Pope supports same-sex civil unions in ‘apocalyptically scandalous’ interview

LifeSite News ^ | September 17, 2021 | Michael Haynes

[MrChips]

You continue to insist on misconstruing my words and/or attributing beliefs to me to which I do not subscribe, all, I suppose, in a lame effort to be "right." Why so argumentative? I never said anything condoning sodomy, nor did I say the Church did. I did say that civil unions were a far cry from marriage, and perhaps "better" in the sense that they are secular, although I did not endorse either. All I said was that the Church pronounced long before this Pope (i.e. back in 1986, during the tenure of John Paul II) that people with homosexual inclinations (phrased as such by the Church to avoid labels) were the children of God, too, and must be treated as such, while at the same time condemning the act as a sin . . . but not the inclination. They advised Chastity,of course, and I suppose that has always been so.

[ebb tide]

You said civil homosexual unions, i.e. legalized sodomy, are not a theological problem. I disagree.

[ebb tide]

The Church long ago accepted homosexuality as a legitimate thing.

What do you mean by legitimate? Do you mean it's normal?

[MrChips]

Do all gay people engage in “sodomy” (anal sex)? No. Therefore, the terms are not equivalent. Besides, one is a legal construct; the other is a sexual act. Do heterosexual ever engage in anal sex? Yes, many.

[ebb tide]

Do all gay people engage in “sodomy” (anal sex)?

If they're in legalized civil unions, if they wear wedding rings and kiss in public, I would assume so. Abortion is a legal construcct. So is euthasia in some countries. Do you approve of them also, Mr. Chips?

Do heterosexual ever engage in anal sex? Yes, many.

First of all, how do you know? Secondly, sodomy is sin whether it's inside or outside of sacramental marriage.

[ebb tide]

The Church has already considered the question of same-sex unions in civil law, notably in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) 2003 document “Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons.”

At that time the CDF, headed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, reiterated that “homosexual acts go against the moral law,” instructing that “all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

In conclusion, the CDF stated that 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,” the document continued, “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.”

Benedict XVI blasts same-sex ‘marriage’ legislation as a ‘deformation of conscience’