African cardinal rebukes Cardinal Marx’s call for apology to homosexuals
In a pithy tweet on Saturday, a prominent
South African cardinal rebuked German Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s claim that the
Church should “apologize” to homosexuals.
“God help us! Next we'll have to apologise for
teaching that adultery is a sin! Political Correctness (PC) is today's major
heresy!” Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier tweeted.
Napier posted his tweet in response to African
pro-life and pro-family activist Obianuju Ekeocha, the founder of Culture of
Life Africa, who tweeted an Irish Times article about Marx’s comments. Marx,
the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, said that up
until “very recently” the Catholic Church had been “very negative about gay
people,” and that “it was a scandal and terrible.”
Marx suggested that the Church begin to look
favorably on same-sex relationships, although not recognize them as marriages.
“You cannot say that a relationship between a
man and a man, and they are faithful, [that] that is nothing, that has no
worth,” he said.
The Catholic Church teaches that same-sex
attractions are “objectively disordered,” but those who experience them “must
be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust
discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (CCC 2358).
The Catholic Church also teaches that “under
no circumstances” can homosexual actions be approved. Such actions “are
contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life.
They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity” (CCC 2357).
Marx also commented on government recognition
of same-sex relationships, saying it’s up to the state “to make regulations for
homosexuals so they have equal rights or nearly equal . . . but marriage is
another point,” and that the state “has to regulate these partnerships and to
bring them into a just position, and we as church cannot be against it.”
In a 2003 document titled Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal
Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope St. John Paul II
wrote that “clear and emphatic opposition” to legalized same-sex “marriage” is
a duty for Catholics:
In those situations where homosexual unions have been
legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to
marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any
kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely
unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of
their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious
objection.
