Posted on 12/19/2004 11:12:34 AM PST by NYer
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul (news - web sites) on Saturday condemned same sex marriage as an attack on the fabric of society and called on Catholics to combat what he said was aggressive attempt to legally undermine the family. "Attacks on marriage and the family, from an ideological and legal aspect, are becoming stronger and more radical every day," the 84-year old pontiff said in the unusually strong statement.
"Who destroys this fundamental fabric causes a profound injury to society and provokes often irreparable damage."
The Catholic Church teaches that marriage between a man and a women is sacred and that homosexuality is a sin.
That stance has been under pressure in some of its core constituencies, including the United States and Catholic Spain where the socialist government in October approved a controversial draft law to legalize gay unions.
But a counterattack has begun. In the United States, President Bush (news - web sites) was swept back to power in the November elections with help from U.S. evangelicals and Catholics who agree with the Pope.
Votes for Bush included solid support from the religious right and his win was interpreted by some as a victory for conservative Christians on issues like gay rights and abortion.
The Polish Pope on Saturday also condemned abortion, artificial procreation and equal status for cohabiting couples as undermining the marital state.
"These things that are presented as civilized progress or scientific conquests, in many cases are in fact a defeat for the dignity of human life and for society," his statement read.
I agree. If those who believe in God and the same moral absolutes that are essential to human civilization would quit criticizing each other, and start fighting the atttempt of atheists, moral relativists, secularists, abortion and homosexuality promoters to destroy humanity, we'd do ourselves and the world some good.
But, to say he "kisses the Koran" is wrong. It's not something he makes a practice of.
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Thanks for the update to my uncertain knowledge base !!!
Common sense has finally made it's way to religious conviction!
Thank you Dubya for without your common sense leadership this never would have happened.
Agreed.
Are you suggesting that the pope is following Bush's lead?
(This is from your link as well)
As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case. ““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. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. 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. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.”
-- The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, March 28, 2003
No, I'm suggesting that the Pope is seeing the power wielded by Dubya with his common sense approach with the public and is following up without concern because of it.
Here's hoping the Bishops in Ct got the email.
What?
Is this true?
We've been over this many times on FR. The pope was not blessing the teachings but the true spiritual aspirations of the Koran's followers.
How many converts do you think he would make by denouncing the spiritual symbols of Islam directly? None. Perhaps he felt it better to remain pious while demonstrating the tolerance and love that Christianity has been known for spreading in the world.
>> How many converts do you think he would make by denouncing the spiritual symbols of Islam directly? None. Perhaps he felt it better to remain pious while demonstrating the tolerance and love that Christianity has been known for spreading in the world<<
Wow! You are Catholic!! You can rationalize with the best of them!
JPII was reaching out but kissing the Quran was a terrible mistake as was allowing barebreasted woman in a native mass. He is human, this was not Dogma. I would rather think that he is now sorry than to think that all of this was planned.
Maybe if he gave as much attention to the Christians that are being persecuted in those non-Christian countries, he would be more of the spiritual leader we Catholics want him to be.
Is that a fabricated story?
By kissing a book that promotes the death of anyone who does not adhere to its teachings? That sounds like the circle logic made famous by the United Nations.
Actually, the Koran says nothing about "female circumcision," and many Muslims don't practice it. It seems to be mainly a Somalian, Egyptian, and Sudanese thing.
For you to feign offense at the word "damned," with your blue vocabulary, is laughable.
I want you each to remember how much pope John Paul II has done for freedom in the world. Ask a Pole if he knows how to fight oppression. Let the Pope fight for the west in his own way. He has a proven track record. Some of what he does may be difficult to understand, but he had his critics at the peak of the cold war, as well.
Who is fighting the biggest threat to western civilization today, namely our institution of marriage and the traditional family? He is. I give him my full support.
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