Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich said the Church should be more concerned about discrimination and intolerance of homosexuals than same sex-marriage.
When asked about the legalisation of same-sex marriage he said it was not a concern for the Church as the latter’s teachings cannot be encoded into law in a secular State.
“In a secular society, the State must make laws that are valid for everyone,” he said. He said the State’s acceptance of homosexual unions will not affect the Church’s understanding of marriage.
He added that the fears of some conservative Catholics that same-sex marriage could open the floodgates for marriages “á trois”, or for incest, are baseless.
Venezuela’s bishops defend the people
The bishops of Venezuela defended the “sovereignty” of the people and warned that President Nicolás Maduro was seeking to set up a “socialist, Marxist and militaristic” State. The bishops supported the Opposition’s organisation of a “popular consultation”, asking voters whether they approved of Maduro’s effort to hold the constitutive assembly.
In a statement, the Venezuelan episcopal conference said: “Official repression at times generates violent responses, contributing to a climate of tension and anarchy. Prisoners are persecuted in front of arbitrary military tribunals, violating the Constitution… as if they were dangerous animals.”
The country’s Parliament is governed by the Opposition: a group that has continued to criticise the encroachment of socialism.
‘Strengthen families of all types’
Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna said: “Favouring the family does not mean disfavoring other forms of life – even those living in a same-sex partnership need their families”. He added that the Church should do its best to strengthen families of all types.
The Church is doing whatever it can to strengthen the family, including families often considered non-traditional, said Schonborn, who is also the theologian who reviewed Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family. Shonborn was addressing the World Meeting of Families.
The family is “the survival network of the future” and “will remain forever the basis of every society”, he said before addressing a conference entitled Let’s Talk Family: Let’s Be Family.
He said if he had to sum it up for Twitter, he would say: “Amoris Laetitia tells you marriage and family are possible today.”
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)