Synod Co-President: Church has "always" wanted to respect "stable" homosexual unions
An article published yesterday on the largest Brazilian daily, Folha de São Paulo, lauds the "softer and tolerant rhetoric of Francis, especially regarding homosexuality." Singled out for praise is Raymundo Cardinal Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, President of the CNBB (Confêrencia Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil or National Conference of Bishops of Brazil ) who is described as "aligned to recent statements from the Vatican, which preaches a 'more respectful and less severe' attitude" to homosexual unions.
On the question of homosexual unions, legalized by the Brazilian Supreme Court in 2011, Cardinal Damasceno Assis is quoted as saying,
"It is a decision by the Supreme [Federal Court, the highest Constitutional Court in Brazil]. Of course, for the Church, it [homosexual union] cannot be equated to marriage, that is different. But, regarding respect for the stable union between these people, there is no doubt that the Church has always [sempre] been trying to do it this way", said Damasceno Assis
Raymundo Cardinal Damasceno Assis of Aparecida happens to be one of the three Presidents appointed by Francis for the upcoming Extraordinary Synod on the Family.
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VATICAN CITY, June 10, 2013 – " 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."
CIC Said Under no circumstances can they be approved.
Pope John Paul II Said:
24. It is at the heart of the moral conscience that the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, with all its various and deadly consequences for life, is taking place. It is a question, above all, of the individual conscience, as it stands before God in its singleness and uniqueness. 18 But it is also a question, in a certain sense, of the "moral conscience" of society: in a way it too is responsible, not only because it tolerates or fosters behaviour contrary to life, but also because it encourages the "culture of death", creating and consolidating actual "structures of sin" which go against life. The moral conscience, both individual and social, is today subjected, also as a result of the penetrating influence of the media, to an extremely serious and mortal danger: that of confusion between good and evil, precisely in relation to the fundamental right to life. A large part of contemporary society looks sadly like that humanity which Paul describes in his Letter to the Romans. It is composed "of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth" (1:18): having denied God and believing that they can build the earthly city without him, "they became futile in their thinking" so that "their senseless minds were darkened" (1:21); "claiming to be wise, they became fools" (1:22), carrying out works deserving of death, and "they not only do them but approve those who practise them" (1:32). When conscience, this bright lamp of the soul (cf. Mt 6:22-23), calls "evil good and good evil" (Is 5:20), it is already on the path to the most alarming corruption and the darkest moral blindness.
