Mixed Signals from Italy's Bishops as Vote Approaches on Civil Partnership Bill?

Catholic World Report ^ | 1/26/16 | Alessandra Nucci

[marshmallow]

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco insists the bishops are united, but questions exist about how supportive Pope Francis is of open opposition to controversial legislation supporting same-sex partnerships

The pressure to subvert traditional ethics on issues pertaining to life, the family and education, which has been sweeping through the European Union from West to East, is currently being halted by the former "Iron Curtain" countries, and in Italy, where the struggle has been pitting grassroots movements against the European Establishment for at least a dozen years now.

As befits the country that has hosted the papacy for almost all of the twenty centuries since Saint Peter took up residence in Rome, Italy is the last remaining nation in Western Europe to hold out against the recognition of civil partnerships.

However, this may change in the next few days, as Italy's Parliament is once again confronted by prospective legislation that would grant an official status to civil partnerships, notably including same-sex couples, with the accompanying right to adopt each other's progeny.

Although the ethical issues involved are not of concern solely to Catholics, the spotlight is nonetheless on the Bishops Conference, which, after leading a successful campaign against a similar bill of law in 2007, has lately been sending mixed messages.

Now it is the rank-and-file families who are taking things into their own hands and as a result seem to be forcing the bishops, and perhaps even Pope Francis, to speak up.

The last time a governing administration attempted to pass a law recognizing non-wed couples, it was torpedoed by a massive demonstration of families summoned to demonstrate in Rome by the Bishops' Conference, with the approval of Pope John Paul II. The government, a Catholic/Communist coalition led by Catholic Romano Prodi, caved to the resounding "no" from what has remained known......

[Jeff Chandler]

Homosexuals create carbon dioxide. Just sayin’.

[Arthur McGowan]

The Pope will do all he can to signal, always preserving plausible deniability, that he approves of gay marriage.

[ebb tide]

The next day however, il Fatto Quotidiano headlined that the Pope had not been at all pleased with Bagnasco's words and his high profile in publicly contradicting the distancing expressed by his Secretary General Galantino from the anti-civil partnerships demonstration scheduled for the 30th. To show his displeasure, the Pope had eliminated a private meeting with the cardinal scheduled for Thursday morning--an appointment that had appeared on the internal bulletin of the Papal Household and then had suddenly vanished.

More pettiness from a pope more interested in the global warming hoax and socialism rather than matters of eternal salvation.