Vatican document challenges church’s status quo on gay people
Image: Image: Wikimedia Commons
A DOCUMENT released by The Vatican on Monday states that the church should find “a fraternal space” for homosexuals and that they had “gifts and qualities to offer”.
The document also asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognise positive aspects of same-sex couples, without compromising its doctrine on family and matrimony.
According to Reuters, the document was prepared after a week of discussions at an assembly of 200 bishops on the family.
“Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home,” the document read.
“Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners.
“Are our communities capable of proving that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?”
While global Catholic gay rights groups have welcomed the paper as a breakthrough, the church’s conservative members said it was a betrayal of “traditional” family values.
According to CNN, the backlash from the latter was such that The Vatican reportedly backtracked, saying that while it sought to welcome people who identify as same-sex attracted in the church, there was no intention to create a “positive evaluation” of their relationships.
The language of the document did not explicitly show any change in The Vatican’s condemnation of homosexual acts or same-sex marriage, but it was less judgmental and more compassionate than what was seen in statements prior to Pope Francis’ 2013 election as the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
In March, Pope Francis suggested same-sex unions had some validity in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
‘‘Secular states want to justify civil unions to regulate different situations of cohabitation, pushed by the demand to regulate economic aspects between persons, such as ensuring health care,’’ he said.
‘‘One needs to see the different cases and evaluate them in their variety.’’
The Pope’s comments were interpreted as a significant shift in Vatican doctrine.
He also said in 2013 that the church must be more compassionate with homosexuals: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge.”
H/T Reuters
You May Also Like
The Catholic Church has an epic history of hate and persecution of same-sex attracted people, and Pope Francis has done nothing to address this ugly evil. The church has committed crimes against humanity, and in parts of the world it lobbies to lock GLBTI people up in jail, or funds campaigns to stop equal civil rights in countries like Australia.
The church has made itself irrelevant to most people, Pope Francis has done little to change that.
There is a delicate diplomacy that comes with the changes being lead by Pope Francis. As a Bishop Francis had to tow the party line but as Pope he is able to make real change to Catholic “policy” and ultimately Doctrine that will change the church forever and that is entirely what he is attempting to do. Francis has not slept one night in the papal apartments choosing instead to stay in a modest room along side priests monks and nuns.
His idea to find space within the church for LGBTI people to be including and have a space in the church is a first step, a small step but a significant one. He is rightly seeking to change attitudes but has placate the conservative aspects as well. I can see there being massive changes a few years down the line particularly if he manages to make more of his liberal Jesuit colleagues Cardinals before he dies and the next Pope is elected.
I love that term Doug to describe churches – paedophile factory!
What do pokies, politicians and religious nut cases all have in common?
They are all full of spin!
Spin doctoring. Evil pedophile factory. The end.
Not applicable
Yeah yeah… Whatever. ..
Says it all.
The news out of the Vatican today is, for the Catholic Church, a tectonic shift. The Bishops at the Synod of the Family have released a document that inter alia speaks to the LGBT question. While the Church does not change doctrine on the issue or the language of the official documents (particularly odious), it now takes on a more pastoral tone and acknowledges that gay sexuality can be ‘accepted’ and ‘welcomed’ and ‘valued’ no less and that gay people have “gifts and talents to offer the Christian community.” It also changes the language around gay relationships, “there are examples of good gay relationships in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of partners.” Precious is a very strong and loaded word; wherein lies the seismic shift from the older official documents which talk about gays being “intrinsically disordered” and “inclined to moral evil.”
I have stated in another place, the Beinig Being Gay, Being Christian Blog, that Pope Francis would not be able to change everything overnight but that there was enough change in his approach to hope that the Church will eventually shift its out-dated and harmful position about LGBT people. He certainly told the world in no uncertain terms that he was not into judgmentalism about gay people. We still have a long way to go, but this is a very welcome development and is suggestive that this Pope does in fact want to change things and that he wants to do so more rapidly than the usual snail-paced velocity of the Catholic Church that has been accepted as being the norm.
PS: I think it is unlikely that the language of the official documents will be changed while Pope Emeritus Benedict is still alive, given that he wrote them. If they are to change, my guess is that they will wait until he leaves the building. If the forces of conservatism in the Catholic Church, and they are certainly there, are not given too much space to peddle their retrograde ways, then this ia positive step for gay Catholics, Catholics in general and for Christianity itself even more generally.
we’re all born sinners.
All sins are equal.
All Sin is forgiven.
So if we’re all born sinners then who is anyone to say people cannot be born gay straight or trans ……. but all sins are equal so no one is better/worse than anyone else in gods eyes …. as of course all our sins are forgiven anyway.
no change, using softer words yet telling us we are stil sinners, the church is as backward as it always has been
the takeaway phrase
Nor is it acceptable that pressure be brought to bear on pastors or that international bodies make financial aid dependent on the introduction of regulations inspired by gender ideology.