Homosexuality and Roman Catholicism - Defense of Official Church Position

Defense of Official Church Position

Some bishops have obtained a reputation for a vocal defense of Church teaching regarding homosexuality. Notable examples include George Cardinal Pell and Francis Cardinal Arinze, who have insisted that the family as a unit is "mocked by homosexuality" and "sabotaged by irregular unions".

After Pope Benedict XVI was elected pope, the Congregation for Catholic Education issued an instruction prohibiting any individuals who "present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'" from joining the priesthood.

Some Catholics who oppose gay rights and the acceptance of gay people regard the church's teaching on the matter as definitive, infallible, and unchangeable as a magisterial dogma of the Church. In an official brief called Rescriptum ex audientia of May 19, 2008 made by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone the Cardinal Secretary of State reaffirmed the norms established by the Congregation for Catholic Education in the 2005 document entitled "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocation with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders," as being of universal value and without exceptions.

Read more about this topic:  Homosexuality And Roman Catholicism

Famous quotes containing the words defense of, defense, official, church and/or position:

    If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
    Malcolm X (1925–1965)

    I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
    Barry Goldwater (b. 1909)

    Our medieval historians who prefer to rely as much as possible on official documents because the chronicles are unreliable, fall thereby into an occasionally dangerous error. The documents tell us little about the difference in tone which separates us from those times; they let us forget the fervent pathos of medieval life.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    When the Revolutionaries ran short of gun wadding the Rev. James Caldwell ... broke open the church doors and seized an armful of Watts’ hymnbooks. The preacher threw them to the soldiers and shouted, “Give ‘em Watts, boys—give ‘em Watts!”
    —For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    From a purely external point of view there is no will; and to find will in any phenomenon requires a certain empathy; we observe a man’s actions and place ourselves partly but not wholly in his position; or we act, and place ourselves partly in the position of an outsider.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)