Monday, October 13, 2014

When They Stop Opposing Us Then I’ll Believe

The Pope is preaching tolerance but it hasn't seemed to filter on down yet.
Vatican Document: Gays Have 'Gifts and Qualities to Offer' Church
NBC News
October 13, 2014

In a dramatic shift in tone, a Vatican document said Monday that homosexuals had "gifts and qualities to offer" and asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognize positive aspects of same-sex couples. Roman Catholic gay rights groups around the world hailed the paper as a breakthrough, but Church conservatives called it a betrayal of traditional family values.
[…]
"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," said the document, known by its Latin name "relatio".
In September the National Catholic Reporter wrote,
As equal marriage rights continue to expand, more Catholic institutions will confront the issue of employees in civil same-sex marriages and this will likely result in more firings, unless some accommodation is reached.

Five dioceses have revised teacher contracts explicitly banning employees from supporting same-sex relationships in both their professional and their personal lives. Officials in Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Honolulu; and Oakland, Calif., have added these "morality clauses," causing many educators to either resign in protest or refuse to renew their contracts for the coming school year. It is often heterosexual employees unwilling to end their open support for LGBT family and friends who are most affected by these contracts.
When this stops then  I will believe then I will believe that the church is turning over a new leaf.

Update 10/18/14 3:30PM
It seems like the Vatican is backpedaling already,
A final statement agreed to on Saturday by a summit of Catholic Church leaders to discuss teachings on family retreated from groundbreaking language on “welcoming homosexual persons” included in an interim draft released on Monday.
[...]
The final statement — formally known as the Relatio of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family — drops the title “Welcoming homosexual persons” from the section on the place of gays and lesbians in the church. Weaker language that spoke of “The pastoral care of people with homosexual orientation” was proposed instead, and a phrase referring to “Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community” was also dropped. But even this new language failed to receive a vote needed to be adopted, the Associated Press reported, failing on a vote of 118 to 62.

1 comment:

  1. Now you know why I joined an Episcopal church even though I was brought up a Roman Catholic.

    ReplyDelete