Looks like there’s a papal nuncio who needs recalling to Rome. Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro, the nuncio to Spain, gave a speech to the country’s bishops in which he said that, while we shouldn’t call gay unions marriages, the state should grant them certain civil rights.
Excuse me, Your Eminence, but perhaps you need to re-read “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons”. The thing came out less than year ago and already he seems to have forgotten it. Here’s a quick reminder: “The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions…. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity.”
Archbishop Monteiro, call your office!
If two homosexuals should get certain civil rights, so should ANY two people who live together and care for each other over time (two close friends, a brother and a sister, a parent and child). One should not have to engage in sodomitic or other perverted sexual acts in order to receive such benefits. And the Vatican’s considerations are right. To predicate such benefits on deviant behavior defacto marks approval of such behavior and obscures sexual morality (and is especially damaging to children). Such benefits should have nothing whatsoever to do with homosex.
Sinner, the equivalent recognition of the union of a married man and woman to other pairs or groups apart from any consideration of sexual relationships undermines marriage as well. The concern is not exclusively sexual morality.
Sure, Patrick, I agree with you. I was just saying that if one is hell-bent on granting homosexual ‘rights’ then such rights should not be predicated on the commission of sexual acts, but rather on close relationships between any two people. But yes, it all serves to undermine the specialness and uniqueness of marriage. For me, the most atrocious thing about homosexual ‘marriage’ or equivalents, is that it harms children by 1) confusing them about the complementarity of man and woman; 2) confusing them with regard to what is normal and what is deviant sexually; 3) confusing them about the nature of the institution of marriage; 4) leading to homosexual adoption, which, as the Vatican rightfully points out, does violence to children. The whole thing is atrocious. Finally, it harms homosexuals themselves, by enabling sin and deviant and harmful sexual acts.
Apparently, the Cardinal did not say what was reported. See Amy Welborn’s “Open Book” for more info.
Signe
Not so fast, Signe. The email Amy received recounts what he told reporters. That story I linked to is about what the archbishop told the Spanish bishops. It also says he departed from his prepared remarks.
It wouldn’t be the first time a bishop said one thing to other bishops and another thing to reporters and the public.