People must ‘resist all attempts to normalize homosexual behavior’: Filipino bishops
The Philippines’ Catholic bishops conference has called on the
faithful and especially political leaders to oppose same-sex unions in the wake
of LGBT agitation sparked by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex
“marriage” in the U.S.
“Catholics are called to resist all attempts to normalize
homosexual behavior and homosexual unions in their culture,” declared the
August 28 letter, titled “A Pastoral Response to the Acceptance of Homosexual
Lifestyle and the Legalization of Homosexual Unions.”
The letter called on Catholic politicians especially “to oppose
the legal recognition of homosexual unions in a particularly vigorous way.”
The bishops were careful to urge Catholics “to be charitable to
every single homosexual person they know,” but especially those in their own
family, thereby emphasizing the superiority of Christian love over the
transitoriness of sexual affection. “In particular, families with members who
struggle with homosexuality are called to love them unconditionally, thereby
outlasting all their other, same-sex, loves.”
But as for same-sex “marriage” and homosexual relations, the
bishops were clear: while “sexual attraction toward the same sex is not a sin,”
they stated, “it is, in the light of our understanding of marriage, objectively
disordered — in the sense that it is not ordered toward the union of male and
female in a relationship of natural complementarity.”
The bishops urged homosexuals “to develop chaste friendships
with both men and women. … Those who struggle with homosexuality are called to
witness to the life-giving nature of virtue-based friendships not ordered to
sexual acts.”
Politicians remain opposed. When a news agency surveyed 23
candidates for the Senate in 2013, all but one opposed legislation to legalize
same-sex “marriage.”
A local newspaper covering the statement this week editorialized
that “in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, however, same-sex marriage is
unlikely to be legalized in the near future.”
It then quoted Herminio Coloma Jr., spokesman for President
Benigno Aquino, saying the country's Family Code only recognizes marriage
between a man and a woman. “Our laws are clear.”
