Although Illinois still does not recognize same-sex marriages, local Catholic leaders have responded to those decisions and have also explained the true nature of marriage.
In a statement released just hours after the Supreme Court's decisions, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki said: "As in the case of Roe v. Wade striking down abortion laws 40 years ago, the United States Supreme Court has again usurped its legitimate prerogative through a raw exercise of judicial power by giving legal protection to an intrinsic evil, this time by striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in the case of U.S. v. Windsor and in refusing to take up the defense of Proposition 8 in California in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry.
"These hollow decisions of absolutely devoid of moral authority," Bishop Paprocki said. "It is becoming increasingly and abundantly clear that what secular law now calls 'marriage' has no semblance to the sacred institution of holy matrimony. People of faith are called to reject the redefinition of marriage and bear witness to the truth of holy matrimony as a lasting, loving and live-giving union between one man and one woman."
Carlos Tejeda, director of the diocesan Office for Marriage and Family Life, said the nature of marriage "remains unchanged" in the wake of the June 26 Supreme Court rulings regarding DOMA and Proposition 8. "The citizens of the state of Illinois still have the responsibility to properly inform their consciences and then to make known the truth of marriage to those around them, including their legislators.
"Everyone who is married also has the responsibility to live out the truth of natural or sacramental marriage in their own life," Tejeda said. "We have arrived at a point in our society where marriage exclusively between one man and one woman, for a lifetime, open to the procreation and education of children is no longer considered an intrinsic good for society.
"Our arrival here has been preceded by wide-spread acceptance of no-fault divorce, contraception/sterilization/abortion, pornography/lust/un-chastity, adultery and people living together without marriage," he said.
Tejeda said that it is "imperative" that Catholics, and all people of good will, take action, saying those individuals need to "eradicate all sin and hypocrisy in their own life with humble and contrite hearts by returning to the source of goodness — Jesus Christ, who has triumphed over sin and death and wants us to be conformed to him so that we, too, can be in the presence of our Heavenly Father for all eternity."
Referring to Matthew 5: 13-16, Tejeda concluded: "Until the Gospel is being lived out in the lives of professed Christians, the world will be dark, unpreserved and unsavory."