A leading Vatican cardinal said on Thursday the Roman Catholic Church will never bless gay marriage, wading into a controversy over the issue in Italy and other countries.
On Tuesday, Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano ordered mayors to stop recognizing the validity of gay marriages performed outside the country, prompting protests from rights groups and local officials.“We have to be honest,” Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, the Vatican’s highest ranking expert on Church law, said on Thursday when asked if he could foresee the Church ever granting “some sort of blessing” for gay couples.
“For us, and not just for us but for human culture in general, marriage is between a man and a woman,” he told a briefing on a synod, or assembly, of some 200 Roman Catholic bishops discussing family matters.
The cardinal said the Church did not judge homosexual couples, regarding them as people of good faith.
“But to bless this type of union … to say that they are like (heterosexual) marriages, never. This is simply for reasons of logic and identity. To bless them is not part of the way we see Christian doctrine,” he said.
Pope Francis has said the Church must be more compassionate with homosexuals, saying last year: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge.”
But he also reaffirmed Church teaching that while gays should be treated with respect and homosexual tendencies are not sinful, homosexual acts are.
23 comments:
What are the approved Catholic ministries that people struggling with homosexual tendencies in the Church can safely turn to for help?
The Catholic ministry "Courage" is the best and very orthodox and faithful but in a realistic, compassionate way and has been around for decades. There are Catholics of all kinds of sexual attractions who hate the Church or God or Natural Law or Scripture or Tradition and worse yet the Magisterium telling them that their sexual habits and actions are morally wrong and mortally sinful. They don't believe that--so it really is a crisis of faith.
Then there are Catholics who accept the Church's teaching on Chastity and are quite content to embrace the fullness of truth about themselves and all that God has revealed through the Catholic Church. They may fall, they may have habitual sins and they may stray, but they love the Church and love the truth and use Confession frequently. That is a big difference and unfortunately the latter don't get the press as the former do!
http://couragerc.org/
http://www.instituteofcatholicculture.org/st-john-paul-iis-familiaris-consortio-the-family-under-attack/
Bishop Morlino has a fairly comprehensive speech on why Cardinal Kasper's idea is simply impossible.
It's not clear to me how two men can be both "a couple" and also "people of faith". I don't deny the possibility, but I don't see it at this time. It seems to me that the only way they can deny that the male seed is intended to meet the female egg (rather than another male's bowels) is to deny the very existence of the Creator who gives the seeds and eggs their purposes.
As for chaste men and women who suffer from homosexuality, the Church should certainly offer them the Gospel truth and sacramental grace. In what way are we not doing this now?
"What are the approved Catholic ministries that people struggling with homosexual tendencies in the Church can safely turn to for help?"
Without in the least trying to be flippant, the answer is this: the Confessional.
Aged parent, yes. Of course the confessional helps. But a young man or woman struggling with same sex attraction is bombarded with nothing but temptation to give in and 'come out'... they tend to experience crushing loneliness and thus if there was some sort of safe community to belong to, a positive peer group like AA to help I think we could really reach out with effective therapy.
Both same sex attraction and alcoholism is a brain disease and both affect the emotions. While distinct, both involve a heightened sensitivity to pain (especially emotional pain) and a heightened desire to escape pain by either alcohol or sex.
Both run the risk of total enslavement to their vice which they come to see as vital to continued life (like a drowning man will hold onto anything that floats).
This is why AA groups help people be sober - it short circuits the disease pathways and the powerful self justifications that go with it.
Both alcoholism and homosexuality are per se 'disorders' and not sinful. Both are only sins when the individuals give in to their temptations. But it's not enough to just go to confession. Both need support groups.
Irony that a majority-Catholic US Supreme Court is undermining our moral fiber by forcing gay marriage on the states. Certainly this is causing an uproar in one of our most Bible-Belt states, South Carolina.
Anonymous:
Support groups would be helpful sure. One must understand and accept that whether it is drug abuse, drinking to excess, viewing pornography, or an inclination to homosexual acts (or any sexual act outside of marriage) one MUST avoid occasions of sin. One must also avail oneself of frequent confession, prayer (including asking others for intercessory prayer)and fasting. Practicing abstinence from things that are licit and good (certain favorite foods for instance) is something one should do also. Ask God the Blessed Virgin and the saints for help. You must have the mindset and willful determination that you will (with Divine help) overcome sinful behavior.
Once again, part of the tragedy of this whole mess is that the clergy used to be on the same page on important moral issues. Not anymore. Courage is a good ministry, but we have clergy undermining it by offering Masses for "Dignity", another homosexual "Catholic" group that essentially wants us to fold on all our beliefs to accommodate their drives.
I once asked a priest (a Jesuit) who was involved with Dignity what he thought about Courage. His answer: "This love the sinner but hate the sin stuff is B.S." (he didn't abbreviate like I just did). I keep coming back to the fact that he was a Jesuit. Hmmm...
Homosexuality is NOT a disease. The trait for males is INHERITED. Am I right Fr. McDonald?.. There is homosexuality in my family, on my mother's side as it is passed through the mother. It is usually the second, third, fourth son. Right Fr. M? It is NOT a choice.
All of you who think homosexuality is a disease or are a choice are a bunch of homophobes. Am I right Fr. M?. Homosexuals are as normal as heterosexuals and probably smarter and more attractive than most of you homophobes. My second son is homosexual. Brilliant in his field of Forensic Psychiatry, he is physically fit, does not drink or smoke and would make all of you homophobes ashamed of your lack of intelligence and your flabby bodies.
I am sick and tired of the righteous "Christians" and their HATRED of homosexuals. It is inherited. My guess that homosexuality is one of God's many plans to test "Christians" to see how THEY react and treat those who do not fit THEIR description of what GOD wanted. By HATING homosexuals, you are hatiing ANOTHER of God's chosen people.
Is the Supreme Court "forcing" gay marriage on the states, or is the Constitution, which demands equal legal treatment for all citizens, the culprit?
If any of us says that we don't know homosexuals that are friends, family and that we care for them in one degree or another, is a liar.
The Church does need better language to name sin, sin. And the best name is sin and Pope Francis leads the way in saying we are all sinners.
The Church is required by divine law, that is, God Himself, to call all the baptized to chastity. For the married couple that means fidelity. For the single person that means sexual continence.
Since we are all sinners, and some greater sinners than others, we need the Sacrament of Penance to remind us to repent, be sorry and make a firm purpose of amendment. We need to go to Confession regularly.
Institutionalizing one's sin is a grave matter especially when it is done for public purposes. We cannot be afraid to say this truth or be intimidated by secular reasoning that is anti-Christ.
Contextualizing the sinner as a sinner implies that each of us is "disordered" in the sense that we are not the way God created us.
All of us inherit Original Sin and sin in actuality after we reach the age of reason.
Just because there might be a "homosexual" gene or that we are conceived with this orientation doesn't mean it isn't a part of the fallenness of mankind inhereited from Adam and Eve. Let's be clear on that.
Natural law must be taken into account when judging sexual acts. So does Scripture, tradition and what the Magisterium has handed on to us from the earliest times of the Church and what we have in continuity with Judaism.
So anonymous above sets up a straw man about being born a certain way. All of us are born with disorders that are in our genes from conception! Let's not deny that!
I miswrote what I intended about all of us because of Original sin are not conceived perfect as God had intended us to be.
If one is born with a homosexual gene (and this isn't quite proven true by science yet, but it doesn't matter if it is or isn't true) the fact that one has same sex attractions is not a sin. It is disregarding God's law on chastity that is the sin.
There is considerable evidence that homosexuality is neither a disease nor inherited (through there may be a genetic predisposition in some), but a disordered life style choice. There is a large number of "homosexuals" that have rejected the life style and become heterosexual, marrying and having children. Whatever the case, we need to stop apologizing for the disorder and for relegating it to the category "abnormal." How we deal with it socially and in the Church is another issue. I do not prefer the company of homosexuals, I find the lifestyle repugnant, and I resent their aggressive demands that we cater to them and pretend they are normal.
In my priesthood I am known of married couples where one or the other has a same sex attraction, may have lived that kind of a lifestyle and repented from it. The other spouse knows of this and helps the other spouse to be faithful. It is possible to renounce same sex sex but only by the grace of God and the support of those who love this person. This is true love when one is supported to move away from a mortally sinful lifestyle. This is the mission of the Church.
The medical profession teaches us that there are many disorders for which sufferers are genetically predisposed. I don't think anyone here has said anything about homosexual temptation being a "choice". Temptations are not choices, but acting against or upon a temptation is a choice.
Just remember: the seed is meant for the egg.
BTW, I have a close family member who suffers from Lupus. Just because someone has a close family member with a disorder does not mean we have to start calling the particular disorder a form of good health. Similarly, just because we call the disorder a form of bad health does not mean we disown the family member who suffers from it. Truth does not equal hatred, and denial does not equal acceptance.
There has been no Homosexual gene discovered. Believe me there are those who had been looking for one.
If one had been found,it would have been all over the media. The Human Genome project was declared complete in 2003. No "gay" gene was discovered.
As Gene wrote above:" There is considerable evidence that homosexuality is neither a disease nor inherited (through there may be a genetic predisposition in some), but a disordered life style choice. There is a large number of "homosexuals" that have rejected the life style and become heterosexual."
One must accept the truth in order to be helped, no matter how difficult that may be.
I have seen a person lose everything- a good home, a good job-over a drinking problem which developed over a period of time and got out of hand. I have see a person finally give up drinking after losing everything. I have heard and read about those who have lost their job over viewing pornography at work. Addiction can be a powerful force.The inclination to the sexual act can be powerful, married or not. More so to some than others. You must attend to these inclinations before they develop into difficult to overcome problems and become a continuum of serious sinful behavior. Do not be reluctant ask others for help and prayer. You must have a positive willful determination to overcome and persevere. You must practice discipline by giving up something which is licit and good even if for a short period of time. You must engage in prayer and fasting.
Everybody who has been "prayed straight" say "Oral Roberts"!
*TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!!*
... or is the Constitution, which demands equal legal treatment for all citizens...?
The fact I received a Selective Service card in the mail at 18 (well, a month before I turned 18), and my females peers did not, destroys any notion of so-called 'equal legal treatment'.
And, I ask you to note the Supreme Court's continuous upholding of this most grievous government-sponsored sexism.
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