Compromise in DC?

On Sunday’s editorial page , the New York Times took up the confrontation between the city council of Washington, D.C., and the Catholic archbishop of Washington, Donald Cardinal Wuerl. Meanwhile, in the Washington Post , Wuerl himself addressed the question of whether the archdiocese and its agencies should be required to provide recognize same-sex marriage benefits to employees.

After ritually assuring us of same-sex marriage’s inevitable triumph as a civil right, and noting the predictable criticism of Wuerl’s stand from progressive Catholics, the editorial rightly points out that there is precedent for a legal compromise. For example, Georgetown University “has written eligibility for its staff and faculty benefits program broadly, so that employees can extend benefits to other eligible adults with whom they may or may not be romantically involved.” Lest, perhaps, some Catholics doubt the Catholicity of such a precedent, the New York Times duly cites the similar arrangement reached in San Francisco a dozen years ago.

What the editorial does not point out, however, is that the archbishop who proposed and saw through that compromise was none other than William J. Levada, now prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith—the number-two position in the Vatican, and the same position held by Ratzinger when the San Francisco compromise was reached. In a 1997 issue of First Things , Levada replied at length to criticism of his compromise from the Catholic right and the secular left; the same debate is now playing out in Washington, and it can perhaps be resolved in the same fashion.

This is hardly ideal, from the Church’s point of view, since a preference ought to be given to marriages to help preserve intact the culture of the family. But it is a compromise that Catholics can live with—if the ideologues on the other side are willing to allow the city council to adopt it.

And that, of course, remains to be seen.