19 October 2006

Pope urges opposition to 'deviant love'.

At a national convention of the Catholic church today, Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics to oppose moves towards leagalising 'weak and deviant' unions.

He urged them to fight "with determination ... the risk of political and legislative decisions that contradict fundamental values and ethical principles rooted in human nature"

The Pope said they had to defend "the family based on matrimony, opposing the introduction of laws on other forms of unions which would only destabilise it and obscure its special character and its social role, which has no substitute".

In another section of his speech, the Pope stated that the Church had to say "'no' to weak and deviant forms of love".

He said the Church wanted instead to say "'yes' to authentic love, to the reality of man as he was created by God".

In his address to the Catholic convention, the Pope was also applauded when he said the Church had to continue to defend "life in all its phases, from conception until natural death".

He said the Church did not want to be "a political agent" but wanted to help shape social policy.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Weak and deviant unions? Is this guy refering to gay marriage?

The Catholic Church never fail to amaze me. They spend so much time worrying about 'trivial' matters such as two consenting adults coming together in union but never mention their own in house problems. Did you know that the Catholic Church doesn't have any policies in place to protect the children within the organisation... just a policy to minimise damage to the organisation.

It's issues like this that need his attention and that he should be making speechs about... but will he? I wont be holding my breath

Jay said...

I presume by 'this guy' you mean the Pope?

If you are of any doubt on the Catholic church's view on gay marriage, take a look here:

http://www.catholic.com/library/gay_marriage.asp

As for it being a trivial matter, you may take this point of view, but I do not agree. It is not trivial, at all.

Anonymous said...

So the Pope's got a view on gay marriage. Big deal, some of us agree with his view, others don't.

I'm Orthodox and my church abhors (their word) homosexuality. My responce to that is: big deal.

It doesn't really matter what the Pope's view on the matter is, at the end of the day. His business is religion, not politics so it's up to the elected heads of democratic states to decide whether or not they plan to allow gay marriage or not. Whether the Pope (or the head of any other religious organization) is for or against it is not going to make that much of a difference. In fact until I read this blog post, I was unaware the Pope had been making speeches on the issue.

I do agree with the first poster that the Catholic Church should be focusing more of their time and effort on more pressing matters. The issue of child abuse within the organization being a main one.

Anonymous, I don't know if you recieve the channel BBC World where you are but they are showing a documentary this week about the Catholic Church and how it's policies seem to protect the establishment rather than the vunerable. If you're interested (and you can get the channel), post a reply and I'll post when it's showing.

Jay said...

If you are referring to the BBC Panarama program, I've seen it. Usual standard of BBC reporting, making the 'evidence' fit their agenda.

Anonymous said...

Well to be fair Jay, you can't deny that abuse happens within the Catholic Church. It's not something the BBC have invented.

I agree with the top poster that it's this kind of issue that needs focusing on right now.

But then it's already been proven that they protect their own and turn against the victim.

It's this that needs to change.

Jay said...

You see, the problem is, every time the Catholic church makes a statement that people don't like, automatically this is the response we get. "What about those kiddy fiddler priests?" Those priests are not representative of God's Church. Don't focus on the small percentage who do harm in our name, focus on the majority who look to do only good.

Yes the Catholic Church could have handled the situation better. It handles it better today than it did before. It's shocking that people will look to the Catholic Church to act out their evil. But it's just another way to try to undermine the Word of God.

Paedophile priests are not representative of Catholicism. Don't be fooled by the media in believing otherwise.