http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Malta-shocks-Pope-Francis-20131229
Sunday 29 December 2013 - 12:26 by a Staff Reporter
Pope Francis was shocked when Maltese bishop Charles Scicluna informed him the Roman Catholic island of Malta was contemplating the introduction of a Civil Union Bill and allowing gay.
Speaking in an interview with The Times of Malta, the Bishop said he met Pope Francis on 12 December and discussed issues related to the Civil Union Bill and gay adoption. The Pontiff encouraged the Bishop to stand up and speak against such bills and "that is exactly what I did in my Christmas sermon". In a highly criticised sermon Scicluna argued God's own son was raised by a man and a woman, and not by two men or two women.
Pope Francis is said to have told the Maltese bishop that Christmas is no fairy tale, and one should face reality.
In 2010, when still Bishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis had argued the Argentinian law allowing gay marriages was part of Satan's work to disrupt God's plan. He had also described gay adoption as a form of discrimination against children. However when questions about gays after being elected Pontiff ,he replied "who am I to judge?"
"My sermon was not about the rights of gay people but about children's rights", Bishop Scicluna argued.
When Parliament reconvenes, MP's will continue discussing the Civil Union's Bill, giving gay couples the same rights and duties as married couples.
During the first half of 2010, when the government of Argentina was considering the legalization of gender-neutral civil marriage (it became legal there on 22 July 2010), Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (then the ranking Roman Catholic ecclesiastic in the country and now Pope Francis I) came out in favor of gender-neutral civil unions because it was, in his view, the lesser of two evils (see, for example, "On Gay Unions, a Pragmatist Before He Was Pope," The New York Times, 19 March 2013).
ReplyDeleteIt is therefore hard to believe that now, in December 2013, "Pope Francis was shocked when Maltese bishop Charles Scicluna informed him the Roman Catholic island of Malta was contemplating the introduction of a Civil Union Bill."
Since the government of Malta has already compromised (by never proposing the legalization of gender-neutral civil marriage and always supporting the legalization of gender-neutral civil unions), the Roman Catholic Church should be content with that compromise (as Jorge Bergoglio would have been if the government of Argentina had been willing to compromise).
It seems, therefore, that instead of appreciating, as it should, the Maltese government's support for a compromise from the very beginning, the Roman Catholic Church wants another “compromise”: no gender-neutral civil unions either.
The government of Malta has already compromised. It should now stand firm.
David Gold