ANALYSIS – While I generally don't care much about an adult's sexuality, or what they do in private, I do care when they try to impose nontraditional sexuality on society in general, and children in particular.
Or like recent Democrat political candidates in Florida, and Democrat U.S. Senate staffers, when they make public their sexual escapades.
I am also especially opposed to the entire transgender agenda since it flies in the face of science and truth, and is inherently damaging physically and psychologically.
I'm also a Catholic Christian. Or at least try to be.
But now we have the spiritual head of the world's largest Christian church, the left-leaning Pope Francis, allowing the blessing of same sex unions, and I am both confused and angry.
I am confused because it also flies in the face of centuries of Catholic teaching about the sanctity of marriage between men and women. And angry because it appears to sanction gay union, even while saying it doesn't.
As The Christian Post reported:
The Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration Monday titled “Fiducia Supplicans,” which provided “a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings, which is closely linked to a liturgical perspective.”
The declaration allows “spontaneous pastoral blessing” for “same-sex couples” and other couples in “irregular situations,” though it clarified that the blessing is not akin to marriage and that such relationships are still sinful.
“It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church's perennial teaching on marriage,” the guidance says.
Newsmax explained:
While the pope's document reaffirms traditional Catholic teaching that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, it has opened the door to confusion for many lay Catholics. The new document is at odds with doctrine held since the beginning of the church that any sexual relations outside of marriage are sinful and not to be condoned.
Which is why, to me this is totally self-contradictory, and absolute nonsense. And apparently at least one Catholic archbishop strongly agrees.
Tomash Peta, who has served as metropolitan archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Kazakhstan for twenty years reportedly issued a formal repudiation of the Vatican's guidance. He accused the Catholic Church of propagating “gender ideology.”
Archbishop Peta prohibited any form of blessing for same-sex couples and also publicly admonished Pope Francis, asking him to revoke the guidance he signed off on this week, according to the Catholic Herald.
As The Christian Post noted, Peta accused the Vatican of causing “far-reaching and destructive consequences” by legitimizing such blessings, which they argued effectively reduces the denomination to “a propagandist of the globalist and ungodly' gender ideology.'”
Reactions from U.S. Bishops were mixed with some praising the new guidance, others making distinctions and still others providing warnings. In the Archdiocese of Boston, priests were advised to “be careful” that their prayers don't “become a liturgical or semi-liturgical act, similar to a sacrament.”
Bishop Andrew Cozzens in Minnesota said in a statement that it's “impossible” to bless a same-sex union because “any sexual-union outside of the marriage of one man and one woman is contrary to the Gospel.”
But Cozzens added that priests can “bless individuals who are not yet living in full accord with the Gospel, even those in a same-sex union.”
Meanwhile, in Kenya, the Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement complaining that the new guidance is “causing anxiety and even confusion among the Christians, and in general the people of God.”
But the chair of the liberal German bishops' conference praised the Vatican for addressing the controversial issue in “a theologically moderate and calm language.”
Evangelical Christian leaders were more direct in the response to the Pope's guidance.
As Newsmax reported:
The Rev. Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, is warning same-sex couples that even “so-called ‘blessings'” from religious leaders like Pope Francis will not save them “from the judgment of God.”
“Pope Francis has now approved Catholic priests ‘blessing' same-sex couples, but none of us, including the Pope, has the right to ‘bless' what God calls sin.”
I can't disagree with that.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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