African Pastors say NO - to homosexual marriage
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| Choir in Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Brisbane, Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Ethiopia and punishable with one to fifteen years in prison. Archbishop Souraphiel was a signatory to a letter, also signed by the heads of the Ethiopian Orthodox and Anglican Churches, to ask for a constitutional prohibition on homosexual activity. At a conference in 2008, Catholic and Protestant churches formed a national task force called the Ethiopian Inter-Religious Council Against Homosexuality (EICAH) that called homosexual behaviour “the pinnacle of immorality.”
Another on the list of new cardinals is known to those who closely followed the proceedings of the Synod on the Family in October. Archbishop John Atcherley Dew of Wellington, New Zealand, is among the surprise names. Not normally a “red-hat see” the archbishop of Wellington and head of the New Zealand bishops’ conference, was among those voices at the Synod who called for the Church to “soften” its language with regards to sexual sin, for fear of appearing condemnatory.
Archbishop Dew specified that the term “disordered,” which the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses to describe homosexual acts, ought to be dropped. He was among those who supported Cardinal Walter Kasper’s project to allow those in “irregular” sexual unions to receive Holy Communion, overturning the Church’s discipline.
