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Pope
Francis has apparently spoken out in defense
of marriage as an institution between a man and a woman, hurting the hopes of
those who see him as a liberal driving force in the Catholic Church.
Last month the Pope warned
Catholics not to fear change following an angry synod backlash against a
softening of the Church’s stance towards homosexuality. But
in his address at the opening of a three-day conference on traditional marriage
hosted at the Vatican yesterday, Francis called family “an anthropological
fact… that cannot be qualified based on ideological notions or concepts
important only at one time in history”.
The
Humanum conference invites people of different religions to come together and
celebrate “complementarity between man and woman in marriage” – the idea that
men and women have different but complementary roles that they say are
essential to building a strong family.
And
though he did not refer to gay unions directly, the Pope said: “It is fitting
that you have gathered here to explore the complementarity of man and woman.
This complementarity is at the root of marriage and family.”
Francis
said: “Children have the right to grow up in a family with a father and mother
capable of creating a suitable environment for the child's development and
emotional maturity.
“Today
marriage and the family are in crisis,” he continued. “We now live in a culture
of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on
marriage as a public commitment.
“The
revolution in mores and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact
it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings,
especially the poorest and most vulnerable.”
Pope
Francis's comments were interpreted by those in the audience as a declaration
in support of traditional marriage. Russell Moore of the US's Southern Baptist
Convention said: “Pope Francis made clear that male/female complementarity is
essential to marriage and cannot be revised by contemporary ideologies.”
LGBT
activists reacted similarly to the speech, with the New Civil Rights Movement's
David Badash suggesting it “included many veiled attacks on same-sex marriage”.
Zack
Ford, the editor of ThinkProgress, tweeted: “I can't hear about how men and
women are 'complementary' without hearing 'gay sex is icky'.”
He
added: “Dear Humanum, gay people exist, and we are complementary with the same
gender. Just ask us! We'll tell you all about it.”
Gay
rights activist and father Jeremy Hooper wrote: “People keep telling me that
this Pope is new and different and more accepting. Only thing? Just this
morning, at the big marriage and family conference currently underway in Rome,
he gave a whole speech about marriage being only one man and one
woman and how his peeps need to resist any other form.”
He
later tweeted a picture of his daughter, adding: “As Humanum attacks my family,
I celebrate the joy of parenting. Of life. Of love.”
Francis'
comments seem to represent a shift towards placating conservatives in the
Church from a Pope who once asked
“who am I to judge gay people” and whom Elton John described as “my hero”.
In
March, Cardinal Timothy Dolan reportedly claimed that the pontiff had paved the
way for support of civil partnerships at some point in the future, saying it
was time the Church studied same-sex unions “rather than condemning them”.
But
in October the Vatican was forced
to backtrack on liberal new guidelines of
openness toward gay people by the intransigence of a majority of bishops.
Source: www.independent.co.uk
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