, they cause con­fu­sion and scan­dal.

And when a politi­cian caus­es con­fu­sion and scan­dal, he needs to be pub­licly cor­rect­ed by his bish­op.

Bish­op DiLoren­zo, we are wait­ing.