Posted on 02/05/2013 7:49:11 AM PST by fractionated
The Vatican's top official on family policy has opened slightly to the possibility of rights for gay civil unions, although he also stressed that marriage should remain between a man and a woman.
The remarks from Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, wee made at a Vatican press conference on Monday and were quoted in Italian press on Tuesday.
"Marriage is a clear legal dimension. There are then multiple other types of non-family cohabitation for which solutions should be found in terms of individual law and in my view also in terms of property law," Paglia said.
His comments were widely seen as a reference to gay couples.
"I think this is a terrain that politicians should begin to approach," said the archbishop, adding that legal rights for non-traditional families would "prevent injustice against the weakest".
"This seems an important path to pursue," he said.
The Italian prelate also spoke out against homophobia in the Middle East and Africa, saying that in countries where being gay is considered a crime "this should be fought against"....
(Excerpt) Read more at globalpost.com ...
He was talking about unspecified living together and "alternative" families, which could have meant gay if he'd said "gay," but he didn't. So it could be grandma-headed families, not uncomon across the six inhabited continents.
Read #39 and grant me that he didn't say anything new or radical. Agency France-Presse grabbed a pull-away quote and made it into an "issue." They do sell newspapers. Sheesh.
Okay, Mrs. D.
I will grant you there’s nothing radical or new.
For the record I’m a life-long Catholic. I represent the Church directly or indirectly in many ways, so I have no interest in seeing its destruction.
Neither do I want division between us. Especially in these times, we must have unity.
I assume you are aware that the Catholic Church opposes all artificial reproductive technologies. By which we do NOT mean legitimate therapies which restore the fertility of the conjugal couple. What we oppose is: reproductive technologies which substitute for gererative marital sexual union. IVF, artifical insemination, reproductive concubinage a.k.a. "surrogacy." We oppose them all. It is unfortunate that only the Catholic Church, as far as I know, takes this principled stand.
UNfortuntely, people do reproduce using non-sexual-union technologies. That means that kids are confected who have a blurred group of caring or uncaring adults whose relations are ambiguous in law: the genetic father, the legal father, the social role-model father, the gay co-father, the genetic mother, the gestational mother, the legal mother, the lactational and infant-bonding mother, the lesbian mother's ex-partner, the father's girlfriend who has a real emotional attachment, whatever. This could be a dozen different people.
This happenms because people do not follow the norms of Divine and Natural Law.
So consequently, when these self-serving adults' relationships hit the rocks, these lifestyle-accessory children can be left without their rights protected. (Just as they were conceived without their rights protected.) At some point, the law has to step into this mess and adjudicate to save what can be salvaged of the child's natural rights.
Who is responsible for providing for him, unles the law steps in?
From whom can he inherit?
Who can control his educational options? Who can, and cannot, sign for his medical treatment?
This is who Fr. Paglia is talking about when he refers to "the weakest" party in a non-traditional marriage. This is the person whose rights need special protection.
I suppose Mons. Paglia should say "They were conceived in a non-traditional family: they have no rights any adult is bound to respect"?? Would that be better?
How about the union of clergy and little boys?
Marriage law is not applicable there. It’s pretty much covered by criminal law.
For those actually paying attention to the Church’s position on the issue of gay marriage:
“Pope Benedict used his annual Christmas message to denounce gay marriage, saying that it destroyed the “essence of the human creature.”
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