In Mid-90s, Pope Connected Marriage Crisis with Homosexuality

EWTN ^ | 5/19/12

[marshmallow]

A newly republished 1995 commentary of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger linked the breakdown of marriage to the rise of the acceptance of homosexuality, warning of the rise of “pressure groups” that could manipulate public opinion on such issues.

The future Pope Benedict XVI said it is not a coincidence that the growing social acceptance of homosexuality should be “accompanied by a serious crisis in the area of marriage and the family.”

Societal changes in the wake of the 1960s “sexual revolution” resulted in sexuality being more detached from marriage, and rejection of Catholic teaching on homosexuality made the pastoral care for homosexual persons “more difficult.”

“The satisfaction of the sexual impulse was propagandized as the way to happiness and to the true development of the personality,” he wrote. “Values like self-control and chastity were accepted less and less.”

The Pope’s comments came years before the Netherlands became the first country to recognize “gay marriage.”

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to voice support for recognizing “gay marriage,” while voters in North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s commentary concerned his Oct. 1, 1986 letter from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith sent to all Catholic bishops under the title “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.” Both the letter and the commentary have been published in a new edition in the Vatican Library series “Documenti e studi.” Previous editions have sold out and are unavailable in stores.

[gunnyg]

and long b4 the 90s Jimmy Swaggart and others were forecasting the events of today...but few, if any, took heed—instead swaggart and others were promptly ridiculed in the then little known alinsky tradition...

[Catholic Iowan]

While this is all true, the Church’s silence and capitulation on “no-fault” divorce hasn’t helped any. Then, to compound the Church’s culpability, at least in the U.S. and most of the Church in the West, it requires civil divorce (i.e., “no-fault” divorce) before the tribunals will accept a petition for nullity (annulment), thus further undermining marriage. Especially, when it is a near certainty that the annulment will be granted (over 90%).

[narses]

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[xzins]

I have a very high regard for Catholic foresight in areas of marriage, family, fertility, and life.

[AustinBill]

Absolutely correct. The acceptance of no-fault divorce laws was the first stumble. But where the Church really fell is when it allowed the blanket rejection of Humanae Vitae by large segments of the laity (and clergy) to stand uncorrected. Rather than risk "downsizing" the church by inviting those who rejected Catholic teaching to be consistent and leave the Church altogether, instead they "compromised" and kept silent and so allowed the moral rot to seep from the secular culture through the pews and into the sanctuary itself.

The result is the enfeebled moral authority the Church has today.