Pope Francis Issues Major Statement Urging Less Judgment, More Acceptance – Just Not of Gay Marriage

Two-Year Study of 1.25 Billion Catholics Culminates in Call for More Welcoming Church, but Policy on Same-Sex Marriage Remains the Same

The Vatican early Friday morning released Pope Francis‘ Statement on the Family, which calls for a Roman Catholic Church that is more understanding of the complexities modern day families face.

The New York Times reports Pope Francis “urges church leaders to serve as nurturing pastors, not as rigid enforcers of doctrine.”

In his “Amoris Laetitia,” or “The Joy of Love,” the Pope describes a Church that is less judgmental and more welcoming and supportive, even of gay people – but there is no change in the Church’s perception when it comes to same-sex marriage.

“A pastor cannot feel that it is enough to simply apply moral laws to those living in ‘irregular’ situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives,” the Pope’s 256-page apostolic exhortation states, before condemning same-sex relationships and marriage.

Twice, once in 2014 and once in 2015, the Pope brought hundreds of bishops together for weeks-long conferences known as the Synod on the Family. While many liberals had hoped the result would be a more welcoming and accepting Church for the LGBT community, the end result is zero change in policy and little if any change in direction.

The Pope writes in the statement released today, “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,” a statement taken directly from the Synod on the Family.

Francis even takes the extraordinary opportunity to chastise “international bodies” – governments and organizations like the United Nations – for making “financial aid to poor countries dependent on the introduction of laws to establish ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex.” And he calls it “unacceptable” that “local Churches should be subjected to pressure in this matter.” 

The Pope does denounce anti-gay violence, while suggesting another form of anti-gay violence – “reparative” therapy – should be used.

“Every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence,” the Pope writes, quoting language directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, while adding a new call against violence.

“Such families should be given respectful pastoral guidance, so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.”

That could easily be interpreted to mean reparative therapy, as Catholic Church doctrine states God’s will is heterosexual marriage.

In 2015 Pope Francis opened the Synod by telling the nearly 300 bishops in attendance that “God’s dream” is one man-one woman marriage, while warning against allowing the Church to bend to “passing fads or popular opinions.”

“In order to avoid all misunderstanding,” the Pope says today, “I would point out that in no way must the Church desist from proposing the full idea of marriage,” namely, different-sex marriage.

And he says a “great variety of family situations … can offer a certain stability, but de facto or same-sex unions, for example, may not simply be equated with marriage.”

 

Image by michael_swan via Flickr and a CC license