Posted on 01/26/2016 1:43:43 PM PST by ebb tide
As the Italian parliament prepares to vote on whether to legalize "civil unions" for "couples" who engage in sodomy, Pope Francis has told the judges of the Roman Rota (the Vatican's matrimonial tribunal) that "there can be no confusion between the family God wants and any other type of union. ... The family, founded on indissoluble matrimony that unites and allows procreation, is part of the 'dream' of God and that of his Church for the salvation of humanity."
That sounds fine, putting aside the peculiar notion that God has a "dream" about "the family that God wants" as opposed to a divine order His law demands that man follow under pain of eternal damnation. (It seems Francis can hardly utter a sentence that does not contain some element of theological dubiety.)
But, not so fast, not so fast. Even as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis had a reputation for appearing to be on both sides of every issue, telling each side what it wanted to hear. As Father Linus Clovis has candidly observed (quoting an acquaintance of Cardinal Bergoglio's from Argentina): "Apparently, he loves to be loved by all and please everyone, so one day he could make a speech on TV against abortion, and the next day, on the same television show, bless the pro-abortion feminists in the Plaza de Mayo; He can give a wonderful speech against the Masons and, a few hours later, be dining and drinking with them in the Rotary Club."
Recall in this connection the disgraceful "midterm report" of Synod 2014, personally approved by Francis, which declared that despite the "moral problems" with "homosexual unions" they provide "a precious support in the life of the partners." Recall as well his telling statement to Corriere della Sera that while "Marriage is between a man and a woman," secular governments "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.... One needs to see the different cases and evaluate them in their variety." Then there was the "hugs and kisses" private meeting Francis had with a "gay couple": a caterer and his "partner" of 19 years, whose encounter with Francis the Pope was personally arranged by cell phone.
In stark contrast to Francis, the bishops of Italy, following Church teaching, have unequivocally declared their opposition to any form of "civil union" for sodomites. They massively mobilized the faithful to oppose the Italian "civil union" bill at the recent Family Day demonstration -- concerning which Francis uttered not a word of support even though it was one of the largest demonstrations in Italian history, as Antonio Socci notes, filling both the plaza outside Saint John Lateran basilica and the Circus Maximus with more than a million people.
As the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) admonished under John Paul II: "In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty." And where such "civil unions" have not been legalized: "One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application."
The CDF further observed that "Laws in favour of homosexual unions"Â -- i.e., any such laws, whether or not they authorize "marriage" as such -- "are contrary to right reason because they confer legal guarantees, analogous to those granted to marriage, to unions between persons of the same sex. Given the values at stake in this question, the State could not grant legal standing to such unions without failing in its duty to promote and defend marriage as an institution essential to the common good." And that is true no matter what label is applied to the resulting "homosexual union."
In short, while Francis has said no to "gay marriage" when it is called "marriage," he has not said no to "civil unions" providing the same benefits as marriage in everything but name. On the contrary, he has consistently implied yes, going so far as to describe such "unions" as providing "precious support in the life of the partners" in the very document he approved as a "report" of Synod 2014 although the Synod Fathers never even saw it before Francis ordered it published to the world.
As Sandro Magister has put it: "When It Comes To Gay Unions, Bergoglio Doesn't Say No." But when a Pope does not say no to a threat to the moral order that has moved the bishops and laity of Italy literally to shout no, has he not effectively said yes? In the circumstances now prevailing in Italy, merely to declare opposition to "gay marriage" in remarks to the Rota -- as opposed to what Francis tellingly describes as "other forms" of union, as if there could be other forms -- is to duck the real issue. And the real issue is "civil unions" that provide the benefits of marriage, including adoption of children and rights of inheritance.
Thus, the real test of where Francis stands would be a forthright declaration, in union with the bishops and laity of Italy, against any form of "civil union" between homosexuals whether or not it is denominated "marriage." But from Francis, I fear, we can expect only a calculated silence as Italy takes a final step toward the destruction of the moral order in what was once the heart of the Roman Catholic Church. After all, if Francis observed a politically correct silence while Ireland and America succumbed to "gay marriage" explicitly legalized as "marriage" -- which one "gay activist" was pleased to note -- he can hardly be expected to voice any objection to "civil unions" for homosexuals in Italy, which provide the same thing under a different name.
Here we must recall once again Sister Lucia's warning to Cardinal Caffarra that "the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family." Given the inclinations of the current "general" of the Church Militant, it will be a long and brutal battle indeed.
I will be happy to be proven wrong if and when Francis, leading the Italian bishops, speaks out clearly against the impending legislative horror in Italy.
Ping
Sorry, Forty-seven, the ping was meant for Fourtyseven.
Spell checker got the better of me.
Frankly, the “civil unions” thing would be the least harmful. It has no religious implications and is just the state doing its thing about taxes, inheritances, etc. It’s a bureaucratic procedure that is meaningless except from a bureaucratic perspective.
The real problem is when they start calling it “marriage,” which enables them to trespass on religious territory.
The original suggestions for civil unions, btw, were simply households - that means it could be an elderly parent and an unmarried adult child, adult siblings living together, unmarried friends living together, etc. It didn’t have to be a gay couple, and there were advantages in this arrangement for the other non-gay people because it gave them tax breaks and certain automatic rights. The problem is that the gays took it over and made it some kind of sexual identity thing, but it shouldn’t be.
No; the least harmful thing would be to not legalize any type of homo unions.
Thank you for the link to Bergoglio’s long history of not opposing queer civil unions. I found the quote quite interesting:
“The reigning Pontiff in 2010 was Benedict XVI, who unceasingly repeated (for instance, in 2006): “[I]t is a serious error to obscure the value and roles of the legitimate family founded on marriage by attributing legal recognition to other improper forms of union for which there is really no effective social need.” In 2005 he had said: “Today, the various forms of the erosion of marriage, such as free unions and ‘trial marriage’, and even pseudo-marriages between people of the same sex, are instead an expression of anarchic freedom that are wrongly made to pass as true human liberation. This pseudo-freedom is based on a trivialization of the body, which inevitably entails the trivialization of the person. Its premise is that the human being can do to himself or herself whatever he or she likes: thus, the body becomes a secondary thing that can be manipulated, from the human point of view, and used as one likes. Licentiousness, which passes for the discovery of the body and its value, is actually a dualism that makes the body despicable, placing it, so to speak, outside the person’s authentic being and dignity.”
From the very source you cited: “Pope Francis supports the traditional family i.e. marriage between a man and a woman ... [he] does not hold a different idea of the family and repeated this with insistence during the tumultuous Synod of last October, but he is still convinced that bishops are called to the role of shepherds, not senators or auxiliary members of Parliament.”
You fail in your attempt to prove Francis doesn’t support traditional marriage.
Don’t you even know the difference between marriage and civil unions?
You’re reading comprehension skills fail miserably.
No, your reading skills are a failure. Read my post 9 again. It couldn’t be more clear.
Did you read the title? Did your read the article?
If so, you have no reading comprehension. What part of civil unions do you not understand?
Ok sorry I should have been more clear I guess: the source you posted (namely the quote from it that I posted) in post 3 on this thread proves that Francis supports traditional marriage, and that hasn’t changed.
Who cares about “civil unions”? Is a “civil union” a “marriage” in the eyes of the Church? If I go down to city hall and get a civil union with some gal, does the Church recognize that as a “marriage”?
The answer to that is “no”.
I know very well that Francis supported (in Artentina) “civil unions”, for, as he said, the purposes of financial aid and assistance. Apparently it’s even more financially beneficial there than here to be in some kind of legal Union.
I’m also aware that Benedict the XVIth (among others) have written that not all civil unions are morally permissible (namely same sex unions of course).
What does all this mean? A big fat nothing that’s what it means. “Civil unions” are not “marriages” so Catholics of good conscience can disagree on this (as apparently Francis and Benedict do; among others) and it doesn’t prove anyone is close to being a “heretic” any more than the disagreements in the early Chuch about the Eucharist or the divinity of Christ prove anyone involved THEN was a “heretic”. Why? Because as anyone who knows Catholicism knows, until and unless a dogma is defined, debate about an issue is permitted.
So show me where the dogma of “civil unions between two people of the same sex is forbidden” exists. Show me that dogma or stop. Just stop.
Wait, so you're claiming that civil unions of the same sex ..specifically two homosexuals...is not forbidden in Catholic theology?
I care, God cares and every good Catholic should care. Why do you think God destroyed Sodom?
These current "laws" are not about non-sexual civil unions, such as a widow and her only son or two spinster sisters.
Technically speaking no it’s not, if you’re talking about two people entering into a “union” for the purposes of financial assistance. That is, if they are doing it to help the other (or each other) basically live, and if without such a union they would literally not be able to live. Obviously homosexual relations are forbidden whether in or outside a legally recognized “union”. It’s the homosexual act that is wrong not the union itself.
Of course such unions are perverted (as marriage is being perverted these days) by two men or two women who are homosexual and are engaging in homosexual sex. But it’s the sexual perversion that’s a sin not the union itself. It’s a sad sorry state that such legal remedies, for poor people, is and has been subjugated and abrogated by the homosexual community to forward their perverted desires. The unions themselves are a great help to poor people in countries like Argentina which is why Francis supported them when he was archbishop there.
He didn’t support them because he has some secret wish to support gay “marriage”. The proof of this is in the many times he’s spoken on the topic and condemned it (gay “marriage”) calling it, among other things “Satanic”. One can’t square such quotes with some secret desire to actually SUPPORT gay “marriage” (or even gay sex) unless one wishes to believe Francis is completely insane or evil. Or both.
Believe what you want. I prefer to believe in reasonable conclusions.
When someone condemns gay marriage it does not follow that one condemns gay civil unions. Has Francis ever condemned gay civil unions?
Do you have support that Francis was supporting only non-gay civil unions?
Do you even know what a dogma is? Can you name any of them?
Is there a dogma that one can’t be stupid?
And, “No”, Francis has never disagreed with legalizing civil unions. Look at the latest debacle when Ireland, by popular vote, legalized gay marriage/unions without a peep from Bergoglio, before or after the vote.
On the other hand, regarding global warming and socialism: Francis is at the forefront before the U.S. Congress and the U.N.
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