Posted on 03/20/2013 7:13:04 AM PDT by bronxville
On Gay Unions, a Pragmatist Before He Was a Pope
By SIMON ROMERO and EMILY SCHMALL
Published: March 19, 2013
BUENOS AIRES — The very idea was anathema to many of the bishops in the room.
Argentina was on the verge of approving gay marriage, and the Roman Catholic Church was desperate to stop that from happening. It would lead tens of thousands of its followers in protest on the streets of Buenos Aires and publicly condemn the proposed law, a direct threat to church teaching, as the work of the devil.
But behind the scenes, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who led the public charge against the measure, spoke out in a heated meeting of bishops in 2010 and advocated a highly unorthodox solution: that the church in Argentina support the idea of civil unions for gay couples.
The concession inflamed the gathering — and offers a telling insight into the leadership style he may now bring to the papacy.
Rachel Donadio contributed reporting from Rome, and William Neuman and Jonathan Gilbert from Buenos Aires. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/world/americas/pope-francis-old-colleagues-recall-pragmatic-streak.html?pagewanted=2&smid=tw-share&pagewanted=all&_r=0
A lot to unpack when one reads the full report by 5 reporters working for the NYSlimes. This report is confusing to say the least but achieved their objective, in that, Pope Francis once approved civil cermonies.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My daddy taught me that ALL unions were gay! (Especially the UAW and Teamsters.)
Their objective is the redefinition of marriage to such an extent that it becomes legally meaningless. They will then use this legally mandated "equality" to suppress and silence any who do not embrace their perversions.
I challenge anyone to show me where I'm wrong here.
hum?
Publicly he said homosexual marriage was of the devil
Privately he said it’s okey dokey
The government banished him
huh?
But many who witnessed Bergoglio’s public hardline persona — even while he quietly pushed for compromise — are not as convinced by the new pope’s apparent pragmatism:
“The reality, beyond what he may have said in private meetings, was that he said some terrible things in public,” Esteban Paulón, president of the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals, said. “He took a role, in public, that was determinedly combative.”
In addition to supporting widespread protests against gay marriage, Bergoglio called the political battle to defeat the measure “God’s war” and denounced gay parenting as “the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts.”
He ignited a storm of protestors - tens of thousands to protest the bill. Why would he do that if he agreed with the bill?
They want the issue. It gives them power. Defusing the issue defuses their power.
“They will then use this legally mandated “equality” to suppress and silence any who do not embrace their perversions.”
They’re already doing that in Canada.
The article says he supported the idea of civil unions in private, not gay marriage.
In other words, if any two people wished to commit to a union of common property and financial resources, there could be a "civil contract package" for that: it could involve two religious nuns, a person with a chronic disease or disability and their caretaker, two adult sisters, two unrelated adult men, a parents and a mentally handicapped adult son, a couple of celibate monastics, whatever. Sex would not be a question that came up: it ould simply be irrelevant for the purposes of the contract.
The presumption would be that anyone who wanted to commit long-term to a joint household and shared mutual responsibilities with the other person, could do it.
No violation of marriage. No redefinition of marriage. No parody of marriage. Nothing to do with marriage. Just a two-person legally-recognized agreement. Am I wrong here?
hum?
I really like the way you worded the issue.
Thank you.
I cannot speak for Catholic orthodoxy, however I do think you present an example of how a "civil union" might be consistant with Christianity. Also we can not be sure what the new pope had said exactly and the context. For example suppose some reporter asked him if it he would at least agree that civil unions recognized by the state would be more palitble to the church than demanding that the church perform gay weddings...and he said something like "Well yes, but..." and then the reporter said "Thank you sir that is all I need for my story".
You're right, of course, but considering the context within which this supposedly occurred (Argentina on the verge of approving gay marriage) the motive of those supporting "civil unions" was apparently compromise; an effort to preserve the biblical definition of marriage and protect it from the homosexual assault. Unfortunately, as we know, compromising with evil in an effort to preserve what is good is always a lost cause.
Not a "compromise," but an accommodation acceptable to Christian conscience.
I don't remember the ultimate outcome, but I think the SF Board of Supervisors said "no dice."
Showing that they did not actually just want to extend insurance to people lacking coverage. They wanted, pointedly, expicit valorization of gay sexual relations.
| We make a very serious mistake if we rely on media like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, or MSNBC for reliable news about religion. These news media simply don’t provide trustworthy information about religious faith—and sometimes they can’t provide it, either because of limited resources or because of their own editorial prejudices. These are secular operations focused on making a profit. They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth. |
Things of the Church reported in the secular media, particularly about the Holy Father, need to be viewed with the most jaundiced eye.
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