CBCP: Be charitable to homosexuals
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) yesterday urged the Catholic faithful to be charitable to homosexuals but at the same time asked them to resist all attempts to normalize homosexual behavior and unions.
In a Pastoral Letter entitled “The Dignity and Vocation of Homosexual Persons,” Lingayen Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas who is also president of the CBCP, noted that over the past few years in an increasing number of countries, including traditionally Catholic countries, homosexual unions have been granted legal recognition equal to that of marriage.
“In our understanding of God’s creation of man and woman in complementarity and in His
establishment of marriage, however, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and the family. A homosexual union is not and can never be a marriage as properly understood and so-called,” he said.
Aside from resisting all attempts to normalize homosexual behavior and homosexual unions in their culture, the CBCP head, said Catholics are also called to oppose all gravely unjust laws that contravene both divine law and natural law – including all laws that legalize homosexual unions saying these unjust laws “pervert and undermine the common good.”
“They are at the same time called, perhaps even more so, in societies which legally recognize homosexual unions, to be charitable to every single homosexual person they know,” Villegas said.
Catholic politicians, he said, also have the moral duty to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions in a particularly vigorous way.
“When legislation in favor of this recognition is first proposed, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it,” said Villegas.
“To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral,” he added.
In countries where legislation in favor of homosexual unions is already in force, Villegas said the Catholic lawmaker must try to obtain at least the partial repeal of the unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the moment.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Villegas said, also instructs that in situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty.
“One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws, and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection,” Villegas said.
“Concretely, this means that Catholics cannot participate in any way or even attend religious or legal ceremonies that celebrate and legitimize homosexual unions,” he added.
Understandably, this will be a particularly heavy cross for families that have been touched by homosexuality but Villegas said the Church reaches out with compassion to these families whose loved ones have entered into such unions.
“Families with members who struggle with homosexuality are called to love them unconditionally, thereby outlasting all their other same-sex loves. This love, however, must be a love in truth that avoids praising, consenting to, or defending the so-called “homosexual lifestyle,” he said.